#hello blaseball fandom it’s been a while

[corvid-khaos]

the prodigal sun returns ⚾️🔥

[polyboros]

the thing is, right. that i wrote 75 fics for blaseball. more, if you count tumblr prompts - more if you count wiki pages. over the course of late 2020 to the very beginning of 2023, i wrote more for blaseball than i have for anything else, except maybe my friends' oc rp. maybe i'll never write that much for fandom again. my writing developed so much over that period of time - blaseball gave me a lot of inspiration and a lot of practice!! i met incredible writers through it who inspire me so much To This Day. i met incredible people with incredible ideas. i still lurk around in the crabitat, because the community there is lovely and i love looking for secondhand recommendations in the media channels. i could list a lot of regulars i've just... seen around, for about 2, 3 years. blaseball offered me both the opportunity to grow as a writer and the opportunity to find communities that, even if some of them fell apart, taught me a lot of things anyways. i'm still in contact with a lot of people i met through blaseball, and that's fucking lovely!!

i can't say i'm sad it's over. i guess i'm a little sad. but blaseball's been dying for a while, now, and it's the kinda thing you sorta see on the horizon. i'm one of the people who distanced themself from it before it came, and i'm a little grateful to my past self for that - i've got so much going on that i don't have quite enough room for a "i just moved across the country and also tot clark died in my funny game so i'm going to lose it for 5 hours" kind of night. i still have everything that matters. the experience, the community, the funny little guys. but blaseball did a lot for me, so i wanted to say goodbye. here's goodbye.

there is a radio.

sometimes it's in the crabitat. sometimes it's in other stadiums, darkened locker rooms slowly collecting dust; maybe there's the occasional visitor, casting light across worn benches, footsteps leaving imprints on the tile. but there's less and less visitors.

most of the time, it's at home.

you can tune it, if you're careful. it likes to play what it wants, though, and so not-players-mostly-people just let it go, when they find it - whatever jaunty commentator/clawmentator voice it wants to remind them of, games stretching from the very first season to the very last, it gets to do that. it keeps playing, however distorted by static it gets.

time goes on.

there are less people to visit, as time goes on. some people grow old and die. some people don't die, but they do move on, and the radio knows it'd be an unwelcome reminder. but there's always a handful to visit, to comfort, to celebrate with. immortals at a graveyard that used to be a field with strings of pearls in their pockets. the handful of players that kept playing, in the after, maybe other splorts or other games - but they kept playing, and they had fun, eventually. parties of people that used to be on different teams and now just share jerseys like old sweaters, trading stories of how their hometowns have changed since it ended.

sometimes the radio sticks around with someone for a while. sometimes it changes hands every day, every hour, switching its tune to match. sometimes nobody sees it for a very long time, and sometimes people forget it exists entirely. but it always comes back for a visit. a little memory, a little burst of joy-in-static. hello- hello- blaseball fans!

there is a radio. it's lasted for a long time, and it'll last for a while longer, even in the absence of blaseball itself. it lasted through ascension, after all. it lasted through siesta after siesta after siesta.

there is a radio, and there is a world moving on from blaseball.

there is a radio, and there is the lilt of old words, phrases quickly becoming antiquated, kept alive through pick-ups and muscle memory.

there is a radio, and there are people who used to be players.

there is a radio, and there are people who used to be fans, who still are fans, who still will be fans.

there is a radio, and it still loves.

there is a radio, and it still is loved.

(that's all for today's game, folks!)

there is a radio.

[ophiedrowning]

hello!!! welcome to my mixed bag of a tumblr account. my name is ophelia (like the hamlet character). i’m a 23 year old jewish romani trans lesbian.

i’m usually deep in the sauce writing sessions for my thirsty sword lesbians campaign or scripts for my tv shows. i also wrote that one blaseball musical about sebastian telephone.

i will repost or post in both English and Yiddish

below the line are links to my work, some fandoms, personal tags, and original character descriptions!

links:

archive of our own

blaseball: the musical

spotify

fandoms: blaseball (riv), dungeons and daddies, the locked tomb, animorphs, thirsty sword lesbians, naddpod, adventure time, percy jackson, worlds beyond number, mlb baseball (go phillies), the expanse, fargo, earthsea, the southern reach, d&d, the magicians, she-ra and the princess of power, scott pilgrim

personal tags: #ophieocs #desdemophie #nikephi #tombphi #wet dream ship

oc rambling:

Desdemona Demeter, 23, TSL, Spooky Witch -> Nature Witch -> (in the future probably Matriarch): Desdemona, or Mona for short, is a 6’4, fat romani icon. the best art of her that exists is by @alojzy-art. she’s a trans poly lesbian daughter of a goddess. she’s also the biggest failure i’ve ever played. she ruins every relationship she has, romantic or other. she got her surrogate father (who sacrificed himself to bring her back to life) to denounce her. i love her so much. she’s so perfect. all of my friends love and hate her. they doodle her for fun because she’s so loveable even though she’s also the absolute worst. she has several ships that i’m absolutely ravenous about. her childhood best friend Yllona (Ona). her first genuine girlfriend Willow (Willmona). and an AU ship with a different PC from a campaign i was not in named Integrity (Wet Dream lmao). wet dream is my second favorite ship, only beaten out by the throuple ship Wyllmona.

Nike De La Cour Kidd, 30, TSL, Legion: Nike Kidd is my pirate lesbian. she’s 5’, red headed, and disabled from a near death experience where she was saved by the sea monster she is destined to kill or die from. she’s been married once and while she never officially divorced her ex (the second in command of the royal navy, Coryn De La Cour), she’s started a new relationship with a fellow PC, Mercy. they’re fucking adorable and i love their ship Nicey a lot. nike is super stubborn, but she’s really full of love. she’s the best

[leonstamatis]

hi hello i was tagged by @fourteenfifteen​ for this little tag game:

recommend 3 of your fics: your most popular and 2 hidden gems

i’m ignoring my most-kudos’d fic because it has had the smallest impact in the fandom spaces i’m in, for the record. no one ever talks about it, including myself, and that’s fine. the next two down are better. speaking of:

inside your blinding light is at the top by like, just a hair, in terms of kudos. it’s also one of the first ones i wrote that really seemed to break out into blaseball fandom in any way. i’m... genuinely kind of baffled by how kind people have been whenever i’ve written sebastian woodman and yosh carpenter, especially for this fic. the art, the remixed fic, and just like. comments and such. it’s. yeah. for context, i wrote it in one sitting while hayden and i were watching top chef. it was very quick, and i love it so dearly but i absolutely did not expect it to resonate the way it has.

as for ones that are “hidden,” uh. god that’s such a hard question. a vast majority of my blaseball fic falls in the 15-20 kudos range, which i recognize is pretty remarkable for this fandom’s engagement. that being said:

good intentions is. listen. we joke about kranchmas a lot, right, it’s funny that there was a whole event about allan kranch irms. and like genuinely when i think of kranch this is not the interp that comes to mind first. but writing about lani kranch and exploring what it was like to be brought into the expansion era was so much fun. i think lani is the only EE-birth player i’ve ever written extensively about (excluding gita, who was relatively recent). the fact it’s about allan kranch, and also includes niche lore i made up not too long beforehand, i think makes a sort of barrier to entry for a lot of people. but if there was one fic i could ask people to read that got passed by, it’d be this one.

speaking of... memoria is a relatively recent one, so it might be kind of cheating to call it hidden/underrated. but i’m listing it here because i do like how it turned out. if you want a story about coping with legacy and being remembered, and also about gita sparrow being at home with the ffs, this one could be a fun time. i love this fic a lot, despite the fact it was honestly one of the harder ones i’ve written. also, go read everything else from the ffs fic exchange. it’s worth it.

i don’t know who hasn’t been tagged yet, so sorry if it’s a repeat! but: @sarsaparillia @queen-eevee and @sanscena you’re it!

[burningcrab]

✨🤡🙋‍♀️👀 for the fic writer asks!

:0 wow ok uh (the ask game in question)

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

oh god my weakness. uh. i think im pretty good at establishing character? ive written a few blaseball short circuits fics which basically involves introducing the reader to a bunch of guys who existed for two weeks. and uh. idk. i like writing “meet our protagonist” scenes

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

okay gonna plug my lil layna-does-swing-dancing fic bc i enjoyed writing this part

So she shut up and practiced the lifts. Getting picked up and flipped around was a sometimes-exciting, sometimes-awkward affair that got a nearby Mechanic kicked in the horns. Coolname’s song ended, and “DJ Solid” spun up a track request from one of the Breath Mints. “Gonna be like ‘Oh, hello Layna, how has your night been’ when I get to her,” Layna mumbled under her breath. “Oh, thanks for asking, Goodwin, it was really cool, I’ve been learning to swing accompanied by the dulcet tones of Linkin Park. Hey, you wanna give it a whirl? Maybe they’ll put on some speed metal for us.”

Mindy spun Layna around again. “Shh.”

“Fine.” She let Mindy lead them in a triple step while the vocalist yelled about wounds that would not heal.

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

two therapists and also sam. hi sam if you see this. if anyone else knows it is not by my choice

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

ok im gonna do two for my Main Fandoms atm. blaseball fic tentatively titled they say misery loves company but honestly your company is what’s making me miserable is a SC2 fic about hops greene, seattle garage and worst pitcher in the league, and lila icicle, boston flower and worst batter in the league, and the five times they faced off this one game. it’s maybe two-thirds done and i’m plugging away at it after getting distracted for like seven months.

the other one is a vague exploration into rejoining the worm fanfic world, currently titled thanks for your time. it’s about two protectorate superheroes, Bubblegum and Newsie, and trying to be a superhero in DC when the country is falling apart and your own city doesn’t trust you to save it. that one’s still in outlines, but i have a first chapter i’m pretty happy with. no idea if i’ll ever finish it