#blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

PARKER "OBSESSING OVER PAST MISTAKES" AND JAYLEN HOTDOGFINGERS "CHECKING THEIR PULSE" PRE-GAME RITUALS. i just remembered them. esp jaylen's after being resurrected these were by far the most impactful pieces of storytelling in blaseball

#ellis.txt #blaseball.txt

[spiritunwilling]

also this is my excuse to blasepost on the main blog because holy FUCKING shit these few weeks-

anyways im starting a fic thats just all the ficlets I write please im miserable they vaulted my girl and also the sun exploded and two whole teams got fucking killed and a ton of other stuff

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32898808

#they vaulted her with TILLY #blaseball.txt #fuck

[axiolotl]

obsessed w the fact that jaylen hotdogfingers and jess telephone will both be at the exhibition match as rising stars, again recruited against their will into a major game/battle/Big Plot Event, and then to again face their former teammates and friends, all lost to them except when they’re being taken out for this bullshit anniversary.......damn

#and to go back missing all the people they've lost along the way #mAN! #not to mention the necromancy potential w all the ego'd dead players! #ellis.txt #blaseball #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

blaseball players being human (or...human adjacent) is so important to my experience and memory of the game cultural event. i won't deride anyone who headcanons otherwise, but for me the point has always been that the players are people. the point has always been an anti-capitalist absurdist horror baseball simulator as a critique of MLB player conditions during COVID. told to keep playing, never stop, even at risk of disability and death in the air, even as the stands were empty. our players will never tire, they will never stop. etc.

the players are people, and they are now being subjected to the horrifying grind of games as people bet on them and make money off of them. as we choose to modify their bodies against their will (what is their will if they signed up to be players in the first place? whats the contract?).

and as fans? we have never been just fans in the stands. we have always been the investors and shareholders and owners, betting on which player or team, which choices and enhancements tomake more money. until its not about the sport anymore -- it's about polling and investing and which snacks work best, building out arenas. the continuing pressure to do more, get more, more more more. capitalism, perfectly simulated in a web browser.

are the modifications and arenas absurdist? absolutely. its gotta be a fun game, and its gotta be fucked up. thats the point.

but just like baseball, storylines emerge between players and fans and teams. its the beauty of a sport, so many people working toward a common goal. its that beauty that makes the horror so, well, horrible in contrast. its knowing you could be incinerated (get sick, injured) at any moment but being forced to play anyway. the players never tire. they will never rest. there is only Play.

to a degree, having inhuman/animals/whathaveyou players has always given a distance away from that horror and the storylines and the existing absurdism that ive never personally loved, which is why i didn't really engage with it -- though i did enjoy from the sidelines, never my cup of tea.

i really liked seeing what plays would be made, by what players and when. i liked the sport of it all, knowing we all risk losing our favorite player. i love how the fans played with loopholes, making it even MORE of a capitalist critique; that not even death was enough to let these players rest, so necromancy is the game. and it kills more players. and then that makes you more money, depending on what snacks you invested in. its so delightfully fucked up; it makes the moments of victory and wins and hope and solidarity that much more important!!! your darlings will die; you cannot protect them, because no one is safe under The Book capitalism. but you can still lake it mean something regardless!!

#ellis.txt #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

"MLB"

#blaseball #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

hey blesties i have a theory that Snow will be weather, but not at all the normal frozen weather/snowflakes -- i think it will be the snow that you get from old TVs and VHS tapes!

[ID: wikipedia screenshot; "Noise (video) Pixel pattern of static. Noise, in analog video and television, is a random dot pixel pattern of static displayed when no transmission signal is obtained by the antenna receiver of television sets and other display devices. The random pattern superimposed on the picture, visible as a random flicker of "dots" or "snow", is the result of electronic noise and radiated electromagnetic noise accidentally picked up by the antenna. This effect is most commonly seen with analog TV sets or blank VHS tapes." end ID]

snow is static being displayed. will this weather bring back Static players? maybe swap them in? make other players Static who are up to bat? who knows!

#blaseball.txt #blaseball #blaseball short circuits #short circuits

[echostatic]

this is so fucking funny 

#blaseball.txt #like. hello

[echostatic]

my favorite thing about blaseball is that you really can’t dismiss anyone for overanalyzing anything because you absolutely can’t dismiss or ignore any word or phrase or mechanic or anything in the game/twitter, because it will ALWAYS become relevant

#blaseball #my fav type of game. i can analyze it to shit and somehow it'll be Relevant #thanks apophenia #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

oh wait did i ever share the weird things Parker did on twitter after Gerund Pantheocide died on here?

#i dont think i had this blog i was just on discord #ill find the screenshots and make it a post later #blaseball.txt #blaseball

[echostatic]

on one hand i love the diff ways people headcanon blaseball players but on the other? i love headcanoning blaseball players as humans. the absolute tragedy and horror of it all. the "they can never rest" of it all. the being Human But Not of it all!

#i do hc most players to have childhoods but thats bc im ignoring the Hatching From Eggs lore #for narrative cohesion and impact #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

sunbeams are bad again. nature is healing

#short circuits #blaseball.txt

[echostatic]

i don't have a playlist for Tillman Henderson but if i did id put The Man by the Killers on it

#tillman henderson #blaseball.txt #blaseball #i dont even rlly go here just positing it

[echostatic]

y'all remember blaseball? huh

#blaseball.txt #weird that something took up my every thought for like four months and now its like. crickets

[spiritunwilling]

In Prythian there's Rhysand and Mor in the Night Court, Helion in Day, Beron and his son in Autumn. It's disappointing to see the last two remaining alive and well when the rest of league had changed so drastically in Miryam's absence.

It's generally pretty mean to hope for another player's incineration but I mean. I mean.

#miryam voice why couldnt the umps at least have taken out these two bastards while they were busy killing the rest of my friends #cant have shit in prythian #sjm.txt #blaseball.txt

[spiritunwilling]

Three moments in the lives of the Band of Exiles. (Except they play blaseball.)

Some author's notes:

This crossover has been my worst idea yet. I'm very happy with how this turned out tho.

Danie is the name I've decided to give Vassa's successor. I'm pretty sure Ada is the only character in this who is fully not in acotar

As a disclaimer. I wrote this on my phone and did not proofread.

I started this with a "haha what if these kidz paralleled real actual blaseball events" so that's why Jurian's part is Like That. But things went off the rails pretty quickly and I didn't have the heart to do a rewrite.

I wrote a very bad very not thought out very short post of what the history of the world in this au is probably like? You don't have to read it.

They pull him out of the Trench that election. (Which one, exactly? Someone must've told him, but everything in Jurian's head runs together like ruined ink.) Everything is too loud and too bright after years spent in the water. Jurian slowly adjusts his eyes to the newfound light, squinting through his eyelashes and trying to make out his teammate's face.

He'd hoped, in a retrospective way, that the hand that'd pulled him out of the waves had belonged to Miryam. Or Drakon. Any one of the faces that'd flashed across his mind before everything had been heat and flame and dust. As is usual with Jurian (and as is usual with blaseball), he is not so lucky. The person staring at him now is a fresh face, pale in every sense of word. Very definitely fae.

Jurian shuts his eyes again, then carefully opens his right one as wide as he can. He repeats the process with his left eye. Then his right again. The boat and it's occupants fade in and out like a camera lens. Beyond the windows, nothing but ocean stretches in every direction. Jurian grimaces, thinking of the salt still clinging to his skin, and tears his gaze away.

The sky is a sheet of grey, the blanket of clouds scattering light so evenly across that it's almost impossible to tell where the sun actually is. The moment is gone as quick as it comes: even through one eye and a foggy window, Jurian can see the shift. It's another one of those inconceivable things, but the sky goes wrong. Then Jurian blinks, and it's all just clouds. Nobody else seems to have noticed it.

A memory frees itself from the roiling tangle, the sight of umpires changing before his eyes. That same feeling of wrongness, right before he'd burned up. Oh, shit. Jurian scrambles for his wrist, his neck, wherever he can feel his pulse. He takes a breath, feeling the blood racing inside his limbs.

There's something beating inside his chest, something that thumps against his fingertips when Jurian presses them to the base of his skull. There's something in there making noise. He's just not so sure that it's a heart.

-

The first time Lucien feedbacks, it's a relief. General consensus in the league is that, although not an incineration, being torn from your team- your friends -has gotta hurt. Except his brothers were never much of either, so when Lucien feels the static running up his arms, all that he feels is hope.

One second he's here, the next he's across the field in an opposite dugout, twisting at the hem of a green and yellow shirt sleeve. Spring. That's who they were playing. A smaller team without anything particularly eye-catching. Tamlin, their captain, is Lucien's friend and a talented batter, but that's not enough to carry them to the playoffs. Which is fine. Lucien's not playing to win.

"Okay, okay, everyone calm down! Take a moment, I'll do a head count and then we can figure it out from there."

One of the players (Andras, Lucien remembers) raises his voice above the others. Hydrangeas bloom all over Andras' body, violet petals partially obscuring the number 10 on his uniform.

A dryad next to Lucien stands up, hauling him up as well with terrifying ease. "It's Jes! She's gone!"

Lucien tries his nicest smile. "Uh. Hi."

Andras grins back, holding out a hand. Lucien takes it. "Lucien Vanserra, right? Welcome to the Spring Canines."

There's a commotion out on the field as Tamlin gets tagged out. He heads immediately for the dugout, even ignoring Eris' sneer.

"Did something happen?"

"Jes got feedbacked." The dryad, whose iron grip is still around the back of Lucien's shirt, gives him a little shake. "We got this."

Tamlin laughs, hopping over the railing in a single fluid motion. "I think you can let go of him now, Ada. We still have a few games with the Cornucopias, that's probably enough time to put together a sending away for Jes."

Andras chimes in, "figure out what to send over, too, until she has time to come back to pack up during siesta."

"Yeah, yeah that." Tamlin pauses, turning towards Lucien. "Lucien, what do you want to do?"

Lucien almost answers that he's been ready to get out of Autumn for years, that there's a box containing all the things he wants to take with him tucked under his desk. "I can handle the stuff on my end. Don't worry about it."

Tamlin nods. "Let us know if you need anything."

Once, at a postseason party in the Dawn Court, Lucien had found himself capitalizing on the free alcohol with Tamlin, complaining to each other about their shitty families. He wonders what Tamlin thought when they'd all died. If he'd have preferred to feedback away instead. (Maybe not. Tamlin is tied to Spring in a way Lucien cannot fathom for himself.)

They're both out of it now. That thought lifts his heart up as he sinks down onto the bench, tentatively exchanging words with his new teammates. Through the feedback weather, rays of regular sunlight shine into the dugout. A seed takes root.

-

To their credit, at least the blessing had been an accident, a wimdy from way out of left field. Vassa doesn't know how she'd feel if people had been making a collective effort to turn her into.. this. Some fucking stat boost or another, at the small cost of never running the bases with human legs again. Supposedly flaming birds make better batters. ("Never" is an awfully strong assumption in blaseball. Never is for incinerated players, people sent to the shadows with no plans of reemergence. A permanent modification might be an never, but Vassa has no intention of staying like this. It's just going to be a shitty couple of seasons in the meantime.)

Their division had all gathered in their joint castle to watch the election results, like they always did. Vassa, tucked on a couch between Danie and Briallyn, had felt the change and jumped up moments before she burst into flames. At first she'd thought she was being incinerated, but then the flames kept burning. By the time the screaming had stopped- both hers and her friends -there were feathers where her arms had been.

At least she has the nights, Vassa thinks. She's wrapped in Danie's arms now, trying to commit to memory the feeling of being held. As a firebird she's literally untouchable, unless anyone would like to suffer severe burns in the process. Now she leans her head into Danie's chest and spares a glance at the clock.

"Danie. Dan. I think I have to go." Vassa stands, reaching for her jacket.

"Go where?" Danie's voice is spacey in the way it gets when their mind is elsewhere.

"Meeting. With the other division captains. I think it's about the recent blaseball events." Between Feyre's siphons, Jurian's resurrection, and the half a million other things that'd occurred last season, there would be a lot to discuss. "Come with me?"

"Of course." They grin. "Why would I pass up a chance to see Demetra rub that shutout in your face again?"

Vassa rolls her eyes. "Let her. Not like they'll get to do that again."

Danie takes her hand in theirs when they step out under the night sky. It's warm and solid and real, their fingers pressed into the grooves of her knuckles. There are worse ways to be, Vassa decides. And they're going to get rid of the blessing, then Vassa will hug every one of her team members under a clear blue sky. In the meantime, she has this.

#me: write about actual blaseball players #me @ me: no #blaseball fans if this turns up in the tags- look away #/j #jurian #vassa #lucien vanserra #band of exiles #tamlin #sjm.txt #blaseball.txt #words.txt

[echostatic]

tbh "Bodys" by Car Seat Headrest is such a good blaseball song for players

well so what?

we're young!

we're thin!...most of us

we're alive! ....most of us

#yes its on a garages playlist. #blaseball.txt