Season 4 is behind us; Decrees and Blessings have been handed down; we are now in Reverb. Here’s a short look back at some of my favorite moments of Season 4, ahead of/at the beginning of Season 5, as we all wait to see what new effects Alternate Reality has:
Finding out what Feedback does. I really enjoy Decrees that have a primary meaning, are executed on Sunday, and then fans watch as they unfold in the first few days of the season; I expect AR to be no different. The massive outpouring of shock, confusion, amazement, and excitement when people saw the first Feedback exchange was delightful. I also think Feedback is really successful as a mechanic to facilitate player swaps: where previous Blessings could set up rivalries between teams that swapped players, especially if one had voted for it, this is entirely agnostic and uncaring. Very on-point for the blaseball universe. And it takes the control out of players’ hands, which I think is good for blaseball as a game to gently do on occasion.
The blagonball! Two blagonballs, I guess! This is probably fine! We discovered one by hitting a certain amount on the Patreon, which you should subscribe to if you want to watch the world careen further out of control, but in like the fun way, not the 2020 way. We then also discovered another when, on Day 23, a Millennials player stole every base to score a run. Go, Sandie Turner! What do the blagonballs do? No one knows!
I wrote so much about blaseball that I no longer misspell Millennials every time I write the word. That feels like an accomplishment. Or something.
During a Tigers-Pies game, Jessica Telephone and Spears Taylor swapped in the Feedback. I’ve been seeing a lot of really good Jessica Telephone fanart about her time as a Pies player, and so this feels narratively really satisfying to me. I have been trying to be decorously quiet about this in public, though. (I hope one of the other blagonballs is “Jessica Telephone plays for every team in both leagues”.)
Are you getting sick of me talking about Feedback yet? I hope not, because one of the season’s best (and saddest, and then funniest) moments was when Workman Gloom swapped (replacing Josh Voorhees) from the Shoe Thieves to the Moist Talkers, and then promptly hit a two-run home run* off the Shoe Thieves pitcher, Beasley Gloom, who is his dog. (*Correct me if I have the scoring information wrong. The part where he scores against his dog is the part I got invested in, not the numerical effect.) I would hope that the strange time-space shenanigans that permeate all of blaseball allow man and dog to hang out between games.
The Seattle Garages released a new album called Redemption Arc. It’s great; the first track is very Mountain Goats inspired. The day after its release, the Garages lost Avila Guzman, for whom track 6 is written, to the Miami Dalé.
On Wednesday, blaseball went dark in solidarity with the NBA wildcat strike. I loved seeing this—I hadn’t anticipated it, but I’d hoped that the team would in some way speak on or address it, and I was deeply touched to see it. The statement about “participating in the cultural event of blaseball” has become an intra-community meme, but this is a reminder that it is a cultural event, and while it’s an excellent respite from the world’s external difficulties, neither are you free from improving your surroundings. You can donate to the Milwaukee Freedom Fund here or to a bail fund in your area.
A Seattle Garages zine ostensibly picking a fight with the Jazz Hands surfaced on Wednesday. I genuinely love this because it’s a gentle tease about a social media infographic that the Baltimore Crabs’ unofficial-official twitter account made for the case to Tame the Tigers. It satirizes the seriousness of that post, while also reminding readers of a way to have fun with low-stakes, absurdist in-world blaseball content. And I really appreciated that reminder of the gentleness that so many people bring to watching the game. (Fourth wall break disclosure: I wrote the deliberately bad poetry.)
On Day 88, during a Hawaii Fridays game, Thomas England was incinerated and replaced by Sixpack Dogwalker. A number of pieces of fanart have surfaced but I am unable to think of Sixpack Dogwalker as anything but this.
Thomas Dracaena hit a ground out to Edric Tosser. For a very long time (about a half an hour?) during one of the Millennials-Firefighters playoff games. Itbecameameme. With linocut artwork made while it happened. Two things about this: it’s a perfect distillation of blaseball’s fans coming together to celebrate, share in, and elevate a game-wide event, and also a testament to how great a job the devs have done at interweaving site issues and irl hiccups with the actual lore of the game. Because we know that these moments can be incorporated into the narrative—the Grand Unslam, anyone?—we’re instantly ready to elevate something like this to the canon of the weird.
The Tigers won the playoffs for the second season in a row. This is a list of things of my favorite moments, after all. (Fun fact for non-Tigers fans: when you win the playoffs, you get added to the partytime discord channel but are unable to post, so you have to watch everyone else have a great time partying. It is an absolutely incredible social punishment and I want to congratulate whoever game up with this rule.)
I can’t wrap up without talking a little bit about Decrees and Blessings. The Tigers managed to avoid being Tamed, somehow*, and then immediately had their Max Vibes increase by 15%, which is narratively extremely satisfying. Alternate Reality did hit Yazmin Mason, taking her down to 2.5 stars. Tigers fans have collectively decided that this 2.5 star Yaz is from a universe where Landry Violence was never incinerated and thus she got better by normal practice. Which means, in the swap, that our Bloodlust-infused Yaz has slipped sideways into an alternate universe where she’s reunited with Landry. I’m sure we’ll find out later this week why that might not be true, but for right now, I really love that lore. Other great Moments In Postseason 4 Blessings: the Hellmouth Sunbeams getting Precognition, one of the blessings they hoped for; the Millennials sinking 40,000 votes into Evil Wind Sprints only to have the Dalé receive it with 0% of the vote; the Garages received nothing except the ability to become more angsty. Let’s hope it fuels their music.
* I’m actually curious about how and why Taming didn’t ultimately happen! I’m inclined to think that a lot of fans felt that 5 players was a high amount for any team to lose at once, and didn’t want to risk one of theirs being caught up in it. It’s possible that the Crabs pushed it as a distraction to corner the Blessings market. It’s also possible that the Tigers’ huge push into Alternate Reality and Targeted Shame made a difference. I’d like to believe that it was a plurality of blaseball fans thinking “I wouldn’t want that to happen to us, I’ll abstain”. But I don’t know.
That’s it for me for now, but I’d like to hear your favorite moments from Season 4! We are all love blaseball, after all. Sound off in the comments!
The Unlimited Tacos received no blessings this season in spite of a concentrated effort to net summoning circle. Instead, the alternate reality decree knocked the team's average star rating to 1.39 stars on average, worse than the second worst team, the flowers at 2.09. The team's new goal for season 5 is twofold: first, to lose 72 games, so we can declare "72 losses and infinite" in #partytime, and second, to locate and devour the gods. Tacos for everyone!
The Unlimited Tacos received no blessings this season in spite of a concentrated effort to net summoning circle. Instead, the alternate reality decree knocked the team's average star rating to 1.39 stars on average, worse than the second worst team, the flowers at 2.09. The team's new goal for season 5 is twofold: first, to lose 72 games, so we can declare "72 losses and infinite" in #partytime, and second, to locate and devour the gods. Tacos for everyone!