#are there even any words left

[hussyknee]

They shot Wael and his cameraman Samer while they were covering an IOF raiding a school in Khan Younis. Both in critical condition.

Edit: Samer was martyred. He was seriously injured and tried to crawl to a nearby school, and lay bleeding inside it for more than 5 hours while the IOF prevented ambulances from getting to him. By the time they got to him it was too late. Wael is okay.

How many journalists is it now? 91? 92?

[tapakah0]

Song

[callizinc]

Ena in Dream BBQ and Work Culture

HELLO Dashboard!! Ever since i first played DBBQ i've found the entire game endlessly interesting (as have most people, LOL) But one of the most interesting, and in my opinion, most Potent things, is Ena's character and how she relates to the game's commentary on modern work culture.

So for anyone as much of a #SICKO as me 😭 Here's an embarrassingly long analysis of just that! There's SO much to talk about with this game, and even when I'm trying to focus on one specific idea with this post, I'm sure I'll still miss things, so just stick with me best you can OK? 😭 😭

My aim for this post is to allow you to understand Just how deep in the torment nexus Ena is, and to want to say "she should be at the club" Only to realize she can't even go to the club. She can't even go to the club. Because of Job. (Among other, hopefully more intelligently articulated things!)

SO, Let's just jump right in :D

First, to state the obvious—Ena's literal entire life is her job. The only moods she expresses under normal circumstance are "smooth talking salesperson where every line is about working or trying to sell something" and "Stops keeping up the veneer and gets frustrated and pissed because she hates her stupid job."

This permeates every aspect of her character—I don't think there's a single line in the game so far where she says like, Anything about herself. There's nothing about what she may want or what she may like. It's all about her fuckass job or the fuckass Boss.

And of course, even in gameplay aspects, you literally don't get a chance to choose whether you accept a job or not, like the thought of doing anything besides giving her time and energy for other people or her job's benefit doesn't even occur to her (Or, it can't occur to her—I doubt the Boss would want to allow her reprieve from anything at all, and I'm sure Ena would know this).

(^ Ena's reaction to being told to find a mythical figure that she maybe didn't even know existed cause Froggy sure as hell didn't to do a stupid job for Froggy's stupid ass. Like)

Maybe i'm reaching here, but I even find it interesting how her red hand has no fingers (besides a thumb). I feel like that represents a lack of individuality she has when she's in Salesperson mode, or at least, a lack of individuality she's been allowed. A lack of having a defined being cause it's all about this stupid job.

There's lots of avenues to go from here, but let's start with another big point of the game: Everybody hates her. Except for like, three characters, every NPC in the game either insults her, talks down to her, blatantly doesn't respect her, or Literally tells her nobody should be punished for being born except her. Typical day for Ena.

I'm not going to get into why I think this is—for me there's not enough evidence to speculate with surety right now—but I think this does tie strongly into her commitment to her job. Ena working her ass off in every aspect of her life and earning nothing but disrespect for it is very reminiscent of real life work environments.

Think of how almost every NPC claims they are "the Boss" in such a way that many of them seem to want to be the Boss, like he's some kind of well-known or respected figure. The description for the game on Steam even says as much: "Play as ENA as she searches for the Boss that everyone wants to be."

(eg: "I am the B-O-S-S!"):

People wish they were the Boss, they want to be some kind of rich capitalist with power and fame, but when looking at someone who actually works for him, and probably is the reason the Boss has profit and success in the first place, they insult her and demean her no matter how much she gives herself to them and the Boss. I'm sure you can see the real life parallels here.

It's even possible one of the reasons Ena works so hard in the first place is as an attempt to earn respect from these people, or to make up for whatever everyone thinks she did that made everyone hate her so much. Especially considering...

Our society is one that tells its people that Work is unequivocally Good. Committing yourself to work is what everyone, no matter who they are or what they face, is what you have to do to be a valuable member of society, and to have any respect from other people in the slightest. It tells its people that you only have value as a living human being at all if you give your life to work.

Even though this blatantly isn't true. If people think you're the Wrong type of worker, or if people think your work isn't valuable, helpful, or that it doesn't require skill, you can work as hard as you want but you'll still be treated like shit. But, hey, work is still your duty as a member of society, right? Stop bitching and whining and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right?

Needless to say, it's easy to see how this whole idea is being represented in DBBQ. She even knows how much she's sold herself to this, she just... Seems to have extremely casually accepted it all LOL, which, I mean... What else does she have the power to do?

This very casual and nonchalant acknowledgement of her lack of autonomy connects to another big point: Ena doesn't value herself, nor does she even know how to exist without being in a constant state of working.

Let's talk about the Purge: There's a LOT to get to here in terms of Ena herself LOL, but the intrigue starts before she even enters the party. Literally Froggy just saying she's about to enter an "Event" stops her in her tracks and worries her. Not to mention the next line...

This feels like an indication that despite how much she commits herself to it, Ena does "crave freedom" from her shitty job, although she can scarcely admit this anywhere else so far. Then, if you talk to this slime guy, you get some strange text.

As far as I know, the text for interacting with things doesn't look like this anywhere else in the game. And given that it looks exactly the same as how Ena's lines do in the Purge, it's seemingly the only peek we get into her internal monologue, and it is. Quite worrying! She literally can climb up a hellish freezing floating mountain and yet this is by far the most freaked out she gets in the entire game.

And then to actually get into the Purge, an Evil eye Ball tells her that she needs to give a literal arm or a leg to get in. And she just does it. Like no hesitation no further questions she just gives it away to the evil eye ball. Presumably for Good? Because the only reason she regains the arm later is because of Genie magic? Like Ena. Girl. Are we gonna talk about this at all.

But so many real life work environments expect you to give every part of yourself in order to be allowed to exist and live in society, including your physical being and critical parts of your personhood at all.

(Let me also say I find it intentional that she gave away her white arm. Whereas her red hand literally doesn't have fingers, the sharp claws she has on her white hand represent the individuality and unique identity she Does have. However, it's also the part of herself that's in conflict with her ability to be a Good Worker, that always does exactly what she's supposed to do, and never complains, and never gets in the way of her duties.)

She was already very distressed here, but it's a clear indication of how little she values herself. It was a motion to lose a part of herself just to reach the Genie, both for her stupid job, and possibly for the possibility of "freedom" from it all. And your average job these days—no matter how important you are to your cause—will drill it into you that your ability to be a good worker is infinitely more important than your existence as a person. It's easy to see how Ena may have internalized that.

And then she goes to the club one time and this happens

I won't get too deep into her dialogue with the NPCs here because I think their intention is pretty clear; Being in a place so antithetical to a work environment, and a place where she's supposed to let loose and have fun, is so distressing and impossible to even fathom for her that This Happens.

(see: "H-How can I leave this stupid event? M-my lame schedule is full,")

Like, everything at the Purge is insane, but this is a particularly heartbreaking line for me. One because of her job's shitty environment that's broken her down so much—do you think she EVER gets a break, because I sure don't—but also because of how it's conditioned her to not even believe she can "afford another minute of joy." Ena :[

Note how she's covered in these branches that started growing during Froggy's phone call, which look very similar to how she looks in this gag with the Shaman—it's literally her nervous system. In her scene with Mitu she even says she's feeling "sick," She's literally freaked out of her flipping Gourd with her goddamn Nerves On The Outside

Hell, even though Meanie's speaking (which, I mean, no shit, in another line she literally describes her job as "deplorable" 😭), these sprites in the files are actually labelled "Anxiety", suggesting that she's SO freaked out by being somewhere supposed to be so opposite to her work she's become another variant of herself, a la Drunk Ena from Season 1.

I won't get much more into this, because @cube-cumb3r has a PHENOMENAL post I'll link in the notes that goes deeper into this stuff from the Purge and the "Anxiety" thing, And also gets more into theory territory than I do here! Please please go read that post, it is so damn good.

In any case, I think the scenes with the Purge NPCs are the biggest examples in the whole game of how much she hates her fuckass job, yet she can't be allowed to be anything besides a wage slave to it. And just as she's internalized everybody in her world's dislike of her, she hates herself for it.

So:

We've established that Ena's shitty job parallels the real life work conditions that plague our world, and that these conditions have caused her to devalue herself and believe she can't have any reprieve from them... but, what even is her job?

Apparently she's a salesperson, but what is she even selling? She tries to offer a "divestment opportunity", and tells the Witches she can show them how to "grow [their] own [boss]" which definitely falls in line with the Sales thing, but besides that it's still not clear, even when she talks to Froggy.

I suppose the "grow their own boss" line does sound a lot like the phrasing used in MLM schemes, with how they lure people in by telling them they can "be their own boss." The Receptionist also calls Ena a scammer and a conman, so maybe she is a sort of scammer, but, I also don't exactly think the Receptionist think she has the most reliable opinions of Ena LOL

She also calls her a "pink-collar slug", pink collar meaning a job traditionally associated with women, which. ??? I don't fully know where to go with that.. like ...Nothing she does harkens to... Any kind of job expected to be done by women, imo?? Um. Yeah idk i just thought that may be significant??/ 😭😭😭😭 Listen man I can't know it all

Anyway. Maybe I'll be proven embarrassingly wrong when we receive more information in future chapters, but I think the lack of clarity on what she's supposed to be is representative of the games themes. The constant disrespect Ena receives makes her seem likely to be a low-tier worker, someone at the bottom of the ladder that people have no problems walking all over.

Because these types of jobs will treat you the same no matter who you are or what you're supposed to be doing. She's doing what the world tells her she needs to do in order to be a respected member of society, and yet she's also someone people feel comfortable treating poorly because she's at the bottom—because has no power of her own. It doesn't matter what she's supposed to be doing, it matters that she's the Wrong type of worker.

And how is she supposed to ever say anything for herself? It seems virtually baked into her Salesperson side to completely ignore past all the rude things these assholes say to her. After all, not only would that probably just make most people ruder to her (and impede her ability to complete jobs for them) isn't the customer always right?

...OK I will say her whole "Understood! Aim for the target!" line DOES seem like her overall job here is to fucking kill the Boss, but this is long enough already and the likely theme of Ena having a violent streak and whatnot is another beast entirely that I am NOT getting into here 😭😭

Besides, maybe she has no clearly defined job because we've already seen exactly what it is. To sell her life, time, and emotions to whatever all these clowns ask of her, and to receive no reward besides another goddamn job to do.

I think future chapters may delve more into Ena's true feelings on her situation, and possibly even how she'll get freedom from it. Allow me to mention the scenes with Theodora, wherein if you try to "aspire to receive a blissful life" Theodora just tells Ena "You can't aspire for more than what you are capable of." (LIKE OKAYYYY.... RUDE MUCH????)

Until, finally:

How is her mind—containing a desire for freedom—supposed to be in harmony with the letters it spits out, when she's been so conditioned that the only thing she's allowed to be is a worker?

Now, even I still have a lot of questions after this. Like: What has happened in Ena's past that made her this way? How and why did she take this job in the first place? What is up with the "Guys wait, I'm not doing what you say I'm doing" scene I literally didn't even mention that once here. Why should nobody be punished for being born except poor damn Ena, and does it relate to any of the themes I just talked about?

I... don't know. Like I actually truly have no idea. But I have confidence, even if it's in a delightfully vague and abstract Ena-typical way, that we'll find out eventually.

[szilverer]

y'know... for a setting that places so much importance in Language and does so many ice cool things playing with it (Correspondence/Discordance, Parabola & Irem, etc) i think there's a bit of a missed opportunity when it comes to the terms and words people use in their day to day life... like for example:

do you think radical revolutionaries would avoid words like "enlightening" in their vocabulary and flip them for LON-appropriate counterparts to signal their beliefs?

like substituting the word "light" with "blight". lol

similarly, pet names relating to light like "sunshine" kinda have a whole extra flavour tied to them, leaning into nostalgia, melancholy and/or danger depending on the people using it. irony, even

"honey" as a pet name also has extra connotations now and might actually bother some people instead due to the association with the drug...

do you think SMEN, taboo as it is, and seeking being a recognizable phenomenon even to the common londoner, would spawn swear words and insults? (imagine the weight of telling someone to Go Seek or Fall Down a Well)

the word "well" itself. well as an adverb, interjection, adjective. just. think about it. think about what it represents. idk something is happening to this word for sure

[avicecaro]

like if i was a guy and i had a little brother who worshipped me to the point that he thought having sex with me was functionally no different from any other way he would normally serve and please me. i think i’d have a little more to say than “you can go ahead and keep on feeling the same way about me and having the same dynamic with me, just don’t make it weird again” y’know?

[akkivee]

saw a tweet that pointed out that rei’s speakers are a ref to seele from evangelion and that’s like, a whole can of worms i need time to unpack lmao but one thing i noticed about rei’s speakers now that i’ve been told i should really be looking at them lmao was the text underneath those zeros!!!! the rhyme anima➕ art book included the back of the speakers in a small png, so it was previously unreadable for me, but!!!!

after some finagling to get a clear enough shot, from what i can see, that says hypnosismic -authentic- 零式 which translates to ‘type zero’. in eva, seele is a basically an oversight organisation, presumably made of 12 members (in reference to jesus’s 12 disciples) and it’s also assumed each number represents when each member joined the organisation. zero type i think implies this plenty on its own lol but coupled with that ref, maybe the mic rei’s been using this whole time is the very first ever completed mic, something outside of what he created for chuuoku 🤔

[cheriafreya]

the decline of the kingdom hearts fandom needs to be studied 😭 as a former fan myself it's so funny to me how hyped everyone was 10 years ago and how no one cares about it nowadays

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[iamanartichoke]

Most people: Oh, I don't want to leave comments on old fics or leave too many comments, the author might think it's weird.

Me, when a reader reads my old stories and leaves a comment on almost every single chapter: Oh, my god, how do I express how grateful I am and how much their comments have meant to me and allowed me to go back and re-explore some of my fic and slide a little further down my Loki Era 2.0 slope and just - thank you - without the reader thinking I'm weird?

[maddie-grove]

The way a lot of people talk about the "male loneliness epidemic" and its effect on politics is so bizarre to me. I have not noticed that being conventionally successful (rich, well-liked, attractive, happy with their situation in life, etc.) consistently makes men less shitty about women. A man just does not need to have a lot of problems to blame them all on women. The problem can literally be "I sense that one woman at this social gathering doesn't like me all that much." The problem can be "I think that this woman, whom I don't want to date, has overly high standards for dating that I personally meet." The problem can be "women don't laugh when I make super-mean personal jokes about them." I'm sure sometimes it's easier for men to be nice when things are going well for them, but it's far from a guarantee.

[weisshapt]

doing very serious and professional and formal academic work here.

[sunsetzer]

Movie tie-in games are kind of a thing of the past, (I hate saying this, it makes me feel so old, this was big in the 2000s/early 2010s damnit that wasn't that long ago 😭) but god do I want a TF One game so badly. Mostly I just want more TF One, and if we've managed to collectively save it from Badly Marketed Movies Hell where it was going to rot alongside the likes of Disney's Treasure Planet due to Paramount's nonexistent marketing, it'll be at least like two years until TF Two and the lack of marketing material means we have Nothing but the film itself in terms of official content. A tie-in game would be so dope, give me an RPG set in TF One's continuity where I can make my own little robot blorbo and choose a side. I think it could work really well with the movie's worldbuilding and where it left off.

[fowlfics]

So there's this post that went "three person poly relationship made up of two people who are already dating trying to coax someone with horrific self worth issues into a loving relationship. stray cat style"

and then @deadnamedblog went "#This is my favourite Marco/Ace/Thatch take" and the hamsters in my brain decided to toss it in the blender along with the "subtle foreshadowing" tiktok trend: this is the result xD

also S/O to @saraisanamazingcow aka the most amazing cow and The Hype Squad Leader ever o7

i'll just say this is very canon complicit [sic], and in fact makes canon worse despite how deceptively fluffy it appears xD

***

After being together for over half a decade, there were times when Marco could understand Thatch without a single word spoken. 

Significant looks spoke volumes, and the glance Thatch had tossed him over Ace’s head as they brought him dinner was a message Marco had received quite clearly. 

Still, it didn’t stop Thatch from voicing it the moment they were alone in Marco’s cabin. 

“We’re keeping him, right?” 

“If he decides to join the crew-yoi,” Marco responded dryly, hanging his shirt over the back of a chair. 

Thatch draped over his back immediately, hands sneaking around Marco’s waist. “Y’know what I meant,” he said, breath ghosting against Marco’s neck and hairdo tickling against his chin. “I’m not blind, dear, I can see the way you look at him.” 

Marco tilted his head, raising an eyebrow at Thatch’s shit-eating grin. In a practiced move, he shifted them, crab-like, until they reached the bed, climbing under the covers. 

“We’re in agreement-yoi,” he said then, picking the conversation right back up. “But my answer’s the same; We can make the offer, but we can hardly force him to accept-yoi.” 

“We could bribe him,” Thatch offered instantly. “He loves food-” 

Marco rolled his eyes, pulling his boyfriend closer. “Let him join the crew first before planning our marriage, hm?”

***

There’s no

*** 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Thatch asked, as if the fact that Ace was willingly clinging to his hand wasn’t something he was going to brag about for the next week. 

“Yeah,” Ace nodded; At least, as much as he could while lying on his stomach. “If I’m gonna join the crew, I’m gonna do it right.” 

“You don’t have to get the tattoo, y’know-yoi,” Marco said, preparing the tattoo gun. Ace had specifically requested that he be the one to tattoo him, and he was finding it difficult not to preen over that choice. 

Ace craned his neck to look over at him, glancing between his face and chest pointedly. 

Marco rolled his eyes. “That’s different-yoi. I got the tattoo before the jolly roger was even solidified-yoi.” 

“So you’re saying you started the tradition?” 

Thatch snorted, making himself more comfortable beside Ace. “He does have a point, though,” he said. “It’s hardly a requirement. There’s plenty of crew who don't have the tattoo, and Pops would never expect this kind of commitment.” 

“I want to, though,” Ace repeated stubbornly, letting go of Thatch’s hand to trace the crossed out S of his other tattoo. “I want to celebrate the gain of a family, not the loss of one.” 

Marco had a feeling that tattoo had more to it than the “drunken mistake” most assumed it to be. 

“You’re the type to get a tattoo of your partners’ initials in a heart, aren’t you?” Thatch teased, and Marco had no doubt he meant partners, plural, even if the word sounded exactly the same as the singular. 

Ace spluttered, but settled down easily when Marco pressed a palm against his shoulder. 

“Well, maybe,” he mumbled into the pillow under his head. “Dunno. Never been in a relationship before.” 

Marco exchanged a look with Thatch, his partner’s refusal of getting any tattoos crumbling in real time. 

Something to discuss after getting the jolly roger onto Ace’s skin, he supposed. 

***

There’s no mention

*** 

Marco could hear them coming from a ridiculous distance, and it was even worse considering how shit his devil fruit made his hearing. 

There was a string of thumps—as if, for example, someone kept walking into walls and other obstacles—followed by increasingly annoyed exclamations of pain and consistently insincere apologies. 

“Damn it, Thatch, why did you want to blindfold me if you’re this shit at guiding?!” 

“Well, I did intend to carry you-” 

“So you could knock my head into every doorframe? No way!” 

“Ace, come on-” 

Judging by the loud thumps of boots on the stairs, Thatch lost that particular argument. 

Funnily enough, Ace seemed to be doing better without Thatch’s guidance, at least until coming out onto the deck. Marco managed to catch him before he walked right into their food, thankfully.

“Y’know, if you had your observation haki trained, this would have been a piece of cake-yoi,” he said as Ace removed the blindfold. 

Thatch, having finally caught up, scowled at seeing Ace in Marco’s arms. 

“Eh, I got a nice cake right here,” Ace snickered, clearly referring to Marco if the speed of the correction was anything to go by. “On the floor, I mean. At my feet-” 

Marco sat down at the blanket right by Ace’s feet, just to have some petty fun. 

Thatch settled beside him, pulling Ace along. He got started on serving the food immediately, correctly predicting it was the fastest way to get Ace to stop sulking. 

And, once it seemed like the unorthodox way of getting him to the picnic was fully forgiven… time had come to ask The Question. 

With one last look towards Thatch, Marco leaned against Ace’s side, sandwiching him in between them. 

“We had a question for you-yoi,” Marco said, his voice low. 

“Mhm?” They didn’t have Ace’s full attention, but this was something they factored in when deciding to do this over a meal. Thatch picked up where Marco left off. 

“Would you join our rela-?” 

A loud snore interrupted him, Ace’s entire body going lax as his head tumbled against Thatch’s chest. He never dropped the drumstick in his grip, though. 

Marco couldn’t help but laugh. 

“He’s got the wildest timing,” he shook his head, grabbing a napkin to wipe Ace’s face before he could rub the grease into Thatch’s shirt. 

“Just like the rest of him.” 

***

There’s no mention of Thatch

*** 

Thatch’s next great idea was trying to leave a message written on Ace’s food, which didn’t work out thanks to the combination of two factors: Ace being nearly illiterate, and the speed at which he devoured anything edible placed before him. 

Figuring that being circuitous would get them nowhere fast, Marco decided to take matters into his own hands. 

“Ace,” he put his hand down on Ace’s shoulder, waiting until he had his full attention. “You know how Thatch and I are in a relationship?” 

Ace blinked at him, swallowing the bite in his mouth and not immediately going for another. 

“Yeah?” 

“We were wondering if you’d like to join us.” 

This got Ace to put his food back on the plate, turning towards Marco fully. 

“What?” He asked, his voice quieter than Marco ever heard him. “What do you mean?” 

Thatch decided to join in, crowding against Ace from the other side of the bench. “See, when three pirates love each other very much-”

In a blink of an eye, Ace was gone, flash of sparks the only sign of where he went. 

Marco and Thatch were left staring at each other. 

“...Too much?” 

“Think the love spooked him off.” 

***

There’s no mention of Thatch in the article

*** 

Courting Ace was like trying to tame a wild animal; Move too fast and he’d scamper off, hiding in some dark corner until the imagined danger passed. 

Getting him to accept the fact that they wanted to spend time with him, that their affection wasn’t a trick, was like pulling teeth. 

But they had to be patient. They made their intentions clear, and Ace would come to them if he was interested in accepting their offer. 

Marco had talked to Ace—other than the regular conversations pertaining to their duties—and he knew that Thatch had, too. Explaining where they were coming from, and that Ace was free to reject them if this wasn’t something he wanted. 

With this being his first relationship, rushing him to make a decision he might regret later was not something they wanted to do.

But… They didn’t want to just give up, either. 

The patience finally paid off one evening. Marco had nearly missed the knock on his doors, quiet as it was. Glancing over to make sure Thatch was decent—his partner was procrastinating on getting in bed in favour of leafing through a Devil Fruits encyclopedia—he walked over to the doors, opening it while hoping there was no emergency waiting on the other side. 

But, no; There was no emergency, just Ace. He looked uncertain, his shoulders sloped as he hugged himself. But when Marco opened the doors, he straightened to look him in the eye. 

“Are you-” He hesitated. “Is the offer still-?”

Marco opened the doors wider, stepping aside to let Ace in. 

With a deep breath to brace himself, Ace crossed the threshold. 

“Ace!” Thatch nearly fell off the chair in his excitement, the book instantly forgotten. “Does this mean-?” 

“If… If you’ll have me.” 

The fist pump and little victory dance Thatch proceed to do seemed to have real-time effect on making Ace feel more comfortable, which was the only reason why Marco decided not to tease him about it. 

“Wait, I gotta,” Thatch scrambled towards a pile of stuff he kept in the corner of Marco’s room, despite having been offered a cupboard of his own multiple times. “Can’t leave this here!” 

“Your devil fruit?” Ace tilted his head, curiosity making him relax some more. “Why not? It’s not like either me or Marco can eat it-” 

“Exactly!” Thatch kept the fruit in a tight grip as he ruffled Ace’s hair. “Have you seen yourself? You eat anything put in front of you, I’m not risking you sleep-eating this thing!” 

“I wouldn’t-” 

“No, he’s right,” Marco sat down on his bed. “Sometimes, you fall asleep at dinner and you just keep going-”

“And I’m not about to lose my new boyfriend on the very first night!” 

Ace blushed at the words, but didn’t run away this time. 

“Okay,” he mumbled, and Thatch couldn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss against his forehead. 

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, darting out of the room. 

At Marco’s encouraging pat, Ace settled next to him as they waited. 

And waited. 

And…

***

There’s no mention of Thatch in the article on Paramount War.

[usertoxicyaoi]

"What's wrong? Is your stomach hurting again?"

STAY WITH ME (2023). Episode 19.

[quirkle2]

mogami arc thoughts. posting this feels like getting skewered in the town square

[longagoitwastuesday]

ngl it sort of pisses me off the way adults regard Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen at times. Which could be a very interesting and poignant point in a good way if well written, but as it is it becomes mainly just frustrating and sad in a negative way.

Nanami saying Gojo never cared about anything or anyone other than himself crashes interestingly with Kusakabe saying the whole situation was just all his fault because he refused to kill Itadori. The students are very aware of those aspects of Gojo's personality, but overall they seem to regard him with way more kindness and fondness even when at their rudest, not truly coinciding with either Nanami's or Kusakabe's views.