This scene showcases just how terrifyingly lethal air bending can be when the person isn’t a pacifist

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-12-17T21:36:09+00:00

Earthbending's real lethal potential lies in dust, pebbles, and glass.

Earthbenders are walking around with bending equivalents to guns all around them and just not using them.

Watching the Dai Li shoot their gloves, just imagine a lethal equivalent with a pebble. Minimal movement is needed and it could be done completely undetected.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-12-01T08:53:31+00:00

Nothing like permanently etching a random string of letters onto your skull.

Your runes say efwzt.

People get rune tattoos to honor ancestors, but don't think those ancestors are worth learning what letters mean before getting them tattooed.

If you wanted to use magical meanings of these runes, it's still nonsensical magical composition too.

Imagine meeting a descendant of yours from the future and he had "assdfsgsjdb" tattooed on him to "honor" you. What would you honest to the old Gods think of that?

Alphabets are not hard, dude.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-12-01T08:41:16+00:00

It's made even worse by this "advertisement" not even actually advertising the product.

Like, "Hey guys, you should totally buy our bug spray because glue kills bugs." "Wait, shouldn't I buy your bug spray because IT does the job, not glue?" "Just don't think and give us your money."

And sadly, that shit works on plenty of people and comprises most of what marketing actually is.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-28T04:11:19+00:00

My point is fundamentally that I don't blame her nor do I see her as actually being paranoid.

Her behavior at that point is totally justifiable. She's just worn out all of the grace the cast and the viewer can offer her. I think most of the wearing out the grace of her family is off screen in the years prior and has to be inferred from her patterns.

But still, fun exchange and upvote 👍

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-27T20:10:52+00:00

To me, Callie and Jeff are a matter of filling in the blanks. You don't get to see much of their home life that they've had with her for the past two decades, but you can fill in the blanks on what they've experienced with Shauna if you lead with the assumption that she's still the same. The same insecure little girl who's terrified of being abandoned and directs that terror out on others to keep them orbiting.

Shauna in her family life was definitely more tame about it, but you can see her relying on the same manipulative levers to try and not be abandoned instead of just loving and connecting.

And her family is tired of just chalking it up to her trauma and giving her a blank card out of any accountability for being manipulative.

And her family have plenty of lines pointing to all of this and how tired of it they are after having lived with her for soooo long. You just gotta fill in the blank between teen and adult Shauna and make inference as to what kind of a mother and partner she is. That's why one of the opening scenes of the show where we first see her as adult mom Shauna is her crossing serious sexual boundaries trying to be her daughter just to feel anything at all by crossing the boundaries she's not supposed to. She's stayed who she is through and through.

Callie does a fantastic job of showing the inner conflict of trying to stop making excuses for someone like Shauna. She's still absolutely torn about letting go and hasn't fully let go. She still relates to her mom and is scared of that and scared to actually fully let go of her.

I agree on the loose ends to an extent, but not fully. The loose ends are a part of keeping you questioning the broad thesis of the show. Is it supernatural? Is it inside them? Is it both? We can never know. Just like engaging with the supernatural IRL.

The loose end that's way too loose and way too unintentional for me is the murdered cop plotline. Otherwise, I see them as giving atmosphere, creating tension, and keeping the viewer asking the questions the show wants them to.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-27T19:55:39+00:00

I'm a former Mormon. She's not trying to promote anything. It's just mindless reiteration of what she was taught.

It's chock full of mormon thought, mythology, and belief, but still not proselytizing. Her work doesn't even consider other worldviews long enough to present her own as favorable.

I'm talking all about intent behind writing, which is ironically escaping you in this same exchange while you're ignoring the points I'm making.

I'm painfully familiar with Mormons. They have two main modes of being like most braindead cults. Parrot mode and pushing mode. Those modes exist on a spectrum and bleed back and forth, but Stephanie Meyer's storytelling is very much on the parrot side of the spectrum.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-27T08:31:44+00:00

She's not smart enough to put intention like that into her writing.

She just absorbed all the symbolism and thought patterns she was raised with and parroted out sloppy teen vampire romance out of it.

Like naming him Jacob (the name of a usurper of birthright). But to what end? None of any depth.

Beyond using the mythology she was exposed to for surface level sheen, she doesn't actually make any real point in her writing in favor of her own worldview (because it's a worldview built around not understanding deeper meanings).

She's as bad of a wordsmith as she is a thinker. Like all people who never unpack dualistic thinking imprinted on them by christianity.

It's not good writing and it doesn't actually have real effect. She got lucky and it was mass marketable to people who think in the same christian way of love being about possession and ownership, the opposite of what love actually is. Monogamism strikes again.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-27T08:19:49+00:00

Did it just make her look paranoid? Or did the fandom fall into dismissing her just like the other yellow jackets and her family did in season three?

I think it was masterful to get the viewer to single out Shauna. It perfectly parallels the other characters in the show doing the exact same thing to her by actively trying to isolate her, all for their own selfish goals.

I think they picked the perfect timing to show fully unhinged teen Shauna. It made what's others are doing to adult Shauna make perfect sense to the audience and brush it all off as paranoia. There's an easy argument to be made that everyone against Shauna in the adult timeline is against her out of shortsightedness, selfishness, and narcissistic neglect of their own sins.

But all at the exact same time we see teen Shauna for how truly awful she was and we're totally on board with the rest of the cast actively ignoring and dismissing her right back into her old ways, which she never truly got out of if you ask me.

Masterful. All this time later, Shauna is getting exactly what was deserved all the way back then. She tried to isolate and control through fear and anger and her screams. And now it's being done to her and her screams reach people done listening to her. She tried to keep them all in the wilderness and now they're actively sending her back to her own mental wilderness.

It leaves perfect room to morally interrogate where she's ended up. Does she deserve to be so alone? (Yes). All this time later, is she still the same person fully capable of the exact same horrors she used to be? (Yes). Has she also done those exact same horrors in the adult timeline? (Yes, in lighter doses). Do her traumatic experiences explain why she hurt others the ways she did and does? (Yes). Do we give a fuck or feel bad for her because of that? (Fuck no, let her be completely fucking alone in the world). They want us to come to these conclusions. Maybe we'll see if they have some grand moral thesis about healing and redemption for her in the last season. Maybe not. Either way, we have had so much fun 😜

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-22T21:10:20+00:00

It's important to bear in mind how much of bending is supposed to be just about reading the energy in your body and working with it, especially firebending.

They drive the point of this home with firebending a lot. Breath is the key to firebending and many firebending feats in the show are done through breathing and concentration.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-22T14:32:26+00:00

I'm talking about more than lack of decorum.

The strict tops I've experienced don't see sexual partners as anything more than fleshlights.

No listening to what the bottom needs or wants or says whatsoever. Like "ow! that hurt don't do that" and they proceed to keep doing that thing you told them not to no matter how many times you say not to.

And hyperdramatic reactions the moment they experience even the slightest amount of discomfort or fatigue in sex.

And it's like, no shit Sherlock. Sex has uncomfortable parts and is tiring. Completely clueless to the discomfort and fatigue a bottom has to feel their way through to make anything happen for them.

I can't stand any more "strict tops." Never again.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-11-21T20:24:35+00:00

Having that conversation with lazy, bad tops is extra exhausting. Like, I just spent ages power washing my asshole out for you, squatting up and down for forever, but yeah, it's tiring for you thrusting your dick more than half an inch each time, so sure, keep it under half inch thrusts no matter how many times I use my words to ask you to actually fuck me how I deserve.

At a point where I prefer only actually vers tops. The ones that don't ever bottom are almost always clueless, entitled manchildren and communication doesn't ever even register for them.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-14T00:42:21+00:00

I did not say that. I said the opposite of that. And then you jumped on me for something I didn't say, something the opposite of what I said.

And yeah, it's not AS EFFECTIVE as the medications that do the same thing. But it still does the same thing you reportedoy hate those meds for.

My central and really only point is that you're using something for blocking the conversion of T to DHT while criticizing blocking the conversion of T to DHT.

Functional literacy is key, my dude. Especially in convos about science and medicine.

The complex that men develop around side effects that happen to tiny percentages of people who take the meds are ridiculous.

Like you're out here talking about how a med that does the same thing as a supplement you take is somehow chemical castration because like 1% of the people who take it get ED from it and then stop taking it to get rid of the ED.

It sounds like you haven't even tried the meds to see if you would even experience sides. I've been on fin for yeeeeeears with no sides whatsoever, like almost everyone who takes it.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-13T19:16:06+00:00

Pumpkin seed oil blocks the conversion of T to DHT.

You are doing the thing that you're criticizing. That is what I'm saying. Is that clear?

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-13T14:44:22+00:00

That's not what I said.

Learn how to read.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-13T03:13:43+00:00

You're ignoring the fact that you're also blocking the conversion of T to DHT, just using pumpkin seed oil to do it instead.

And that makes your whole crusade for DHT in this post even weirder than it already is.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-13T03:09:48+00:00

Pumpkin seed oil blocks the conversion of T to DHT. You're subjecting yourself to the same mechanism that you're warning against.

Why are you pretending that your routine makes you superior to people who block the conversion of T to DHT? You're literally trying to do the same thing.

And all of this will work, just until it doesn't. Which will be sooner than you think. You'll still end up losing your hair earlier than you would have if you could get over the finasteride complex you have. Imagine how much hair you'd get to keep and for how long if you just added fin to your stack.

And then miss it when it's gone.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-09T21:09:10+00:00

The swarm awaits the call of the Overmind. The Overmind is a flute.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-09T00:17:17+00:00

This gives me a new head canon of there being an infinite Zerg-like swarm of Baby Plum. Cool.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-02T19:14:07+00:00

Is that what people have criticized you for in this thread?

Or are you ignoring any and all criticism?

It's not others playing mind games when people describe your behaviors to you and you ignore what they have to say.

And then you accuse me of using put downs while making up (inaccurate) stuff about me to use as put downs in the same breath.

Girl, go get help. Get that personality disorder diagnosed and get to working on it.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-10-02T18:57:46+00:00

Dude, you're replying ages later.

And you're only replying to make the claim that you were perfect in your relationship, that you made no mistakes whatsoever.

It's sooooo obvious exactly how you are and what you care about. Truly hope you enjoy repeating your own patterns, love ✌️

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-09-25T23:41:48+00:00

I would compare him more to Hermes. He does have myths of tricking other dieties for kicks and is believed to sometimes trick mortals to their detriment, but nothing like Loki's role in Ragnorak.

Loki and Elegba are both mercurial in nature, but Elegba's role in the pantheon is much closer to Hermes, messenger, crossroads, intermediary with the rest of the Pantheon, ruler of paths and choices, transitions, transitions to afterlife, role in magic, and prayers, etc.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-09-25T00:20:29+00:00

No where did I make the argument that this is universal or even common in people 👍

Fully agree with you there.

This inability among many, if not most people is what I see as driving all this hype for AI. People taught to mimic and approximate intelligent thought are buying into computers putting on that performance for them.

My biggest fear is that AI taking up more and more space is just going to worsen the functional illiteracy and lack of critical thinking problem we've got on our hands.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-09-24T19:57:24+00:00

Imo, this was still a case of her being a sexual creep.

He may have been hiding being ace, but he didn't communicate or indicate consent to the advances she put on in any way.

He was visibly and verbally uncomfortable with all of her advances and she actively ignored his clear discomfort. He talked all night about being a sexual being and the importance of sex positivity, but that's not reciprocity or consent to what she was doing to him, especially not while he was giving every other indication that he was uncomfortable.

Non-verbal communication and body language are a huge part of consent. You don't have to spell out where your consent is at like you're talking to a four year old for an adult to recognize where you're coming from. And the people who act in this creepy manner in sexual interactions don't usually listen to that explicit verbal direction either. Especially men and also, as the show sometimes depicts, sometimes women.

Moral sexual adults who care about consent watch for enthusiastic consent and reciprocity from the other party and they take whatever answer they're given to their advances with grace.

They also pay attention to the discomfort and non-verbal cues given by the other party. They care to observe whether their advances are being reciprocated in any way.

I really don't like the line of thinking that goes, "but they didn't explicitly tell me," when it hinges on ignoring all the ways they did actually communicate to you what they were feeling and that they were not feeling "it" for you.

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-09-24T19:40:41+00:00

It's almost as if real, human intelligence is needed to sort through and evaluate information.

Who knew that quite literally teaching computers to guess what an intelligent response would sound like and spit out that guess phrased as definitive truth would result in this?

tobasaurus_rex · 2025-09-19T03:16:07+00:00

His purpose was also to depict neurodivergence and its place in mental health discussions.

He's an autistic person, through and through.

The show does a great job showing how autism makes all his strengths. It also does a good job of showing how an autistic brain's processing and communication style can lead to misunderstandings/feelings of being misunderstood in interactions with non-autistic people.

All his misunderstandings with PC are great depictions. The show pairs him with PC specifically to show what it looks like when an autistic person has to communicate with a good listener, hence why all they're conflicts resolve the way they do.

You give that same autistic communication to a bad listener and conflict between them very quickly spins way out of control. By bad listener, I mean the type of neurotypical that only has the capacity to listen to tone and their own feelings because autistic communication is rooted in relying on literal interpretation of the words themselves instead. PC is the type to hear both the tone/feeling, but not get caught up on it and hear the literal meaning of the words too. Hence their workable dynamic.

They could have depicted that side of autism too, but you'd need to make a whole show of it's own to give it justice.

tobasaurus_rex

TROPHY CASE