#<- it's late so i feel brave enough to maintag this. nobody's awake it's chill

[orbleglorb]

👀👀👀 may I request elaboration on the secret rivers Rosa lore 👀👀👀

(notes: 1. word bad brain sleepy. these sentences might not be complete. 2. took me 4ever because i accidentally closed out while typing and it frustrated me & i didn't get back to it. 3. this version of rivers rosa is different than widely know fanon 4. i only have basic knowledge of spanish and might get some things wrong).

rosa rivera is scared of fire.

she gets the nickname "rosa del río" from friends in panama. rosa of the river. she's an excellent swimmer and is passionate about water access and marine life. in her late twenties, she feels the call of mx. chicago and attends college there to get a marine biology degree. her classmates call her rivers rosa. the nickname sticks, even after she graduates and ages. when mx. chicago calls rosa to participate in blaseball, she is 46. she doesn't hesitate to follow. she signs up as rivers rosa.

she doesn't like fire, but she trusts water. staying a safe distance and spraying the water is an easy job for her. as easy as it gets, anyway. the worst part of fighting fires is going in there. finding people. rosa can't. she can't get herself to move. someone else always can. but she's afraid that one of these days there won't be.

rosa falls to houston. no fires to fight. she gets along with her teammates well. most of them are younger than her. a lot of them have more hope than her. especially the ones that just joined the sport. surprisingly, even some of the ones who live in the shadows are optimistic. "they won't open the book again," they say. she doesn't have it in her to even look at them sometimes. they'll be broken when someone dies. even more disturbing, though, is a player that's always been in the shadows. yuniesky. he has a pet computer or something, and it's named conditional. they slapped their names together on the roster and they play as conditional yuniesky. yuniesky is more of a doomist than rosa. convinced that not only will The Fans open the book, they're out to get the players. all they want is chaos and destruction. they'll cook up new ways to hurt the players, give power to strange new gods no one's seen before. "there's no point," he says when asked why he doesn't bother attending any meetings or going out to dinner. he doesn't elaborate, but everyone knows what he's talking about.

rosa won't let it slide. to be honest, it pisses her off for the same reason the optimistic ones piss her off. they don't have any real experience with this game. what makes them think they know what's gonna happen? she stops phrasing invitations as questions. he only gets more combative. someone-- a kid named sevgi-- suggests that he needs more warning.

"we're getting dinner on friday," rosa would say. "come with us."

yuniesky wouldn't even look up at her to respond, instead focusing on whatever he was doing on his computer. "fine."

rosa started to realize he barely ate. he'd just pick at whatever he ordered with his fork, or just order a drink and swirl the straw around while listening to the conversation. he'd smile occasionally, or make a face, but rarely commented. sometimes he would say something snarky in spanish, low enough so that only rosa could hear. he was hilarious. rude as hell, but hilarious. she liked that he was blunt. sure, it wouldn't hurt for him to develop some tact, but she could tell he didn't really want to be mean. he just sounded like that. he seemed to appreciate rosa's bluntness as well, but he wasn't easy to read.

surprising barely anyone, the book gets opened. rosa is still scared of fire. anastasia isarobot (who used to be in the firefighters shadows) got incinerated, and for some reason, it felt like an omen.

rosa is still scared of fire when the umpire aims for her and raises its hand. she's still scared of fire and trying to run, even though she knows it's useless. she reaches out to the nearest person as she feels her heel catch on fire. it burns worse than she could ever imagine. someone takes her hand.

yuniesky. he's already crying.

rosa realizes she's never seen him show a raw emotion before. and she realizes she'll never say goodbye to lou, or declan, and she'll never go back to chicago or panama, and she's going to die, and there will be no hall waiting for her. she watches the flame spread up her arm and towards yuniesky's hand, and so does he, but he doesn't let go. he's an idiot for it, but rosa couldn't be more thankful. it's a selfish sort of thankfulness, she thinks as the flame spreads across his hand, but she deserves to be selfish. she deserves to die comforted.

yuniesky knows her last words were "thank you," but nobody else heard. nobody even asked. they ask plenty of other questions: "what's wrong with you?" "the hell were you thinking?" "are there any medics here? do we usually keep those on staff?" but not a single question about her. and for some reason, that pisses him off.

after the game, he goes to the hospital (of his own free will, for once). the only thing blaseball players aren't immune to is umpire flames, but people don't typically get away with a small injury. you either die or you're a fire eater.

terrell was the one who took him, since it's hard to drive with only one hand and while in unspeakable amounts of pain. he turns to yuniesky while they're in the waiting room.

"why'd you do it?" he asks in a low voice. not judgementally. just confused. in shock, perhaps.

yuniesky looked at the shoddily bandaged hand in his lap. "no one else would."