#or form....the point is very simple. get the fuck over this belief that fandom can in any way pride itself on being progressive or

[bigskydreaming]

Me venturing briefly into 911 fics after Buck came out as bi: I am BEGGING people to stop basing their entire view of two men having later-in-life gay or bi awakenings on that one fucking reddit post about the guy thinking he's homophobic after his roommate came out.

[aces-to-apples]

Your Reputation Precedes You

A response to “On Fandom Racism (and That Conlang People Are Talking About)” because lmao that cowardly bitch just hates getting feedback from people that she can’t then harass into oblivion

i.e. God I Wish I Could Use The Tag Fandom Wank Without The Titty Police Nerfing My Post

-

To be frank, I'm not here because I think you or any of your little cronies are going to change your minds. If the 'name' wasn't a giveaway, your group of ~likeminded individuals~ have quite the reputation for espousing ableist, antisemitic, and, yes, racist views under wafer-thin the veneer of "calling out racism." I think we both know that what you're actually doing is using the relative anonymity of the internet and progressive language to abuse, harass, and bully fans that you personally disagree with. You and your group are toxic, hateful, and utterly pathetic, using many peoples' genuine desire to avoid accidentally causing harm and twisting it into this horrid parade of submissiveness to You, The One And Only Arbiter Of Truth And Justice In Fandom. Never mind that you have derided autistic people as lacking compassion and empathy, that you've used racist colonizer dogwhistles to describe a fictional culture based heavily on real live Maori culture, that you've mocked the idea of characters having PTSD, or that vital mental health services are anything more than "talking about your feelings with friends uwu." Let's just ignore that you have ridiculed the idea of adults in positions of power exerting that power over children in harmful and abusive ways, that creating transformative fan-content that doesn't adhere to the spirit of canon or wishes of the original author garners derision and hatefulness from you, and that you've used classic abuser tactics in order to gaslight people in your orbit into behaving more submissively towards you in order to avoid more verbal abuse.

Let's toss all of that crucial context aside in favor of only what you've written here.

What you've written here is nearly 3,000 entire words based on, at best—though, admittedly, based on your previous behavior, I am actually not willing to extend to you an iota of good faith—fallacious reasoning. You posit that a constructed language, to be used by a fictional religious group located in an entirely different galaxy than our own, is othering, racist in general, and anti-Asian specifically. This appears based in several suppositions, the first being that a language unknown by the reader will, by nature, cause the reader to feel alienated from the characters and therefore less sympathetic, empathetic, and caring towards the characters. That idea is patently ridiculous and, I believe, says far more about your ability to connect to a character speaking an unfamiliar language than any kind of overarching truth about media and the human condition. New things are interesting; new things are fun; the human brain is wired from birth to be fascinated with new things, to want to take them apart, find out how they work, and enjoy both the process and the results.

The second supposition this fallacy is based upon appears to be that to move away from the blatant Orientalism of Star Wars is inherently anti-Asian. While I find it... frankly, a little bit sad that you cling so viciously to the Orientalist, appropriative roots of Star Wars as some form of genuine representation, that's really none of my business. If you feel that a Muslim-coded character bombing a temple and becoming a terrorist and a Sith, a white woman wearing Mongolian wedding garb, a species of decadent slug-like gangsters smoking out of hookahs and keeping attractive young women chained at their feet (as it were), a species of greedy money-grubbers with exaggerated features and offensively stereotypical "Asian" accents, and an indigenous people wearing modesty garb based on the Bedu people and treated by most characters as well as the narrative as mindless animals deserving of murder and genocide are appropriate representation of the many, varied, and beautiful cultures around the world upon which they were "based," then that is very much your business. Until you pull shit like this. Until you accuse other fans, who wish to move away from such offensive coding and stereotypes, of erasing Asian culture from Star Wars. Then it becomes everyone's business, especially when you are targeting a loving and enthusiastic group of fans who are pouring their hearts and souls into creating an inventive and non-appropriative alternative to canon.

Which leads into the third supposition, that a patently racist, misogynistic white man in the 1970s, and then again in the 1990s, intended his universe to be an accurate and respectful portrayal of the various cultures he stole from. I understand that for your group of toxic bullies, the term "Death of the Author" holds no real meaning, but the simple fact of the matter is that George Lucas based his white-centered space adventure on Samurai movies while removing the cultural context that gave them any meaning, because he liked the idea of swords and noble warriors in space. He based the Force and the Jedi Order on belief systems such as Taoism and Buddhism, but only on the surface, without putting any real effort into into portraying them earnestly or accurately. He consistently disrespected both characters of color and characters coded to be a certain race, ethnicity, culture, or religion, and likewise disrespected and stole from the cultures upon which he based them. He was, and continues to be, a racist white man who wrote a racist story. His universe has Orientalism baked into its every facet, and the idea that fans who wish to move away from this and interrogate and transform the text into something better than what it is are racist is not only laughable, but incredibly disingenuous and insidious.

As I said, I am not writing this to change your mind, because I truly believe that you already know that "cOnLaNgS aRe RaCiSt" is a ridiculous statement. The way you've comported yourself in fandom spaces thus far has shown to me that you are nothing more than a bully who knows that the anti-racist movement in fandom can be co-opted for your benefit. If you tout your Asian heritage and use the right language, make the "right" accusations and take advantage of white guilt and white ignorance, you can have dozens of people falling at your feet, begging for forgiveness, for absolution. And I think that gives you a thrill. So, no, none of this will change your mind because none of this is genuinely about racism—it's about power, it's about control, it's about fandom being the only space where you have some.

So I'm writing this for the creators of this wonderful conlang, which has been crafted by multiple people including people of color, who don't deserve this nonsensical vitriol, and for the fans reading this manipulative hate-fest, wondering if they really are Evil Racists because they don't participate in fandom the way you think they should.

Here it is: fandom has a lot of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, ableism, etc. baked into it. Unfortunately, such is the nature of living and growing up in societies and cultures that have the same. The important thing is to independently educate yourself on those issues and think critically about them—not "think critically" as in "to criticize" them, but to analyze, evaluate, pick apart, examine, and reconstruct them again in order to come to a well thought-out conclusion. Read this well-articulated attack on a group of fans who have always welcomed feedback and participation, are open about their backgrounds, their strengths and weaknesses, and wonder who is actually being genuine.

Is it the open and enthusiastic group who ask for the participation of others in this labor of love? Or is it the ringleader of a group of well-known bullies who have manipulated, gaslit, and then subsequently love-bomb people who did not simply roll over at the slightest hint of dominance? The ones who spent hours upon hours tearing apart, mocking, deriding, and falsely accusing authors of fanworks and metatextual works of various bigotries and -isms, knowing that those evaluations were spurious and meant only to cause harm, not genuine examinations of the works themselves or even presumed authorial intent. The ones who made their own, quote-unquote, community so negative and toxic that even after the departure of a large portion of them, including this author in particular, that community still has a reputation for being hateful, toxic, and full of mean-spirited harassers who will never look critically about their own behavior but only ever point fingers at others. The ones who are so very determined to cause misery wherever they go that as soon as their usual victims are no longer immediately available, they will turn on each other at the slightest hint of weakness.

This entire piece of (fan)work is misinformed at the most generous, disingenuous at the most objective, and downright spiteful when we get right into it. The creators of Dai Bendu, along with various other works, series, and fan events that these people personally dislike, have been targeted because it is so much easier to harass, bully, and use progressive language as a weapon against them, than it is to put any effort into making fandom spaces more informed, more positive, more respectful.

As someone rather eloquently put it, community is not a fucking spectator sport. You want a better community, you gotta work at it. And conversely, what you put into your community is what you'll get out of it. This author and their friends have put a lot of hate into their communities, and now they're toxic cesspools that people stay well away from, for fear of contracting some terrible form of harassment poisoning.

Congrats, Ri, you've gotten just what you wanted: adoring crowds listening to you spout your absolutely heinous personal views purely to live out some kind of power fantasy, and the rest of us staying well away, because fuck knows nothing kind, helpful, or in good faith has ever come from Virdant or her echo-chamber of petty, spiteful assholes.

No love, bad night.

P.S. Everyone actually in the Dai Bendu server knows your ass got kicked because you didn’t say shit for a full thirty days and ignored the announcement that inactive members would be culled. You ain’t cute pretending like it’s because you were ~*~Silenced~*~ after ~*~Valiantly~*~ attempting to call out racism. We see you.

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being ���hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

[chorusnihili]

I'd love to hear more about the development of your Gaster! :D

BACKSTORY ASK MEME 1. How did you first come up with your muse’s backstory, if you did at all? Continued from here Also asked by @alagaster 

So I left off with the question of just how Gaster's soul ended up in pieces.

I’m actually going to detour at the moment and say that it was around that point that I had decided to make the blog.  I had a vague beginning and an ending, and usually that’s not enough for me to want to start, but I was excited, I had a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Honestly, one of the first things I need to have before I even think of making a blog is a good url.  Urls are super important to me, and generally, whether or not I think of a good one is a key factor in whether or not I actually make the blog.

But in this case, I was too eager to start and I actually just threw together chorusnihil so I could get started on the pages.  The thought process remained the same--the chorus is from Greek plays, the group of characters that narrate the actions occurring in the play.  nihil is Latin for nothing--and I later changed it to nihili, which is Genitive, to roughly make the “chorus of nothing” or “nothing’s chorus,” a reference to the fact that the guy wiped himself out of history, and so there’s no protagonist to narrate.  This was supposed to be a temporary URL, but I got attached to it, for reasons I’ll get to later.  

(And really, isn’t a roleplay blog a modern chorus in it’s own way?)

Also there’s the phonetic pun-- CORE-us, anyone?

So I threw together a lot of the basic bios.  Most of the stat pages are really bland, most of the guts of the story comes from the hidden details, most of which were added on later.  

Something that came up around this point was Gaster’s relationship to Asgore.  A lot of fanon pictures them as really close.  A lot of fanon also portrays Gaster as Gaster as desperately wanting to retake the surface, which...as mentioned previously, my Gaster just, wasn’t into.  

So it sort of put Gaster in between Asgore and Toriel--he wasn’t happy about the decision to go to war with humanity, but he wasn’t going to abandon everyone, even if he did become really reclusive.  

I thought about the idea of the human souls, and I knew that Gaster would immediately hate the idea of working with them.  And that was convenient, too, since it allowed me to further separate Gaster and Alphys’s work.  At first, it was just a heavy disagreement.  The idea that Gaster killed Asgore accidentally came a great deal later, but it honestly served to be a rather critical piece of the story. 

The design of the DT Extractor and Sans and Papyrus were also very vague concepts at this point. 

Revisiting the idea of his fall.  We know from the canon dialogue that he fell into his own invention and that he was scatted across space and time.  

The CORE is the common culprit and it was what I had chosen, too.  But how?  How could an energy source... do that? 

So the idea occurred to me that maybe--maybe that was exactly as it was designed to do.  After all, even in the real world, we have power plants that operate by ripping apart molecules.  So... magic.  Why not magic?  A machine that derives power out of ripping apart magical energy.

And monsters are made out of magical energy.  

Falling into that sounds like a very grisly fate, indeed.      

The idea of how he got erased from reality isn’t one I really have solidified.  G has a couple of theories, and I’m willing to roll with either of them, but, really?  I’m not super interested in making a hard reason for it.  Namely to adapt to other versions of fanon other muns might have. 

Essentially, the theories say that the CORE destroying him released so much energy that it tore a hole in the Determination that pushes the timeline forward, thus allowing the Void to enter and merge with his soul.  

From there, either, 

A., his Determination very briefly was larger than that of the Timeline, and he himself invoked a Reset, but given that he was outside of the timeline at the moment, it was corrupted and only erased certain parts rather than fully resetting.   I think that this was the original theory that I used in the original RP.  

B., the Void acted as a corrective force trying to correct the hole in the timeline.  In doing so, it erased Gaster from the reality, thus replacing the existing timeline with a new one in which certain things never happened.  

C., something involving the power of Rewrite that Gaster has from the duality of Determination and Void.

D., something else entirely.  

And so we had the scattered Unbound Gaster. 

Which, funfact, the name Unbound Gaster for the form was supposed to be temporary, as well.  It’s a reference to Unbound Hoopa for Pokemon.  (Which is why Provoked Form Gaster isn’t called Unbound Form!)

Within the original RP that I developed most of this lore, Refused Gaster didn’t exist.  In fact, that roleplay ended with Gaster’s permanent death--and being permanently forgotten to the world.  A choice he intentionally made because the damage he did to the timeline by falling into the CORE was still present and only getting worse, and the only way to fix it was to allow his Soul to come together and pass on properly, thus allowing the damage to mend.

It was sad.  I cried.  I got emotional.  

I got attached to a traumatic asshole character I literally had for four days.  

Somewhere in here, I began to think about the origins of Gaster.  Like, way way way in the past.  Some people have Gaster being actively involved in the war, but it didn’t work for my portrayal, of having him be so afraid of humans and the surface.  So for it to work out, I had him really young for the war, really young when everyone got driven underground.  

I killed off his parents because ......

Frankly I didn’t want to design them :|

There’s a lot of varying opinions and interpretations about skeleton monsters, and it’s a section of the fandom I’ve decided to stray away from for now.  

But I didn’t want the loss to be traumatic.  Gaster’s been through a lot already, and I have personal vendettas against characters who solely consist of trauma after trauma.  

So I decided to make the loss very distant--he’s aware he probably had parents, or maybe he came to be some other way--but he doesn’t remember them, there’s no tragic “my parents were killed in front of me,” it’s simply something he didn’t have, and something he never needed given the nature of monsters to be kind and caring.  

...

But it felt like it was missing something.

So I started to toy around with this idea of a mentor, one who played the role of a father-figure, one who would plant the seeds to give Gaster the appreciation of science and knowledge.  Someone who could take this lost and terrified boy and start to turn him into the intelligent and steady doctor we end up with.  

Then came the problem of how he and this mentor would actually meet; Gaster’s scar proved to be a convenient excuse, plus it gave me a backstory for that, as well.  A few humans attacked him and delivered the injury, and Gaster’s mentor found the wounded boy and took care of him.  

The mentor is meant to be a vague entity, and you can view this in action in this memory.  (Only partially because I didn’t want to name them.)  Unfortunately, as per the nature of characters created post hoc, their fate was already sealed.  I made the choice to cut their influence on Gaster’s life short.  

(If they were around longer, who knows?  Maybe they could have prevented some of the stupider things Gaster has done.  Maybe they could have changed fate.  But...  as we’ll get to, everything happened exactly as it had to.)  

Again, I made it a very distant loss.  It’s a rather simple conclusion that not every monster would be happy vacating the surface--Gaster’s mentor had lived there their entire life.  It was their home, they were not leaving, even upon threat of death.  And so it was a bittersweet parting, but one with closure, and Gaster said his farewells and departed to the Underground.  

Honestly, what I find really shocking about this character is just how intensely he wants to do good.  I mean, I’m no stranger to good characters, but few of my characters push it as far as Gaster does, and how quickly that feeling came to me, considering he started in the original roleplay as a ruthless asshole bastard more than willing to fuck over and torture a bunch of children just for a chance at being whole again.  

Most of Gaster’s early life in the Underground found in this post was written on the spot as I wrote that post, so it came really late.  

I still find it hilarious that he used to work in therapy.  You’re well aware you need therapy you fucking bastard.  Quit denying it.  

So, revisiting the idea of Gaster and Asgore.  I do like the idea of them being close, and Gaster even calls Asgore his best friend.  The declaration of war put a huge strain on the relationship.  

I originally thought about the idea of him accidentally killing Asgore for shits n giggles.  At my heart I am indeed an angst gremlin, so I was just thinking about what an alternate timeline where that happened might be like.  After all, Gaster’s angry, Asgore’s full of guilt, with the way monster magic works, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to think that it could happen.  

But the more I thought about it, the more it fit eerily well.  The guilt gave Gaster a reason to create Sans (and later Papyrus) as part of his belief in Karma (creating a life to replace the life he took) and to look into Alphys’s research into Determination enough to create the blueprints for the DT Extractor; both of these things were things that I couldn’t otherwise really fit into his storyline.  

And finally...

His declining mental state and despair over the concept of the DT Extractor was what led to him being distracted enough to make such a critical mistake and fall into the CORE.  

And given that the timeline changes when he falls, I realized that...  I could have this happen, and the current timeline be unaffected.  

Now, given that I said that I wanted to avoid more trauma in Gaster’s life, this decision might seem contradictory.  But, it also served a very important point--Asgore returning to life, that mistake being fixed upon his fall gave Gaster something to hold onto.  Something that made his fate not as awful as it otherwise would have been.  A small piece of solace in hell.  

Plus, Gaster’s guilt at the incident caused him to resign as Royal Scientist, further allowing him and Alphys to have their separate stories. 

And pretty much everything snapped together at that point.  Really, strangely well.  I joked before on this blog if I’m really the one writing it.

If Gaster had not killed Asgore, he would have never created Sans and Papyrus, he would have never created the DT Extractor blueprints; if he did not create the blueprints, he would have never been distracted enough to fall into the CORE, if he never fell into the CORE, the blueprints would have never ended up with Alphys, she could have never created Flowey, and if Flowey was never created, he could have never used the souls to break the barrier and the True Pacifist ending would have never come to pass.  

It all happened exactly as it had to.

It feels oddly poetic, given the way Undertale works.  

In some ways, it’s cruel.  Gaster regularly struggles with the idea that for his people to be happy, he had to literally be wiped out of existence.  But in other ways, it’s a comfort--for at least he knows that his suffering wasn’t for nothing.  That there was a purpose--that even if he had to be erased, he played a vital role in ensuring his people found victory. 

Oh.  One final note...  In finalizing this story, you may notice that Gaster follows a classic pattern.  We have a hero, who’s mostly good, but through his own flaws makes a tragic mistake and seals his own grim fate.

It’s called a tragedy and they’re common in Greek plays.

What was that about a chorus again?

I think that’s just about every important point I could cover.  That being said, if you couldn’t tell, this is a very fascinating topic to me, so if you have any further questions or need any clarifications, feel free to send them in.  

[xadoheandterra]

Series: The Burning of Solheim Title: The Path Untrodden Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Chapters: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII Characters: Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Cor Leonis, Gladiolus Amicitia, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gilgamesh Tags: 10 years older!Prompto, Noctis is a devious little shit, Noctis will do anything for Prompto, Prompto’s gay little heart, Cor is done with this bullshit, Everyone needs to stop and think, Gilgamesh is tired and just wants to be left alone, Gilgamesh is a necromancer, Gilgamesh is basically like a drow okay?! Summary:  Solheim was the height of civilization long enough that their ruins were ruins over 2000 years ago, and still had the power to function in the time of the King of Light. They should’ve realized something was very wrong the minute Prompto remarked on the lights being on, and yet no one was home.

Prompto woke Noctis at dawn, much to his King’s consternation—but then it’d been Noctis’ demand to be roused with the sun and Prompto found himself only following through. Sure he could easily have ignored the words. It wasn’t like Noctis gave him a royal decree—he hadn’t even used the voice that caused Iggy to stiffen his spine in reaction, or really did things to people in general because it was Noctis and the voice.

Ardyn’s version of the voice was pure rapturous torture and Prompto really didn’t want to think about that because it reminded him how terribly gay he was for his two best friends and they weren’t even available. Noctis had a pretty blonde bride-to-be in Atissia, a Princess in her own right, that he’d met all of a week and never again after. Ardyn had his beautiful Astral-blessed Oracle back in Civitas Lucii that awaited him with a smile and a kiss and the auburn haired man was utterly besotted and no, Prompto refused to get between that.

End all be all Noctis hadn’t used the voice and so Prompto found himself in the unique position of not required to wake Noctis at dawn, yet at the same time required to wake Noctis at dawn. He took to the position with gleeful aplomb, found a pool of water in the canyon, and proceeded to dump it on Noctis’ face. The spluttered look of betrayal, sleep-sodden that it was, was beautifully perfect and Prompto found himself with a wide grin and a giddy bubbling feeling in his chest that only Noctis could make him feel.

“Mornin’!” Prompto cheered, and Noctis groaned and flopped himself over with a heavy sigh and a faint whine.

“It’s too early,” Noctis complained, the words dragged out of him with a torturous groan.

“You said Dawn, Your Majesty,” Prompto teased, and Noctis grabbed his pillow and threw it in Prompto’s direction in response. Prompto laughed and pranced out of the tent, assured that Noctis would follow in short order.

Surely enough, five minutes later Noctis emerged from the tent, dressed, and with a stifled yawn from behind one hand. Prompto moved to quickly disassemble their tent and camping supplies. He nudged Noctis over toward the small can of cold beans to which the King of Lucis pulled a disgusted face at. He looked to Prompto who arched an eyebrow and waited. Noctis’ hate of vegetables of all kinds was well known, and that included beans into the mix. After a moment stare down Noctis took the spoon out of the can and with a scowl stuffed the beans into his mouth. He pulled a face, but Prompto expected that.

The camping supplies were neatly stacked back away into Noctis’ armiger by the time Noctis finished his can of beans. He washed down the taste with a bottle of water from the armiger and a betrayed look at Prompto. Prompto shrugged his shoulders.

“Best I could do,” Prompto said.

“Beans,” Noctis ground out, and left it at that because Prompto knew and Noctis knew that Prompto knew and that was all that mattered. He ate them, so Prompto counted it as a win.

One to one, Noct, the blond thought viciously, and let his grin show when Noctis huffed, annoyed.

After a moment where they stood in their little cavern with the dying light of the magic that Noctis infused, Noctis scrubbed his hand through his still soaked hair with a sigh. They both eyed the exit of the cave contemplatively before Noctis mumbled, “Which direction should we go?”

“Continue the way we were?” Prompto suggested, just the barest hint of concern in his voice that it might be wrong. How would he know where to go? The Blademaster could be anywhere and Taelpar Crag covered from Lestallum to Cape Caem like a giant gash straight through the continent that Lucis existed upon.

“How do you expect to find your friend?” Noctis questioned as they started out. “Do you have some way to—sense him or something?”

Prompto huffed. “I planned to have Cor and Gladio show us the way, then yell really loud once we got there. Maybe call him out for being a coward or something—because seriously who the fuck abandons their godsdamn friend like that?”

Noctis eyed Prompto, and Prompto felt relieved that he didn’t bring up the fact that Cor and Gladio very obviously were not going to bring them to the Tempering Grounds. Prompto was thankful Noctis decided to fuck that decision and drag him down, he just wished it were in another way. Still, Noctis looked off to the side and asked, tone light, “How do you know he abandoned your friend?”

Prompto kicked at a rock. “He’s still here, isn’t he?”

Noctis frowned, and then pointed out logically, “That doesn’t mean he abandoned your friend.” Prompto looked at him with a frown. “You traveled through time, Prom. Ardyn could’ve done the same and—”

Prompto shook his head and muttered a short, “I think I would’ve known if Gil was immortal, Noct. He might’ve been a necromancer but he wasn’t, like, some sort of lich or something.” Noctis fell silent at the phrasing because what. Prompto continued, “There’s no way he could still be around if Ardyn—no,” and Noctis decided to just ignore the former half of Prompto’s rambling as Prompto-brand logic wherein games could be applied to reality in some strange, half-mad way.

The only other thing that left as for why Gilgamesh remained in the world and why Ardyn walked the earth was Divine Punishment, but neither wanted to think about that. Prompto, because that meant something happened when Gilgamesh abandoned Ardyn, and Gilgamesh would never abandon Ardyn as far as Prompto knew. Unless Ardyn commanded it—but Ardyn wouldn’t. He couldn’t—except, Prompto knew, Ardyn would, could, and potentially did and he hated that even moreso.

For Noctis the implication was just as bad in another way, and the young King hated it. He hated how his father kept secrets from him, how people still keep things from him. He hated that Regis died in Insomnia and sent him away—and he hated that somewhere, someone in his line had wronged a member of their family. A member that was stuck living an immortal life for who knows what reason because Noctis surely didn’t! Someone, somewhere, would’ve written it down but it was as if Lucis as a collective whole just forgot and that was wrong. For a moment Noctis stopped walking and clenched his hands into a fist.

No wonder Ardyn lived as the Chancellor of Niflheim. Noctis might’ve done the same in his shoes.

“Uh, Noct?” Prompto spoke up when he registered the look on Noctis’ face—the one where Noctis seemed to be intently contemplating murder—"You okay?”

Noctis shook himself and said, “It’s nothing.” They walked on in silence for another five feet before Noctis said, “Why don’t you?”

Prompto tilted his head. “Why don’t I what?”

Noctis looked at Prompto, brow furrowed and gaze half-distant. “Why don’t you call him out? Yell his name and call him a coward?”

Prompto paused. He wanted to say because he felt fairly certain Gilgamesh couldn’t—wouldn’t—hear him, but he had no reason to really think so. They were in a canyon and sound carried after all and—a small grin crossed Prompto’s face. Noctis blinked.

“Permission to scream at one of my good friends?” Prompto asked, lips quirked up just a titch toward the side of cheeky.

Noctis huffed out a faint laugh, then waved his hand and said faux grandly, “Permission granted.”

Prompto opened his mouth and screamed. Noctis regretted his approval almost instantly as his hands slapped over his ears and he gave Prompto a betrayed look, even as the blond continued to yell as loudly as he could.

“GIL YOU MOTHERFUCKING COWARDLY PIECE OF SHIT GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE SO I CAN KICK IT!”

Gilgamesh felt a stiff breeze within the cavern system and raised his head from the stew he diligently tended toward. With a murmured softness, his own voice amidst the thousands of dead that flocked to him like parasites, Gilgamesh murmured, “An ill omen.” Calmly Gilgamesh pulled the ladle from the stew and with a clenched fist he smothered the flames. A secondary wave of his hand had the stew frozen over in chill hoarfrost of the dead.

The Home of Gilgamesh nestled deep into the cavern system, well passed the bridge he tested those foolish enough to throw their life away at his hands. It made itself of rotted logs and scavenged clothes from the dead and their weaponry, but it worked for Gilgamesh’s purposes, and it worked well. It kept out the worst of the chill, at the very least, and that was all he could ask for in his self-imposed exile.

As Gilgamesh stepped past the threshold of his home his armor began to form around the simple cloth he used as clothing when not in the middle of combat. It came to him on spectral wind and with the faintest charm of shattering glass. Before him knelt ten ghosts of dead long past as he moved, and Gilgamesh paid them no heed. The dead were useless without true form, and these were unthinking pests at best. No, Gilgamesh sought out one with more thought in its head—more recent, more tangible in its shape and belief. He sought out one of the remnants that hadn’t yet fully bound themselves into his service—and he found one, tall, that awaited him near the bridge.

“What news is born on the ill wind?” Gilgamesh questioned. “Another Challenger to Witness, another Soul to claim at the Gates?”

The Spirit shook its head and ducked it low. Gilgamesh ignored the way it trembled—it had years left before it subsumed with the rest, so it remembered its own death and its own failings and that was on the Spirit and not on Gilgamesh. It said, “No, milord.”

“Then what has drawn me to this place, if no Challenger comes—no Soul awaits?” Gilgamesh pulled his mask into hand—wisps of the dead swirled into his palm until it formed heavy to hold.

“A scream on the wind,” the Spirit spoke. “It calls for you.”

“There is no scream to beholden me,” Gilgamesh said, tone short and the Spirit ducked low.

“It calls for you,” the Spirit spoke. “It bids you Coward and names you Gil, the Motherfucker.”

Gilgamesh froze, stiff and as unmoving as the Glacian, and then he murmured, “Oh, he didn’t,” with the falling tones of one long sort of suffering. Gilgamesh took a step and vanished into the sudden mists. He took two more into the fog of the dead, and when he stepped a third time it was to leave the mists and to stand at the front of the Tempering Grounds. Gilgamesh stared, and listened, and waited.

“I SWEAR TO FUCK IF I DON’T SEE YOU IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES I AM GOING TO DROP A FIRAJA ON YOUR ASS SO HARD.”

Gilgamesh settled with a faint shudder at the thought of flames and heat, then slid his mask home. He knew that voice, knew the barely controlled grief within it and the rage that buried itself beneath the waves of childishness and scholastic glee. It was a voice he long, long believed to be lost to the ravages of time and even to his own memory. Had not the Scourge devoured the bright one whole? Or had yet another lie been told to him, in a long list of lies and mockeries of his devotion?

A second and Gilgamesh decided it mattered not. Even if the boy had lived, even if the Scourge had not devoured his brightness, he surely could not exist two thousand years hence that day. The Accursed had his facsimile of life as a Gift from the Draconian—a Curse, in truth—and Gilgamesh’s own choices wrought him here in this world, two thousand years on and well past when he should’ve crossed through the Gates to the Beyond. He breathed in the air, crisp and lacking in the staleness of the cave, and with determination to see this phantom memory to its completion Gilgamesh stepped out into the bright of the sun for the first time in two thousand years.

Once the job was done, this distraction completed, Gilgamesh would return to his cavern home to await his inevitable end with the end of the Night Eternal.

The scene that Cor expected to come upon was not the scene he found himself at. Firstly, they weren’t near the Tempering Grounds in the least, which for a brief moment Cor found himself thankful for. He would never have survived if Regis even suspected he let his boy get into that hell-pit. The man would’ve come back as one of the Lucii and impaled Cor in the worst way imaginable, he had no doubt.

Secondly, the Blademaster was out of his cave. The minute Cor gazed upon the familiar armor, stood across Noctis and Prompto with blade in his singular hand, Cor felt his chest constrict. A half-a-second he thought he might’ve had a heart attack, before he realized he just wasn’t breathing. Cor forced himself to take in a breath and consider the situation before him—yet he didn’t even have that half-second to do so because once Gladio and Ignis registered the situation it went from tense and unusual to completely fucked.

“Noctis!” Ignis screamed, alongside Gladiolus who charged right back at the Blademaster with a yell of, “Get away from them you undead bastard!” and Cor—Cor could do nothing to stop them as they raced into a fight that hadn’t even begun. In the time he’d taken a step—a time where the Blademaster yanked up his sword, followed by six others, all spectral and refracted in the light of the sun, to block Gladiolus’ downswing of the Genji Blade. In that instant Ignis ducked up and under the Blademaster’s guard with his Spelldaggers and slicked into the armor—through it—and into the belly of the swordsman who grunted, surprised.

Cor felt faint. Ignis ducked backward, twisted into a roll, and dodged one blade that flew after him with a faint shimmer of a hand near invisible wrapped around its hilt. Gladiolus shoved the five remaining blades away with the Genji Blade and switched swords to a much heavier broadsword that he slammed down into the ground with a thunderous crash that shook the very earth. As Ignis sweeped back around with his hands wrapped in spellfire Cor’s view of the mess became inexplicably ruined by the telltale ripping of the world through a warp and Noctis’ rather bright smile in his face.

“Hey, Cor,” the young King uttered, completely unfazed by the mess that raged behind him. Cor thought he saw Prompto pull out some giant Nif-made thing but Noctis just moved to block his view and—Cor sighed and found himself reminded of Regis and how Regis would often play distraction to Weskham as he, Clarus, and Cid got themselves into trouble.

“Noctis,” Cor rumbled, tone just on this side of disappointed.

“It’s cool. They got this,” Noctis said instead of anything, and for a moment Cor frowned. Certainly, Gladiolus had bested the Blademaster—the beast gave him the Genji Blade back—but Ignis was foremost an elementalist and not a warrior like Gladiolus and Prompto—Prompto was an unknown, now, Cor admitted silently. “Seriously, Cor, Prom’s got this.”

“Your Majesty,” Cor started when the ground rocked with sudden force and all of Cor’s clothes tugged forward. He could feel his feet dragging in the dust and dirt, even Noctis’ drifted backward as the young King grinned at him with a joy that Cor hadn’t seen in his eyes in a long, long while. Everything had been muted with the young King for so long that Cor thought perhaps the strongest emotion he’d felt had been that anger back in the Tomb, but the pure joy and mischief eclipsed the sudden outburst from before and Cor found himself—still.

Noctis shifted to the side to show Cor what happened, and Cor stared almost breathless at the sight of Prompto between two giant black holes worth of magical energy. One tugged Gladiolus and Ignis backward off of their feet and the other kept the Blademaster in place as the blond glared at him, giant behemoth of a Nif-make weapon in hand.

“See?” Noctis said from beside Cor, who wondered why he even thought these kids weren’t capable of shit. Apparently, they were more than capable of shit and—fuck why did he even leave them alone? Obviously, Cor realized, he’d not been thinking after he left them in Leide. The amount of craziness they got up to was worse then Regis and himself combined and that frightened Cor just the slightest bit.

“Your Highness?” Cor said, voice just barely strangled in surprise.

“I told you,” Noctis said with bright eyes and a wide grin. “Prom’s got this.”

[liveslived]

lavi . 011 . meta .

The part where Bookman and Lavi get captured. Sheryl says bookman was close to the pervious Noah family. And as well had connections to the 14th. I was thinking, doesn't that go again the bookman rule of not being involved with people. I mean like Sheryl did say he as close, but doesn't that mean he was in a relationship with them. I mean as in not romantically. But as in “Friends”, if your close with someone and had connections with them doesn’t that mean your friends? So I was thinking if Bookman became close with them and Lavi, now finding this out. Wouldn’t it hurt him! Because he wants to be close with Allen and the rest but he keeps stopping himself BECAUSE of the bookman rule. I wanted to have your opinion on this, to see if that’s fair or just what your thoughts on this is. Thank you~ I love your blog!  

---

There are, some things I would like to specify before I start my deduction; 1) I never watched the anime, mostly because I prefer written work rather than animated adaptions 9/10 times, so my thoughts will be linked to the manga panel 2) This is mere speculation and personal belief on my end, as I’m far from an expert nor anywhere as dedicated as the majority of the veterans in the fandom are.

    To start off, yes, we are encountered with the confession, or rather, inquiry that Bookman seemed to have “friendly relations” where he was stationed. Though, the term “friendly” does have to various hues to it, see, there are various levels of being friendly, and naturally we tend to think; “oh! This means a friendship!” but it doesn’t have to be friendliness of such a high level. Bookman is a leech, Bookmen are set out in the world to record hidden history, siding with the sides they are told to and therefore act accordingly; naturally would fall into certain traits in order to gain the information you need, and knowing Bookman as an individual we all know that he, most certainly, carries secrets we will never get our hands on. Rather than seeing his relations to the Noah as friendships I would personally think that they are talking about a more profound and professional relation built upon trust, respect and comradeship; a Bookman does what a bookman has to do, basically.

    Of course, there is the comment about how Bookman seemed to be “particularly close with the 14th”, which can have multiple meanings to it; did the 14th hold back knowledge from the rest of the Noah, was he aware of schemes that only Bookman was let in on? Did he, perhaps, become close with the 14th because he knew that something was going to happen to him? Details, details and even more questions to the details pop up as Bookman is, and will always be, a mysterious character.

Personally, I think Bookman chooses to get “close” to people he knows will hold some sort of significance to the world’s history. Throughout books, religions and scripts from all over the world we can see that there is a typical pattern going on; good and evil, light and dark, savior and destroyer, antichrist and Christ; people of significance to the moral of the world, shaping of humanity as well as the general destiny of the world. Possibly (or, we do know that the Bookman clan withholds a lot of information) changes the Bookmen have recorded, witnessed and participated in since the break of dawn. They see patterns, they compare history and subtly stand on the sideline while the world does its thing; progress.

    If, and I say if due to my relation to the Bookman rule, Bookman and the 14th were friends I think Bookman had sneaky intentions behind it; he most likely wanted to find out something about someone, or something (as in the upcoming events, schemes and plans of the Noah). As stated by the wikia, and I quote; “They will, however, form temporary alliances with one or both sides of a conflict in order to gain a more detailed record of war and in return may provide information and/or their skills as warriors.” Once again, it’s all about progress and information. Finding keys and the doors they belong to. It’s hard to say which side they started out on as well, seeing how they are neutral spectators to the world; good or bad doesn’t matter to them as long as they get the desired information they need, no matter what.

    There is also the strange fallout 35 years ago; why did he suddenly break his ties with the Noah? Was it because of the death of an apprentice, did it have something to do with the 14th? Did he grow tired of the gloomy, eccentric family? Or was it just because the air in the war changed? I’m not going to put too much thought into that because I haven’t read the manga in ages, lol.

    So, does this break with the Bookman rule? Eh. Not really. Not as long as Bookman never interfered with the events revolving the Noah, the 14th and the Earl, to be honest. Once again, we tend to put too much emphasize on the friendship parts and whatnot, and friendships are often put in a very “simple” argument. What even is a friendship? When do you call someone a friend? When does your relation start affecting your life choices? …as a Pedagogy student I can clearly say that people will always have some sort of effect on your choices, no matter the relation, but that’s not quite the point. Once again I refer to the wikia, quote;

“Bookmen must not interfere with the events of history, and act only as observers.”

    As I mentioned; they are only going to record history. Nothing else matters. They are machines with a pen, basically, and the shitty thing that could happen would be if they started taking sides during an event; good vs evil, that sort of stuff. But also, friendships (as you have based your ask off). Being biased would, most likely, have an effect on the events of history, if you let them; I think Bookman tend to emphasize the friendship part to Lavi because he is still so young. His mind is burdened but it isn’t fully developed yet. Here I quote Sandra Aamodt from transcript “Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years” where she says the following; “…brain scans show clearly that the brain is not fully finished developing until about age 25.”

    Bookman most likely uses a language Lavi will understand better, seeing how he tends to be sort of emotional from time to time, in such as he warms up to people and make them trust him. Lavi is still a boy, sort of, but he’s a boy who has gone through a lot.

    Now, would it hurt Lavi to hear that his master m I g h t have had some close connections in his younger years? Personally, I don’t think so, because Lavi know what being a bookman means and what the profession demands of you. Bookman most likely had his reasons for trying to get close to the 14th, something Lavi (as a fellow Bookman to be) would and could relate to. Lavi knows what sort of job he has gotten himself into. If anything, he would most likely be more insecure about the past of his master; being with the Noah would indicate that they had affiliations with the “bad” side, meaning that there could be some unsolved business between them, etc.

    Bring back the merciless Deak, Deak wouldn’t have given a fuck. I liked Deak. But yeah, to sum up this long babble, here are some keynotes of what I was trying to say:

        I don’t believe Bookman was a friend to anyone. He was most likely “professionally” close to the parts he engaged with in order to gain information.

        The bookman rule says to not interfere with events, becoming biased towards people/sides, therefore one can work their way around it as long as they stay professional (a very important keyword in the entirety of Bookmen).

        Friends, close and friendship have so many nuances to them so it’s hard to interpret their level and meaning in written, spoken and adapted sense (we also have the scary pit of things getting lost in translation as well).

        Lavi might want to be close with people, but he has been an apprentice long enough to know that he Can’t Have Friends Due To Being A Bookman and if he ended up getting whiny about it he shouldn’t be a Bookman (that’s my inner Bookman channeling my opinion).

        Being a Bookman is not just a job, it’s a life. Sacrifices must be made.

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, so still trying to figure out rent and just taking a little break to eat lunch, and like, breathe, lol, but unfortunately still not all that close to solving that. I’ve only gotten one donation, which while much appreciated! does not really change the situation as much as I need. However, I did have another idea, though its fairly weird and unconventional. Look, I’m going outside of the box here people. I left the box behind months ago. LOL. Everything is outside of the box these days, so expect the weird and unconventional. This is the blog of a desperate man! 

One still preoccupied with fandom and discourse nonsense, because like, I need to at least fake having a life outside of constant desperation, lmfao, but like...still very much a desperate man, and so these posts aren’t gonna stop reeking of desperation and ridiculous requests anytime soon, lolol. I don’t blame anyone for unfollowing at any time, and hey if you do, please consider checking back in a year or so to see if I’ve like...become closer to non-ridiculous in the time since, but like. Hey, I get it. Some of these posts get weird and desperate and that’s not anyone’s idea of a happy fun time. I’ve made a deal with the universe though. When IT stops being ridiculous to me, I’ll stop being ridiculous too. 

Anyway.

So after wasting most of the day trying to get on the actual phone with someone at Apple who knows how their card actually works and why it does and doesn’t do various things, I ended up with the not super helpful answer that there just IS no way to do what I was trying to do with it. Because its so unconventional, part of the way the Apple Card works is that like, Apple has direct relationships with each of the places they’ve worked it out to let it be used like a normal credit card, so the fact that it is technically a Mastercard doesn’t mean as much as I’d hoped. Because one of the places they DON’T have specific angles negotiated with is Paypal itself, so like....you can use a side function of the Apple Card called Apple Cash Pay (basically the cash back feature attached to the credit card as part of its offer)...like that, you can transfer to and via Paypal....but the actual card itself, Paypal won’t accept as a valid credit card. Even though it is in every other way, lol. SIGH. So bottom line, there just is no way for me to send money to myself via that card and then transfer from there to my bank.

SO! Outside the box thinking, here’s where it gets weird if it hadn’t already....the thing is, the card does still work fine and the same as any other card with most online retailers, like Amazon, etc. Which would be great if I needed to buy things from any of them, but as my needs are simple and confined to just food, monthly insurance fees and a roof over my head, and the latter two are not stocked at Amazon or anywhere else....again. The source of my problem.

BUT! If anyone ELSE who’s a mutual or follows me or follows a mutual or just sees this and thinks that hey this guy seems like the real deal and is probably not a scam artist trying to sell me on my rightful inheritance of some overseas country if I just supply my banking information here....lol (trust me, I get and approve of any and all caution)...

Like, point being, if anyone IS willing to jump through a couple fairly simple hoops to make this happen, via message or email or chat or whatever works best for you, and you have like....a sizable purchase you need to make from Amazon or some other major online retailer, like TODAY, like you were already planning on it today or in the next couple of days anyway.....I could input your address as the shipping address, show you screenshots of that before proceeding so you can verify its all accurate, then make the purchase with my Apple Card, forward you any verification emails/tracking information along with screenshots showing the receipt, tracking information, that it was all accepted and approved of, etc. 

And then you can send me the money you were going to use for that purchase via paypal, just by whatever means, like, again Paypal lets you send money with a credit card even, as long as its a ‘normal’ one, lol, its just I’ve literally tapped out both my normal credits this month already, using them to pay this month’s insurance and out of pocket medical bills.

I realize there’s still a sketch factor involved here for anyone who doesn’t like, KNOW me know me, or interact with me regularly, as I don’t think there’s any way around me at least needing A physical address from you to have your purchase sent to, but I mean, I promise to delete that info as soon as its done, for whatever that’s worth. And I definitely promise to forget about it like, five seconds later as hell, I don’t remember the address of the place I lived five years ago. I’m really shitty at addresses or well, anything involving numbers really. Its a thing.

So I mean, I’m aware I’m a loud excitable, umm, passionate guy, let’s go with, who probably shows up on a lot of peoples’ dash in that kind of context more often than not, lol, but I do try my best to come across as trustworthy and true to my word and not out to screw anyone over, even people I actively hate, lol, so....if you’re willing to take a chance on this to help me out, please let me know and we’ll figure out some way to make this work. If you’re on any level concerned about giving me that information or that I might doxx you or some shit in the future, like, there’s really only so much I can do to reassure people that I’m not that kinda guy, so if this is in any way still a doubt or concern for you, I encourage you to not take that chance and subject yourself to that particular ongoing bit of anxiety, like. Trust me. I get it. 

I have anxiety issues out the wazoo. I still occasionally fret about my belief that a friend I haven’t talked to in like ten years, like secretly hated me because of some obscure reason when like, who the fuck cares, why does it matter? “Just does,” my brain says, like the helpful bitch it is. So trust me. I TOTALLY get hesitation about this weird ball request, I do NOT begrudge anyone their caution or want to set a precedent for people to be anymore LESS cautious online in any way, shape or form, like its a fucked up internet, lads, take care of yourself, PLEASE.

Again, this is simply the out of wedlock love child of desperation plus outside the box thinking equals ridiculous requests! So....it is what it is, lol, I’m not pretending its anything other than that. But anyone who doesn’t mind what it is and wants to help me out, lemme know! As soon as possible, if at all possible, as I can see the manager’s office from my window and he is definitely eyeing my door with Intent at this point.

(Oh yeah and because its always my most time-pertinent posts that end up still in circulation years after they’re relevant, this post is time stamped 3 pm, Pacific time, October 17th, 2019, lololol. That is the particular time of urgency. Any future readers of this post in the year 2023, I appreciate your concern, but like, I hopefully don’t still need you to hit me up about this at that point, lolol).