Wandering an Endless Road

Recent rumira commission! for the fic 'Only Entropy Comes Easy' on ao3 by CarrionFields

-the first baseman had no reason to chase Baéz, if he just stepped on the bag he was automatically out

-theres two outs, so if hes out, the inning is over. even if the runner on second base gets home, the run doesnt count. its not until hes safe at first that the run scores

-theres no specific rule in baseball about running backwards from first, just that you “cannot retreat to home base” meaning so long as if you dont touch the plate, its fine

-Baéz ran backwards to kill enough to get the run to score, and then stole and extra base on the base on the bad throw

-HE TOOK THE TIME TO UMPIRE HIS OWN PLAY AND CALL SAFE

Javier Báez (the batter, a Chicago Cub, wearing blue) has just hit the ball. His job is now to run around the bases - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, back to where he started (“home”), at which point he will have scored a point. In practice, he will probably stop partway, wait for the next batter to get a hit, and try to make it home from there.

The Pittsburgh Pirates (in white) are fielding. Their job is to stop the Cubs from scoring by getting them out, by various combinations of catching the ball and tagging people or bases with it.

The scoreboard (top left) shows that one Cub has already made it to second base, so he will resume running now that Javy has a hit. It also shows that two Cubs are out. If a third Cub gets out, their turn to bat will be over, it will be the Pirates’ turn to bat, and the Cubs can’t score anymore (for now, but that’s not relevant).

The Pirate at first base (the first baseman) has the ball. All he needs to do is step on first base while holding it before Javy gets there, and Javy is out. This is probably the number one most common thing a first baseman has to do.

He does not do it.

For some reason he starts chasing Javy, presumably trying to tag him with the ball directly. This is a perfectly legitimate way of getting him out, but also completely unnecessary.

This has never happened to Javy before. Unsure what else to do, he just kind of… jogs backwards away from him.

Meanwhile, the Cub who was at second base (Contreras) has made it all the way back to home. Because the Pirates’ first baseman has helpfully walked the ball back home, he can easily toss it to the Pirate at home (the catcher) who will tag Contreras out.

The catcher doesn’t tag him in time.

The umpire signals that Contreras is safe (not out).

Javy also signals that Contreras is safe, just for fun. He’s never been nearby when a teammate makes it home before, and he’s enjoying himself.

Notice that the score has not changed, even though Contreras made it home. That’s because Javy is still technically running to first base. If he gets out before he reaches it, the Cubs’ turn to bat is over, and nothing else that’s happened since he hit the ball matters.

Javy remembers this, and heads back to first base. The catcher throws the ball to another Pirates fielder, who is frantically running to do the first baseman’s job.

He doesn’t catch it.

Javy is safe at first. Contreras scores (although the scoreboard won’t change for a second).

Javy notices how far away that ball landed, and decides he can make it to second base before anyone picks it up and tags him out.

An offscreen Pirate throws the ball to second base, where another Pirate is ready and waiting to catch it, tag Javy out, and end the Cubs’ turn to bat.

He doesn’t catch it.

Javy is safe at second. The video doesn’t show it, but he will go on to score as well.

This should have been a very easy out for the Pirates, but through two dropped catches and one truly bizarre decision from the first baseman, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and turned it into two points for the Cubs.

Stage One:

Quality of care at our vet's had decreased markedly in recent months and we noticed we never saw the vet we were used to anymore. (The one who had founded the clinic and worked there for several decades). Or any of the old receptionists. Care was now was more impersonal, vets seemed more interested in getting us out the door and moving on to the next case than in talking through everything with us, and prices were, naturally, going up.

Stage Two:

Googling the old vet's name out of curiosity, the gossip on Reddit was that he and everybody with him were fired. We also learn that the usual finance bros have been buying up a lot of veterinary practices like this lately, and then promptly enshittifying them as is the custom of our day and age.

Step Three:

We find that the old vet is still practicing, just ten or fifteen minutes further than his former place of business. Taking the pet in for our first visit at the new practice, we find:

He was fired basically overnight with no warning.

His wife was also fired, a fact she discovered partway through the work day.

The person who owns his former clinic and many others in the region has been filling them all with graduates from his alma mater that he still has a pipeline to. So it's as much good old-fashioned cronyism as it is anything else.

Only two weeks after the old vet was fired, the clinic started reaching out to him again, by phone, by text, by email, and quite possibly by smoke signals, to try and convince him to come back. One of them finally cornered him somewhere to ask about it in person, and he said he couldn't, he was already under new contract.

Turns out quite a few people had been faster on the uptake than we had and started quitting the clinic days after we left, specifically citing his absence as a reason for it. Google reviews tell the tale, a bunch of new ones are in and old ones have been edited to say that the change of management was terrible and they won't be going back. Apparently enough that even the bean-counters have become worried.

Apparently he also ran into a few of the new vets who all started asking him for his secret in keeping clients. All he could say to them was just "treat your patients like they're human beings who care about their cats and dogs."

And there you are. Rich boy messes with a thing that wasn't broke, gives it to people whose only value was in a shared old boy network, then begs the actual professional to fix it for him as soon as it goes south.

By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.

There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.

That's queerbaiting.

Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.

The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.