ACE

[ballies]

(pirate noises)

Comments

[selfimmolation]

[ the mustache is the most important part. ]

I'm not worried about stuff like that. [ that is a later problem!! ] I'm not going to hide Whitebeard's mark unless I have to.

[ballies]

[ it’s amazing. ]

You named your tattoo Whitebeard?

[ it doesn’t have a beard…… ace… ace… it doesn’t have a bEA— ]

[selfimmolation]

That'd be pretty messed up! [ he's dying ] No, that's my captain! I'm part of Whitebeard's crew, and this is his jolly roger. Our flag.

[ in case she doesn't like. know. pirate terms. ]

[ballies]

[ ……………………………. ]

Like a … pirate?

[selfimmolation]

Did I not say I was? I haven't exactly been keeping it a secret.

[ballies]

It hasn’t come up. [ arrests him immediately — no. ]

The Golden Age of piracy ended nearly 300 years ago where I’m from.

[selfimmolation]

Huh. [ huh. ] Well, the Great Age of piracy's been going on for... about twenty two years.

[ballies]

[ huh. ]

So you’re from… the 1670s…?

[selfimmolation]

We don't count years like that, so I'm pretty sure I'm just not from your world at all.

[ballies]

[ she pulls a face. hhrbrrbrbrbrbldgljdf. ]

There’s a ton of alternate world theories out there, but it is weird to have literal proof of it right in front of your face, not just pure speculation.

[selfimmolation]

I don't know anything about those. Temenos was the first one to mention it was probably the case when we talked geography. I was pretty shocked.

[ says it like haha silly :) like there was no mini mental aaaaaa??? ]

But everyone's worlds seem to have a lot more land than mine does. We've only got one continent and it's the Red Line.

[ballies]

There are people out there who believe the word is a simulation. And I mean a lot of people — some who want to leave it behind, and others who want to remain in the simulation to act without consequence. People’ll believe anything.

This is a little more solid though. There are definitely no pirates where I’m from — or, not to the extent there were in the past.

[ … huh. ]

The world is something like 70 per cent or more ocean. You’re saying yours is more?

[selfimmolation]

[ what the fuck is a simulation. but anyway he shrugs and starts to look around the university store curiously ]

I don't think anyone has ever made a percentage like that? But the world's never been fully mapped out either. [ lol. ] Everyone lives on different islands scattered across the world. From what I got, that's not common?

[ballies]

… If you want to get technical, every world with land and oceans are just a bunch of islands surrounded by water. But we tend to define ‘islands’ as the little land masses, not the huge ones.

[ picky. ]

Can’t imagine the world not being fully mapped though… I know mine wasn’t at some point in time, but it’s been mapped for long enough there’s not a person alive that remembers a time it wasn’t.

[selfimmolation]

The way I've heard it described, a lot of you can live way too far from the sea to count as an island.

[ don't nitpick his basic idea of geography he never went to school ]

Is that why there's no more pirates? It must be pretty boring having nothing new to find.

[ballies]

... Tokyo's not landlocked, but there are definitely parts of Japan that are. Although we are classed as an island.

[ that sounds like a him problem. ]

Oh, there's plenty to find. People have just moved on to sciences, technology and the stars.

[selfimmolation]

I've heard that Japan place a lot...

[ oh!!! ]

Like with astronauts, right? Danny talked about those. Space exploration isn't really a thing back home!

[ what ace doesn't know: a man is currently on the moon. don't ask. ]

[ballies]

I know at least two of us are from there.

[ heeeyyy!! he knows something!! ]

Yeah! It's become a lot more popular recently -- lots of rich assholes trying to be the first to get people going into space for fun rather than science.

[ i promise you, zia, i will not ask for elaboration on one piece. ever. ]

[selfimmolation]

Huh. I don't think rich people travel that much back home. Definitely not anywhere dangerous on top of that. They're too busy looking down on the rest of the world.

[ballies]

They still manage to do that. But now they're also in a dick waving contest to see who can get into space commercially first, and start charging rich people even more money.

[selfimmolation]

Maybe you should let them go off to space. Maybe you'd be better off.

[ballies]

They'll come back though.

[selfimmolation]

They might not!

[ballies]

The world can only dream.

[selfimmolation]

[ just. laughing. ]

Forget rich people for a second. What do you do, anyway? Besides tie people up.