9 Comments
Sep 13, 2020Liked by Cat

Gosh. I really, really would have liked to have seen what happened if all three Peanuts were idolized.

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counterpoint: blaseball is about collective frustration

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Counter-counterpoint: You’re absolutely right.

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I'd like to throw some credit (or blame, depending on how this all shakes out) to my fellow Canada Moist talkers fans. A handful of them started the necromancy plan and the rest of us jumped on as soon as we saw what was happening. The Tuesday of season six was rough for us. We were dead last in the league, we had two feedback swaps that morning and most of us were devastated by the loss of Richmond Harrison. So once we realized necromancy was an option we quickly went from a period of morning to actively rebelling against the blaseball gods. And it was quick. We had to check with the garages to make sure they were (mostly) okay with it, but in a matter of hours we had necromancy posters and videos, everyone in the discord had a skull in their user name and our tweets to the commissioner had become decidedly more antagonistic and goth. That's how Canada became the necromancy team. One day we'll have a heritage minute about it

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Yes! I specifically wasn't sure about highlighting the Moist Talkers' (and the Tigers--we both ended up messaging the Garages about it nearly simultaneously, though y'all got there first) role in this, in case you did not want your contribution to be public. There's been precedent for that deliberate obscuring in some aspects of my earlier explainers. But I (obviously) think you should be proud, and it's good for people reading this to be aware of your credit/blame/etc.

(We are also taking good care of your big boy, though I know it's a tough loss.)

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oh good point, I thought your post was fantastic, I just wanted to give the moist talker's perspective because it had been a really fun and weird roller coaster of a week for us, but I didn't consider that some of us might want to keep it private. I think our general vibe is that we're pretty proud of how it's gone so far though (when your rallying cry is "spit talk in the face of gods" its hard to back down), and most of the league has been surprisingly supportive.

(And thanks, It's always good to hear that Richmond is appreciated on his new team, it's given us moist talkers fans a good reason to cheer for the tigers)

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For sure! I think this is the best way to handle the Moist Talkers' contribution--now it's represented from your perspective as someone who saw it go down, and not by my secondhand understanding. And I think overall it's been a really cool event.

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This was a great write-up. Really enjoyed reading this

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Fantastic write-up! I've been looking for more analysis about Blaseball, and wondering how the Cultural Event will be described when we all have time to Look Back at it. With significant events divided between the game log, Twitter, wiki, and discord, how does one even make sense of it retrospectively? The blarchaeology's gonna be wild....

As a Millennials fan, I also spent this week riveted by the RP saga of Randy Marijuana, and am curious about your insights on that? The community seemed to take previous incinerations relatively in stride, though I've read about discussions on how to handle it happening to the kids on the teams and such. (e.g., "York Silk got sunburned and his mom and to take him home.")

Then this happens, and AFAICT for the first time the RP accounts involved posted OOC statements that the community is discussing how to handle the situation. The result was Randy fanonically surviving incineration thanks to a combination of Hellmouth influence and his earlier Precognition Blessing. So now he's in a NY hospital getting Taco Bell from his brother (driven there by former Spies member Andy Solis because Millennials can't drive, of course).

Do you anticipate this becoming more common as people have more time to emotionally invest in players who subsequently get incinerated, thus defanging the mechanic from a storytelling perspective? Has that ship already sailed now that we've dipped our communal toes into necromancy? Will Jess and Nagomi ever get unshelled? Have you already committed to doing the Ken Blurns documentary of Blaseball, and when's the Kickstarter?

Thanks much. I'm hoping you'll have the patience to respond to these ramblings. You, and the commissioner, are doing a great job!

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