u/twilight_aeon

Seeing a lot of dicussion about whether "men need to be taught consent" or whether "they know it and they just don't care because they're inherently and incurably evil".

My take is: men aren't simply evil, but what they're not taught enough is that WOMEN have the right to give or withhold consent.

I saw a seemingly well-intentioned male instagrammer talking about how he was teaching his toddler son that he could say "no" to people touching him and shouldn't touch people when they say "no". Sure, that is important and something older generations didn't even have.

But it's not really the point, because do they struggle so much with consent when it comes to other men? No, because they know people have bodily autonomy and other men are people.

What they don't understand is that we are too.

What that instagrammer needs to make sure to teach his son is that girls are his peers, and not just potential "romantic interests" (i.e. trophies to stroke his ego and fulfill his needs).

Why is it so uncomfortable to make WOMEN the focus of a discussion about MISOGYNY? (We know why).

In my teens and early 20s I used to be an "egalitarian, not feminist" and an avid defender of men, but as I've gained life experience and a more accurate understanding of the patriarchal world we live in, my sentiments towards men have soured into generalized distaste, wariness, or at the very least a feeling that there's an emotional barrier between me and them that could never be overcome to form any kind of truly close relationship.

I've reflected a lot trying to understand why exactly this is, or if it's even justified. I've looked for explanations of why it is "yes, all men" and found arguments like: "you might not harass a woman, but you stay silent when your friend does," or "it's not literally all men, but it's many and we don't know which ones," but none of these fully satisfied me. A man could be the one who does speak out against harassment and that wouldn't completely erase my distaste for him.

So I'm starting to think the ultimate root of this feeling is that no matter how much of an ally a man is, I will still resent him for being able to "coast" through life without facing misogyny, while I can't. Even if he hypothetically perceived me as a perfect equal, he would still be perceived by others as superior to me. This brings an inevitable bitterness to my feelings about any man. I don't want to give them even more validation when society already showers them with it at my expense.

To be clear, I am capable of interacting with men on civil and even friendly terms, but there's always this tiny thought at the back of my mind that they get to live a life I can't.

Can anyone relate? Has anyone experienced this but overcome it?

(Intended title was: "Jane was in the wrong program", but gotta keep it vague asf whenever posting about her due to spoilers lol).

If there are any NA enjoyers here, you're valid, I'm glad that worked for you, but:

To me it's no wonder that Miss "Who's You and Me?" didn't have that much success with the "we addicts" program. I doubt someone so independent and mistrustful of authority would be willing to admit her powerlessness and believe in a higher power to save her.

(I never really understood what she meant with the talk of "going where the universe takes you" and the subsequent backtracking of it — and tbh I wonder whether it was even intended to make sense outside of being whatever would fit Jesse's arc at each given point — but her final word is that making your choices for yourself and not going where the universe takes you is better, right? And if going with the universe was what she'd been doing her whole life, then the universe took her to 10 years of addiction.)

This is either incredibly bravo of Vince or (what I think is more likely) he and the other writers just took for granted that NA is "the drug recovery thing" and didn't look too deeply into it or thought about how exactly their specific philosophy would gel with each character.

Either way, taking this into consideration adds a new layer to how Jane wasn't truly committed to her program, so her dad had to keep dragging her to meetings. Her telling Jesse "it won't help" sounds genuine, so I believe at least some part of her did want to recover, but the specific program she had available might have not been the best fit for her.

Maybe the part of her that didn't want to recover found it more comfortable to settle for the program she knows she can dismiss as bullshit, rather than trying to find a more effective alternative (like SMART, for example) — but also many people do take for granted that NA is "the drug recovery thing" and never even consider that there might be other options.

I've been on an addiction movie binge, I've watched nearly 20 of them now. And it blows my mind that all of them only ever show AA/NA as the one path to recovery. And whenever the addicted character is resistant, they eventually come around — I'm sorry but I can't ignore the resemblance to those corny Christian propaganda movies that have an atheist MC only for them to see the "error" of their ways.

You would think literally no other option exists (though I guess real life can give you that impression too). It just annoys me the cultural monopoly they have, because the narrative that it's either embracing the specific 12 steps ideology or no recovery is very dangerous.

I have myopia in both eyes and a little astigmatism in one. Since last year I've been struggling with bright letters on dark backgrounds, especially if they are lights, i.e. LED signs and screens.

I got 3 eye tests from 3 different doctors and the two I saw last year said nothing had changed, and the one I saw this year said 0.5 more myopia in one eye, but the prescribed glasses didn't fix it.

I'm wondering if it could be because the exam is always black letters on a white background?

And do you think they talked about him to Jake or that Jake would overhear them? I would imagine it was more being worried about Jesse than telling Jake not to end up like him, since it made Jake feel like Jesse was the favorite son.

I only have personal experience with the "leave them out of the stick family car stickers and pretend they don't exist" approach to having a drug-addicted relative, which the Pinkmans adopted later :p

Edit: Would appreciate answers more specific/imaginative than "they're worried". Especially after he was out of school and out of their house, what kinds of events would trigger them to talk about him? Did they still keep tabs on him somehow? Did he keep trying to reach out to them?

This annoys me because for the longest time I'd hear about people-pleasing and think it didn't apply to me because no, I don't want to please people, especially not the ones who have abused me. I don't want to make them happy, I don't want to do nice things for them.

It only clicked when I realized that it's not necessarily about actively wanting to please people, or to do things to make them happy; it can just as often, if not more often, be about avoiding doing things that make them unhappy, because you want to avoid that negative reaction at all costs. Or it's not that you want to impress people to make them like you; it's more that you can't stand the discomfort of their rejection if they don't like you.

I guess this might seem obvious to a lot of people, but to me it wasn't. I'll be like "of course I'm not autistic, I know that cats and dogs aren't actually falling from the sky, duh!" but this is one of the things that makes me go "oh, is this what they mean by taking things too literally?"

I'm fascinated by how we get all these little hints about her, but the full picture is up for interpretation. Why/how did she start using in the first place? Did her parents get divorced before or after that? Did it lead to/worsen her addiction or was it a result of it? Is that why she's against commitment? Did she end up losing any other relationships she had because of drugs/trying to quit drugs too?

Her mother seems rather similar to Jesse's parents the way she wants Jane to wear yellow and show no cleavage: she's more concerned with keeping proper middle class appearances than loving her daughter the way she actually is (and btw I don't say this about Jesse's parents for eventually giving up, I say it because they never tried to learn the first thing about drugs so they could truly try to help Jesse).

She injects heroin into her foot. I looked it up and found a study saying it's a thing for long term users to switch up injection sites, which is consistent with her story (and I guess it's also easier to hide the track marks if her dad checks her arm). Bravo, Vince!

https://preview.redd.it/i5qzwtycvndh1.png?width=493&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f1e73ae4d82ef3418633b119cce781b48b44584

https://archive-ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/ndarc/resources/T.R%20077.pdf

Happy Birthday makes me chuckle awkwardly. The whole tequila thing legitimately makes me more tense than any other scene.

Edit: Also, Skyler herself was hella bashful before and after doing it, and she did it because a whole room of people + melting candles pressured her. That's not to try to say "she was under duress!!" but just that she's self-aware of how cringe it is and it's just an impression and a joke.

That's way different than Walter actually thinking he's the macho man.

It has been pointed out how Jesse sees what addiction does to people yet never has second thoughts about being a dealer, and I have a theory about why: he's a casual user, so he thinks everyone else should simply be like him.

If they aren't, it's their own moral character flaw, like Spooge's partner, who Jesse agrees "was a skank" for not taking care of their child (I lowkey hate how he only blames her and not Spooge, but I digress).

He "can respect" that Jane is in recovery (as that's the good moral choice everyone should simply make if drugs are bad for them), but I don't think he grasps the seriousness of her situation (and him not knowing what her chip is suggests he's not very familiar with rehab; compare and contrast with him recognizing the dot on Walter's chest). After all, he seems to give in pretty easily to whatever excuse she makes up for why it's okay for her to smoke with him.

Later, when they're days into their bender, she's much worse off than him: while he still makes it to the Pollos meeting, she's rotting in bed and doesn't wanna do anything but smoke. In that scene, you can see on Jesse's face that he's starting to realize just how bad of a toll drugs take on her and how bad an idea it was to smoke with her.

Even after Jane's death, the way he chastizes Andrea is kinda off the rails. Not saying he was wrong, but he should know she has enough of a problem that she's struggling with to be going to meetings.

I don't know why everyone, even people who like Jane, acts like Jesse & Jane shooting up all his money and ODing and dying is THE guaranteed absolute one and only answer to "what if Walter didn't let her die?"

They could have just as easily overslept and been found by Donald (who was on his way there in the morning, as you might remember) and then at least Jane would be taken to rehab.

Obviously there's no one right answer, but do you have thoughts?

I often find myself wondering if I should basically go full inner monologue but in the 3rd person, and I second-guess myself if I use a single word that wouldn't be part of the character's vocabulary, and I feel like it's jarring and out of place if I phrase something in a way that they wouldn't.

Maybe I need to become more comfortable with the idea of an "outsider" narrator's voice coexisting with that of the POV character.

Edit: By "full inner monologue but in the 3rd person" I don't mean an unfiltered stream of consciousness, I just mean narrating everything in the way the character might conceptualize it in their own mind.

This may come as a shock to those of you who use this argument to defend Walter, but some parents... are bad. I 100% agree that Walter sees and treats Jesse as a son, but that doesn't mean he treats him well.

Parents can be posessive, controlling, narcissistic and self-serving. And even those parents usually won't let their child get murdered or OD on drugs, but they absolutely will use keeping their child alive as fuel for emotional manipulation and to make the child feel like they owe them something.

In their mind they're doing the right thing, it's for the child's own good, they are a good parent, but in reality they have no interest in even knowing who their child is outside of their usefulness to their own goals (including the goal of seeing themselves as a "good parent").

Walter is a great representation of those types of parents.

At first I found her annoying when she wanted to proofread Skyler's book, but the talking pillow scene cemented her as an icon to me (ironically everyone there would come to agree with her lol).

The dirty fork incident made her seem annoying again, but then it's implied she expresses her understandable anxiety (about Hank in this case) through essentially being a bitch, which makes it more sympathetic.

Finally, how can you not love the house viewings? It's such an entertaining way to show that she's dissatisfied with her life.

I know this is extremely nitpicky and irrelevant but:

Jesse leaves his house, meets Jane on the porch and says he thought he'd "hit Costco" to "snag a big-ass widescreen", then leaves after the biker calls him by his real name to avoid explaining himself to her. I presume he leaves in his own car, because he was taking his time talking to her and then leaving when he wants to — there's no sense that he had to meet someone to pick him up.

Then he's at the Atomic Museum telling Skinny, Badger and Combo that they'll expand their territory. When he's done, he meets Walter in Walter's car in the museum parking lot and Walter drives them both off.

This is all in the morning, because it happens while Skyler tells Ted it's "a little early for wine".

Next time we see Jesse, he's in different clothes trying to set up the TV, and this is around late afternoon, because it's right before Jane comes home from work and before Jesse invites her to dinner.

So if he left in his car to go to the museum, why did he leave the museum in Walter's car? Where were they going? Did he leave his car somewhere? Why? Did Jesse go back home and go out again for the TV? Did they go TV-shopping together?

If it's an isolated incident in a casual conversation where you can tell the person just couldn't remember the name of the character, that's fine, but it seems there are people who flaunt it as if it isn't wrong.

I just saw a letterboxd review from someone who was clearly attempting to do serious film criticism, but they kept saying the equivalent of "I don't believe it was earned for Alan Rickman to be framed as a brave man in the end" over and over, doing that with all the characters and actors.

A full day after doing a workout with high kicks I'm not used to, my knee started hurting and I couldn't bend my leg from the pain. There was no popping, swelling or redness, and over the course of 2 weeks of rest, I've regained 90% of my ROM and most of the time it doesn't hurt.

If I walk or stand for say, 30 minutes, it starts getting slightly sore and feels "stretched".

Will it continue to heal on its own as it has so far and I just need to be patient, or should I get an MRI and physical therapy or do some kind of exercise or something?

I love to hate watching Walter White keep Jesse under his control and ruin Jesse's life with all the manipulation, intermittent reinforcement, and pretending/believing it's for Jesse's own good. But I've already watched that 3 times, so I'm looking for something new.

I imagine this might be rare, but bonus points if it's not sexual or romantic.

Two days ago my knee started hurting at night, but when I got up in the morning I could move it just fine, so I figured it was the cold and went about my day normally.

Then yesterday and today the pain got worse, and I remembered I did a random Youtube work out with high kicks that I'm not used to, so I figured it must be that.

If I keep my leg stretched it doesn't hurt, but I can't bend it. It's not locked, as I can bend it a tiny little bit, and I can walk (with a bit of limp) but I can't sit with my leg bent.

The pain feels more like it's coming from the back of the knee. Painkillers didn't help. I'm trying to get a doctor so I can do an MRI but that's gonna take long enough that I have nothing to do in between but rest and worry and post on Reddit :p

Any idea what it could be or what I can do or how worried should I really be?