filed by Agent Blaze and Agent O
Hello Agents! Season 22 has been chugging along, and the Spies have been performing poorly: we have non-lost 10 games and lost 17. Which is good, because the sooner we can hit bottom, the sooner we can Party.
Familiar Lights
The darkness of Solar Eclipses return, as they always do. As if to taunt us for the fact that there was only one incineration last season, there have already been three incinerations in Season 22.
The first incineration was on Day 9, with the incineration of Goobie Ballson. Originally on the Chicago Firefighters, they had been moving around to different teams before landing on the LA Unlimited Tacos before their incineration. It was during this game that we saw the first instance of La Taqueria’s Heat Magnet in action. It converts the heat from incinerations into runs. So apparently, Goobie’s death was worth five runs? That really doesn’t seem like much.
The second incineration was on Day 19, with the incineration of Boston Flowers pitcher Brock Forbes. They were replaced by 1-star pitcher Backpatch Rolsenthal. Unfortunately, the Flowers do not have a Fax Machine, so they are stuck with Backpatch until the end of the season.
The third and most recent incineration was of Mexico City Wild Wings player Yong Wright, who has been with the team since the Return of Blaseball. They will surely be missed. This game was against the Hades Tigers, and as such, their Ambush modifier activated. This brought out a player named Archie Lampman. They were pulled from an unrevealed incinerated team that is listed as Whales, location unknown. A bit weird that it pulled this player and not one we knew from the Discipline Era, but.
My condolences.
Once A Spy…
Oddly enough, several “former” embedded Spies have become some of the most valuable players in the League. Collins Melon is currently one of the best Idol choices for if your snack pack contains Pickles and nothing else. Jordan Hildebert is the Charleston Shoe Thieves’ best batter, at six stars of batting (!).
Meanwhile, Sosa Hayes picked up the Fifth Base from the Atlantis Georgias’ stadium, roamed over to the Miami Dale, and then put the Fifth Base back down in the exact same spot where he got it from: in the Atlantis Georgias’ stadium.
Machines Go Brrrrr
It seems that defense is suddenly much more important this season. Because our Defense was dumpstered in season 10 thanks to blooddrain, the Spies have been letting in double-digit runs on a regular basis. And every time a pitcher lets through at least ten runs in a home game, they get faxed.
So through the fax machine, we’ve had a great deal of shuffling: repeated swaps of Bennett Bluesky for Plums Blather (day 12), Alexandria Rosales for Bennett Bluesky (day 17), and Plums Blather for Alexandria Rosales (day 18). Additionally, Aoife Mahle and Math Velazquez have swapped with each other via voicemail yet again (day 10).
Every time a player enters the Shadows they get a small stats boost. It’s supposed to be a consolation prize for a player being Shadowed, but in our case, repeated faxings are “shadow dipping” players, slowly improving them every time they swap. Unlike Enhanced Party Time or Holiday Innings, this is a guaranteed boost.
We don’t need parties. We have office equipment.
Pitching Machine… 2?
On Day 12, the New York Millennials found themselves in a peculiar situation. Their fax machine activated, faxing out Theodore Cervantes and bringing in Anathema Elemefayo, who was… Elsewhere. She finished pitching the game regardless possibly with a slingshot from the parking lot, but now the Mills’ entire pitching rotation was Elsewhere. And according to the Book, the pitcher must throw the ball.
The next day, a new Pitching Machine showed up. It’s not the original Pitching Machine that we all are familiar with, but a newly made one. I believe they are calling it Pitchums Jr. With terrible stats. It’s as if it was designed to purposefully get faxed. It faxed out that very same game, bringing Theodore Cervantes back out.
Nothing But Funko Pops
When Earlsiesta hit, the Coin showed up. She announced that next season will be The ILB Semi-Centennial, which will “celebrate a half-century of exciting #Blaseball action!” Well, a half-century if you count the siestas. I think that’s cheating, though.
She then revealed that the Gift Shop is now offering “Ancient Legends”, or rather, players from Blaseball’s past “ready to return to action”. After dropping that bombshell, she disappeared, and the gift shop opened to us. Almost every single item in the Gift Shop this season is a replica man, she’s really desperate to get us to sink, huh?. A bunch of the new replicas are players from Blaseball past, including New Megan Ito, Clare Ballard, and someone called Cote Loveless who we have never seen before. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen when these Replicas get made.
Perhaps Operation Jurassic Ballpark – an initially dismissed proposal to resurrect premodern players – may be happening after all.
Forced Realizations
At the end of the season’s second week, a bunch of fans noticed that a new event had appeared in the original Parker’s feed:
Roam failed.
Parker MacMillan was gripped by Force.
Remember how the Yellowstone Magic were trying to vote the Super Roamin’ Fifth Base onto James Mora? Here, we see that The Force Field is the only thing preventing Parker MacMillan from returning to the League, Firewalking and all.
Pudge Nakamoto already roamed out of the Hall of Flame. Parker could roam out of the Vault, if only he wasn’t stuck in his Absolutely Safe Capsule. Why can Roaming players do this? What does it mean about the Immaterial Plane, that people can just walk out of what we were told were inescapable places? Are the boundaries breaking down? Is this because the Pillars and the Bridge are eroding?
We are, as always, wary. But we are not afraid.
This, too, is part of the Plan.