#I will not apologize for enthusiasm

[nostrildamus]

sorry that I send 4 messages in a row and reply to your messages immediately and add excessive emojis to my texts. if I seem thirsty and like I care a lot it's because I am and I do.

[trans-queen-administrator]

Hey, can I hear about your shatterbird thoughts? She's always been my favourite member of the nine :]

[@faultlinescrew]

Oh I'm about to type for entirely too long.

Alright so a chunk of this is kinda headcanon, but any of that is fully based on canon. I had a giant fanfic planned that was literally an expanded telling of Shatterbird's life from trigger to death, and some plot points there may bleed into this unconsciously.

Number one favorite thing about Shatterbird is that initially, she did nothing wrong. She was unwillingly dosed with a Cauldron vial, and her scream and subsequent exploding of Dubai wasn't her fault. She had no intention to hurt anyone, it was done entirely out of her control as she gained powers and she should not be blamed for her first time destroying a city. The thing is, that doesn't matter in universe. She's still going to be hunted down by countless capes because she killed an untold number of people with that scream. No one's going to just let her go because it wasn't her fault, because she's the only person who can be blamed. People want revenge for their loved ones, and I'm willing to bet that she had a sizable bounty. It's similar to the situation we see with Rachel, where she can't have a normal life because she killed someone in her trigger and her identity is public, but on a much much larger scale.

I think the guilt ate at her so fucking bad at first. She killed her dad, her friends, her sister, her mother, countless others, and as much as it wasn't her fault she's still the one that did it. There's no way she doesn't blame herself for what happened, but when does she even have time to mourn? She's fled to a desert, she's gotta be struggling with food and water, and she's being hounded at every turn by people who want her dead. What's she supposed to do, let them kill her so she can atone for what she did or something?

I just love what a tragic backstory this is. She's one of the most horrible people we meet in canon, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say she has one of the highest body counts on Earth Bet, but she started as someone innocent and desperately trying to survive. And as much as I love this backstory and will defend to the death that she did nothing wrong at this point, it doesn't excuse who she becomes.

Shatterbird laughed.  “There’s only two ways to recover from something of that magnitude, to deal with the fact that you inadvertently killed thousands and thousands of people, and hospitalized twice that many.  You break, or you become it.”

(quote is from the missing interlude)

This is the quote that puts her entire character in a nutshell. The biggest question to me is... when did she become it? She implies in that interlude that it was rather quick, and that she went to Britain so she could hit a big target, but the Tattletale clone calls this out as a lie. She was running, the desert that she'd been in for months was unbearably loud with all that sand, and I think she was sick of living on the run. She wanted society, structure, something to make her feel human. I think she's full of shit saying she went there to destroy it, some accident or desperate confrontation occurred (timeline fits well enough for it to be a result of the Simurgh's attack, but that's just one possibility) and she broke London just as bad as she broke Dubai. What do you even do from there? Any slim hope of clearing her name is gone, she just has to keep running and try to ignore the guilt. And she ran to America, where the Slaughterhouse Nine found her.

The recruiting of people by the Slaughterhouse Nine fascinates me, because most are unwilling to join at first. Unfortunately the alternative is to die. No one in Brockton Bay was jumping to be the lucky winner, and the only people we know nominated themselves are Cherish and I think Siberian. Shatterbird (ever notice how she's the only S9 member with no canon first name? drives me nuts) was dragged into the recruitment process with no say in the matter just like most everyone is. Someone in the Nine found her, thought she would be a good fit because of London and Dubai (and how would that feel, to have someone on the S9 see you as just as bad as them?) and even if she explains that was on accident... what does it matter? It never matters that it was an accident. It never will matter. It's just something that she can tell herself to keep her sane.

So she's doing the fun little tests, I'm actually very curious how she altered herself for Mannequin's since he always does the same test, she's a very vain person, but that's off topic. Atrocities, horrors, being hunted by the Siberian, and suddenly she's at the end. Her and someone else.

“That’s not really a test,” Shatterbird spoke, “There hasn’t been a round of testing since I joined the group where we didn’t whittle it down to one candidate.” “We could forego the final test, pitting them against one another.” Shatterbird turned to him, “Ah.  But, again, the last test where we had to go that far was… mine?”

And she kills them. Dubai, London, those were accidents. This was on purpose, maybe even the first time she's done it on purpose. She could either break and decide she couldn't live with herself as a member of the nine, or she could just as horrible as everyone sees her. All her choices were rigged, there was never much of an opportunity to get better since so many paths closed off to her, but she voluntarily chooses to get worse. What's the point in holding on to the fact that it wasn't her fault at the beginning? She's never escaping what she did, so she'll become the monster everyone sees her as. You break, or you become it.

And there's not much of the more sympathetic side of Shatterbird in canon (partly because her backstory chapter was removed). She's fully embraced herself as a mass murderer. She revels in the attention, the fear. She parrots Jack's philosophy as a way to feel better about what she's doing, and eventually she doesn't need to feel better because she enjoys who she is now.

I don't know, I rambled for a while there but it boils down to me being fascinated by the circumstances of her gaining powers, and the shift from innocent but hated/feared to making damn sure that fear is justified.

Ok, so moving on from the backstory analysis, other miscellaneous details. Fuck it, I'm putting every thought I have on Shatterbird in this post.

She's the Nine's primary recruiter! Woo, good for her. Notably, she recruits Burnscar. Mimi is in a similar position to Shatterbird's past self with the whole involuntary mass destruction, although on a lesser scale (it'll always be on a lesser scale, Shatterbird has the worst trigger event out there in terms of consequences and she didn't even trigger). Mimi was on the streets and trying not to use her power, and Shatterbird scooped her up into the Nine.

“I- before I knew it, the Slaughterhouse Nine had found me.  Shatterbird recruited me.  And now I’m stuck.  I’m trapped.  You know there’s a kill order out on me?  If I try to quit, either the Nine or the cops will off me.  So I keep going, I work for them, and it all just gets worse.”

It's a situation Shatterbird can very likely relate to, but she's perpetuating it and making Mimi suffer like she did. No sympathy, no helping someone get through it and avoid the pitfalls she fell into, she's dragging other people down with her like a crab in a pot. Worth noting that I believe she's still bitter about the hand she was dealt even if she's embraced where it led her to, she remembers how horrible it was to be forced into everything and she does not care if she inflicts it on others.

But if someone else willingly joins the Nine, she takes it personally. Cherie says Shatterbird hates her, and that's because Cherie chooses the life Shatterbird was locked into. She's bitter that she never had that choice, and so she makes sure Cherie understands what it's like by chasing her for days for her test, not allowing any rest or sleep. However, this could also simply because Cherie sucks and is an unpleasant person to talk to, and Shatterbird is stuck-up.

Another thing I like is Shatterbird's appearance of knowledge and elegance. She's trying to appear put together, confident, in-control, and to be fair she does a pretty good job, her costume and theming are great. But under that is someone violent and angry, she's keeping up appearances to everyone else but also to herself. The fact that she's always trying to keep up appearances, even when locked in a room and doomed to die with one Witness (haha get it) she's trying to make it look like she was calm and in control when her body is found, is what 100% convinces me exploding Britain was an accident. The Tattletale clone calls her out, and to me it seems like another attempt to seem in control by framing it as deliberate.

Anyway, my attempts to woobify a mass murderer aside, I also like that she was a spoiled rich kid before all this and her prim asshole attitude points to that. She quotes Edgar Allen Poe, she reads because it makes her feel better than others, she's just so pretentious and unpleasant and to be clear I love this as a character trait, it's fun and leads to her speaking in overdramatic ways.

“Then you should know, nearly-Tattletale, that I’ve spent too long in the company of monsters to be scared by words.”

She thinks she was soooo cool saying that.

I also want to look at the last few weeks of her life. She spends so much effort propping herself up as great and in control, only to be locked in a box and puppeted around against her will. Genuinely I cannot think of anything more humiliating and agonizing for her to endure. She has nothing to do but think as she's used as a marionette.

She had a long time to reflect on her life, to look back at how she got here and what she regrets.

But I think she spent it stewing in her rage, itching and planning to get violent revenge and keep hurting others to be respected. She's unwilling and unable to go back, she'll double down on this forever because this is who she is now. And because 99% of characterization for Shatterbird isn't in Worm anyway, I may as well toss in this minor AU summary by Wildbow. If she escaped, she would have started her own version of the Nine with Damsel of Distress and Trickster. There is nothing left to sympathize with or redeem Shatterbird by the time we see her in canon, she's simply past that point. Side note but Shatterbird + Damsel of Distress + Trickster as a team is perhaps the funniest combo ever and I really wish those 3 fuckers got to interact in canon. Weirdo assholes who dress up fancy and have a taste for theatrics as a murder crew, we were robbed.

I could analyze the Hookwolf interlude but I don't want to. I'm very annoyed that Shatterbird (still no first name) is the only member of the Nine to lose the fight against her recruit instead of appearing terrifying and unstoppable. How come Burnscar can solo Faultline's crew but 3 nazis can take out Shatterbird, who has way more experience? It's pretty uncomfortable to have the only member of the Nine who isn't white be the one that loses to nazis, while one calls her a slur in his internal monologue, in the interludes where everyone else on her team is introduced as a force of nature. I think we should just collectively agree to make this interlude not canon and un-retcon the Witness interlude. While I'm on the topic it's also a bit questionable to have Sophia and Shatterbird (no first name. I am annoyed by this) as the only named capes puppeted by Regent?

But that's not the topic I wanna explore. The topic is that Shatterbird is a great character and I wish that she had depth in the story itself rather than scattered through 20 different sources, because she's legitimately my favorite non-undersider in the story. There is a lot of potential to explore her, one could interpret her backstory in a less charitable way than I did just for an example, and I really think she's neat! She takes hurting someone in an accident and then becoming the monster people see her as, something we see a few times throughout worm, to its ultimate conclusion in terms of scale. That alongside her outer layer of intellectualism and pretentiousness, which I'm a massive sucker for as a trait, and she's just perfect. Did nothing wrong (citation needed). I love her and I do hope that at least some of the stuff written her makes someone appreciate her character more.

Ok! That was... 2.2k words about Shatterbird (no first name). Woo! If some stuff seems inconsistent between paragraphs here, it's probably because I wrote this in chunks over the course of a few weeks and my feelings at the time can influence my interpretation of things and my writing to feel different when read all at once and compared. If you think I'm woobifying her too much, cool. I think it makes her more compelling to examine how much we know was her fault and how much she shouldn't be blamed for, and making her have less agency makes her more tragic which I always like. If you actually read this to the end, thank you! Have a nice day!

[kaiju-krew]

I hate to be a massive Debbie downer/party pooper but I really don't like this idea of polyamorous shipping because Mothzilla is just too perfect for that kind of thing. Didn't you say some time ago you didn't like the idea of Mothra cheating on Goji and vice versa? Like when you drew Zeuszilla and said that unlike Zeus Goji is actually loyal to his wife haha.

(You can thank Miss Queen B's Monsterverse AU fanfic series for that. If you've read them you can understand why I don't like cheating/poly shipping)

i understand where you're coming from but i think it's worth saying

alternate polyamorous ship =/= a ship cheating on each other

i've always put down a delineation between these things - in my own main au of the kaijuverse, mothzilla is 'exclusive', or as close as you can get to that when we're talking about giant interspecies monster relationships. but i've also been very open about being a multishipping creature at heart, and don't view mothzilla as any less 'perfect' just because i play with the idea of another version of my personal au where they're open/poly. it doesn't take away from, or denigrate their baseline ship dynamic just because i'm willing to explore different dynamics i find interesting.

they wouldn't ever 'cheat' on each other, because they'd never do something outside the pairing without the other's consent. hope that makes sense

[bekolxeram]

For the sake of argument, let's assume it was Tommy who flew the plane. Is there any way to make that seem somewhat logical in the 9-1-1 universe given the timeline? Do you have any theories?

If you're looking for an answer based on reality, no, I don't think so.

I know 9-1-1 has plenty of inaccuracies for the sake of drama, but when it canonically tells you the plane was with CAL FIRE, I just don't see a way to retcon that.

I can think of a way how Tommy can fly a plane though. Maybe he was the top of his class in the Army and got accepted into the fixed wing program. As all of you know it was during the DADT era, so maybe he got kicked out earlier after being caught with a guy. A sympathetic commander got him a job in the LAFD so that he could pay off his debt. I don't know, just my imagination.

I just don't think he could moonlight with CAL FIRE while being a full time firefighter in the LAFD.

It's just my own interpretation though. I'm not good at anything other than the occasional aviation related trivia. You don't have to subscribe to my theories, that's for sure.

I'll probably scale back from my aviation posting in the future, as I see many of you are pretty against that. I'm sorry if I imposed too much on all of you for the past several months. I was just too excited.

[lost-technology]

I woke up this morning from the weirdest this-fandom related dream ever. So, in my dream, Vash and Wolfwood were sitting by a campfire and griddle talking about weird meats. They had some weird meats with them, as in meats from different animals that they were planning on cooking and eating. Vash drew out a plastic wrapped package (vacuum pack, looked like my local store brand) that looked like a pork chop, but declared that it was, in fact, human meat. He'd gotten it from a little post-apocalyptic Noman's Land shop that specialised in such things. He said that, as a Plant, he wanted to try it to see if he was compatible for eating human. Dream!Vash? What the actual FUCK?!!! And so unwrapped it and put it on the griddle and creeped out Wolfwood, but Wolfwood understood. Something like that. And then I flashed back into my body. This entire scenario was one that I was writing as a fanfic on a public counter in some kind of cafeteria at an anime convention. Above it, appearing almost immediately, was a fancomic someone else did on the upright part of the counter that recounted the events of my fanfiction (a fancomic of my fanfiction) except that whoever did it made it more Vashwood than I had intended my story, ending it with Vash and Wolfwood kissing. At the same time, I was thinking "My fanfic doesn't deserve this, it's not that good. It's not like Sin Eaters by dragonofeternal, which has a similar theme done much better." Yes, I was literally thinking of a real fic I'd read in my dream! I commented aloud on the comic that "This is more Vashwood than I'd intended, but I'll take it." As in, it's not really my ship, no one that I see as canon, but I like people in fandom shipping whatever they like and I enjoy Vashwood when it's done well and makes sense, which it kinda did in this fancomic even though it was inspired by my fanfic, which hadn't gone in that direction. Cue some snotty twenty-something with blueish purple dyed long pigtails and a Goth look sitting around nearby looking at all of this informing me "Vashwood is canon." and I said "No it's not." And she argued that she'd read some very obscure comic where it was - and it turns out we had both, by then, shifted into Batman fandom and she was referencing some obscure storyline in which Batman and Robin had fucked like animals. I further argued that I was going by a very specific canon (ala, "Batman the Animated Series" - which was somehow Trigun now), but concededed that while I wasn't as much into the deep lore of the comics, that I wouldn't be surprised if Batman/Robn (Vash and Batman now? Huh?) was canon in some form. Brain.... what are you doing?

[brittlebutch]

the thing is, you’re absolutely right! because what neurotypical people sometimes don’t understand is the massive difference between the average level of social interaction that they themselves vs other people get outside of organized or scheduled events like work or school, and also don’t understand the massive difference between what failure looks like, and how those two things overlap. i’m told that among the average neurotypical person, they’ll make a point to talk to people in their lives or hang out with friends or go on dates or chat with other people in public spaces, al to have casual interactions, multiple times a day, multiple days a week. meaning, if they have a failed social interaction, it’s buffered by the many successful interactions they’ll go on to have. failure most likely won’t mean complete isolation, because they have multiple avenues of interaction to fall back on. and, moreover, a failure in a social interaction when you have (on average) fewer than most means that now rather than that person going “oh that was a weird interaction, i talk to them a lot and it’s not usually like that, maybe it was an off day” they go “huh i don’t know that person very well maybe they’re just like that?”, which means that the odds are way different on whether relationships stay good after mistakes.

social skills are not actually as inherent as neurotypical people like to think. it’s just that when you’re always in practice, always getting back on the proverbial horse, the advice “just get back out there!” does actually work very well. but if you’re not able to do that for any variety of reasons, you can’t play the game the same way. my advice is not “try harder”, it’s “lower your expectations for yourself on what a good interaction and a moment of connection might be”. just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions. remind yourself that you’re working with fewer resources and a much more limited data pool. a lot of the advice being given is coming from someone who assumes they understand what the math looks like for you, because it’s very difficult to imagine that other side. so instead of trying to overlay a system made for someone who has resources that you just don’t have, you need to figure out what a functional system of interaction looks like for you, and adapt the advice given to fit your situation. my advice, bearing that in mind, is that finding communities and groups can look like a lot of different things, and getting your social needs met can come from a lot of sources, and ideally should! you would understand best what your situation is, and there’s no shame in changing tact to accommodate for your own needs and boundaries.

forgot to answer this for a bit lol BUT yeah, the post was a little bit more about the Conceptual argument than it was about me specifically, so I'm definitely already with you re: 'finding out what your Individual social goals are and working based off of those instead having high expectations based off of other people's metric' stuff. You definitely have a huge point with the "social buffer disparity" between NT people and ND people, where failures are both less demoralizing internally and less impactful externally when you're able to have a greater average of interactions generally also

but I really appreciated the "just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions" aspect of this message. I do definitely have a recurring problem of like, labeling Myself as an Uncanny Valley Person and automatically assuming that every interaction I'm involved in must be some level of uncomfortable for the other person -- it actually was kind of a revolution moment reading this and realizing that OH it does make sense that if I can unintentionally make people uncomfortable, it's statistically just as likely that I can unintentionally lift people's spirits in one way or another! So thank you very much for that!!

[jesncin]

So when J'onn and Bruce do get together romanticly, how long does it take for Bruce to tell the bat family??? Or did they figure it out on their own??? What are Alfred's thoughts on J'onn??? Did Alfred realize that his son was crushing on J'onn, long before Bruce even recognized those feelings??? What about the bat sons??? Did anyone at first, didn't like J'onn then change their opinions??? (Sorry for all the questions)

Bruce would probably ease the idea slowly like when you're introducing new step family members.

The batkids figure it out because they're smart kids but don't say anything until Bruce is ready to tell them.

J'onn is a gentle soul who Bruce talks to when he's going through rough times, Alfred would appreciate that a lot!

!! Honestly that makes sense haha Alfred would know long before Bruce would admit it to himself :)

I don't think the Batsons catch on as fast as Alfred!

It's hard to think of anyone not taking a liking to J'onn! Damian might get annoyed of being babysit by him at first but then grow to like him (like he did with another alien named Jon).

(Don't apologize! These kind of questions are so fun and I like that folks are enthusiastic about these lil guys)

[todayisafridaynight]

YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS

[laurelwen]

Chapter 2: I've Got You Under My Skin

He stings like he means it (He's mean and he's mine) by Galicia

[Like Minds Aesthetic Masterpost]

[pelipper]

You: "I'm coming over! YOU BETTER NOT BE singing karaoke to the German Naruto opening" Me: 🤭

🎥 by @sunfloradesu!

[lctibule]

ok but who is going to let si-u infodump to them about his favourite plants

[vipier]

shockingly alive and not quite back yet but definitely looking to restructure my approach on my blogs when I do return, possibly in the next week or so! all that means for my mutuals is that I plan to focus even more on plotting and supporting consistent engagement through building out verses and dynamics with my partners. this goes for dynamics already established as well as those moving forward, for all blogs. if I reach out to you this week about a previously discussed dynamic and you’re no longer interested, please don’t be afraid to let me know! I will also likely be ( mostly ) clearing out my inboxes with a commitment to try to finish as close to everything as I receive moving forward.

[daily-mees]

@50c14lly4nx10u5 here is pfp-inspired mees as thankee for doing a blog spam <33

[ID: simple pen doodle of a mouse with a smile wearing the broad round hat of a splatoon character i have not identified. the rest of the mouse is coloured in that character's clothing colours too. the mouse has triangle feet, big ears, a pointy nose and little whiskers, and its ears are pointed like the character's. behind the mouse is a circle filled with a blurred non-binary flag. end ID.]

[camvrin]

low-key kinda a vent oops (that wasn't intended but it sounds venty so warning anyway)

i am NOT comfortable with myself anymore and its caused ten thousand bolts of stress ‼️‼️‼️ god you know I'm not built for stress pleek leave me be 😢😥🙏🏽

[secret-bouquet-for-you]

@memekeymouse here is your (virtual) bouquet tumblr was fighting me and wouldn't let me send it to you directly. Happy (early) Valentine's Day, I hope you get lots of candy and appreciation.

[ntaras]

i can’t tell if bi-han bowed or not in johnny’s chapter when liu kang yelled enough