#cryinginblaseball

“Yeah, what's your point? You playing hide-and-seek or something? Because I'm not. I'm just sitting here in this closet minding my own business.” Greer points the half-eaten blaseball at her threateningly. “You’d better not be planning on ratting me out for eating the blaseballs. There's like a million in here, and nobody’s using them for anything. Can't let them go to waste.”

Eugenia shakes her head emphatically, which makes her entire body jiggle. “Won't tell.”

“What do you want, then?”

She wiggles with excitement, reaching out two armlike appendages. One shoves the door open, and the other wraps itself around Greer’s hand, shifting into something almost handlike itself. It's sticky and squishy and strangely warm, and Greer's first instinct is to pull away, but Eugenia pulls first.

“Come,” she says, tugging on Greer’s hand, leading her out into the rest of the Gleek. 

Greer stumbles through the soggy halls; Eugenia moves surprisingly fast for an amalgamation of garbage. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not joining your stupid nightmare arts and crafts club for babies!”

Eugenia shakes her head again, the jiggles traveling all the way down her arm and making Greer’s hand tingle. “Just showing you.”

“Showing me what?” Greer shoves the last of the blaseball in her mouth and chews it impatiently.

“This!” Eugenia gestures to the open door of the art room with a flourish.

It looks the same as always. Scattered art supplies on the tables, drawings tacked up on the walls. Greer belatedly realizes Eugenia has a few markers sticking out of her goop as she tugs Greer forward to a piece of paper that's been left on the table.

“For you,” she says proudly.

Greer squints at the drawing. It depicts two figures on a blaseball field, standing next to each other on what seems to be the pitcher’s mound, a pile of blaseballs beside them. One is a blob with a big smile, winding up to throw a pitch. The other is a taller stick figure with an unusually sharp toothy grin and a half-eaten blaseball in their hand.

She recognizes this scene. She’d started giving Eugenia pitching lessons, annoyed at how Hobbs kept bragging that he’d taught the garbage how to bat. Any loser can wave a stick around, but throwing the ball to the losers in the right way takes skill, and anyway, Eugenia had seemed more than happy to learn. She'd accidentally absorbed a few blaseballs before she got the hang of throwing them, but hey, those things are tasty, Greer can't blame her.

“Thank you for teaching me,” Eugenia enunciates slowly and carefully. “I drew it!’

“It's. Uh. It looks good. Nice job on the teeth. Thanks.” Greer is starting to feel weird, all soft and goopy inside, like Eugenia’s sludge that's still wrapped around her hand. Maybe she ate too many blaseballs?

Eugenia somehow manages to beam brighter than the smile she gave herself in the picture. “You're welcome!” Greer tries to put it back down, but Eugenia shakes her head, dislodging one of the markers. “Keep it! It's yours.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

She shrugs, finally ungooping herself from Greer's hand. “Look at it.”

Looking at it makes her feel things she's not used to, so Greer rolls it up and sticks it in her pocket, then swipes the marker off the floor and bites it in half, soaking in the juice. Mmmm, red. The best flavour.

“Wait a minute,” Greer says suspiciously just before Eugenia can turn to go. “Why’d you have to drag me all the way here? You could’ve just brought me the picture. It's like you wanted to hold hands with me or something.”

Eugenia blinks at her, but Greer knows all kinds of plots and schemes lurk beneath that innocent front. “Friends!”

“Friends?” Greer snorts. “We're not friends. I don't have those.” 

First of all I'm going to drop a link to my Dot series, the price of perfection, in case you want to look up any of the things I mention here!

So, Dot’s rhythm is something I just kind of fell into writing when I started my first Dot fic and wanted a way to express how much they can get caught up in their pitching, intentionally or not. I figured that since they’re good enough to frequently strike batters out on just three pitches and/or retire three batters in a row, they would have this one-two-three rhythm going on. Here's how it all starts:

“One. Two. Three.

The familiar rhythm of the blaseballs hitting the catcher's mitt echoes in their ears, louder than the cheering of the crowd, louder than the shrieking of the birds, louder than the announcer declaring PolkaDot Patterson has done it again!

Of course they have. This is all they’re here to do; pitch the strikes, fade into the background while the rest of the team takes their turn, pitch the strikes again. One, two, three. Easier than breathing.”

Note how it's not just the repetition of the numbers -- there’s also the three louder thans in the second paragraph, and then the list of three things they're here to do in the third paragraph. I love to weave the rhythm right into the narration like that! There are a whole lot of examples scattered throughout the series, and I don't know how noticeable they are, but they're certainly there if you know where to look. I lean into it a lot harder when they're in pitching mode and/or communicating with the gods. Dot and the gods often talk to each other three sentences at a time, though Dot sometimes tends to do that when talking to anyone, especially if they're not super comfortable in that situation.

The rhythm is complicated in that it comes from the gods and in some ways it's a reminder of their lack of control, but it's also representative of how much they genuinely love pitching. Sometimes when they get lost in it it's because the gods are forcing them into this no-thoughts-only-blaseball situation, trying to convince them that nothing else matters, but sometimes it's because they're just having a great time, like when they had that 23-inning duel with August Sky! For a while it's a very dangerous balance, and even when the gods are finally out of their head, sometimes they still fall into the old habit of trying to push everything aside and focus on pitching even when they know they shouldn't.

I'm not going to quote any passages here because they're all fairly long, but some of my absolute favourite things I've done with the rhythm are:

- The scene in over and over and then over again where Workman's just been beaned in extra innings and Dot’s feeling so much guilt about being unable to end the game sooner, so after the game they just go and keep pitching against the wall, trying to lose themselves in it so they don't have to think about it, and Morse comes around trying to help and trying to break through the rhythm and they're just having absolutely none of that.

- In keep on, keep on, keep on, where they lose it entirely for a brief moment right after York’s death and then lean very hard into it in their first game afterward, essentially going No Thoughts Only Blaseball again.

- And, of course, the scene in it’s how I know that I’m still here where they finally get their big moment of defiance against the gods and tell them “Don't talk to me in threes. This is my rhythm now. Not yours, never again.” which was a long time coming and very satisfying to write!

Which brings us to the character development -- a lot of Dot’s pitching-related growth has been about learning to embrace the rhythm, reclaim it, make it their own, and they get the opportunity to start doing that after the unshelling, when the gods aren't in their head anymore. They get to decide what it means to them, and the first time we really see that is in repeat, where they talk to their team right before going out to pitch what will become the last game of the finals before the Talkers win their second championship (and what will turn out to be their last game with the Talkers, ever). And they turn the one-two-three into I love you, and say it to their team, because in that moment, that's what the rhythm means!

And that brings us to relationship development! Some of the stuff I mentioned already covers a bit of how their relationship with the team has changed -- they spend so much time pushing everyone away, but eventually learn to let them all in and be open and vulnerable and express how they feel! I haven't touched on it in as much detail as I would like in my fics so far, largely because I haven't finished squiddish yet and that's the one that's really supposed to focus on their relationship with the team. So let's talk about Workman specifically, because I think that's the best example of how Dot has learned to open up to people!

The Dot and Workman situation is a bit complicated -- they're not particularly close when they're on the team together, though they have a lot of respect for each other. Workman doesn't blame Dot for their death, but Dot blames themselves, and doesn't really get the time they need to work through that since they're shelled right after, miss several years, and then suddenly end up taking care of Beasley when they get out (and Beasley also plays a very important part in getting them to bond with others again!), and then Workman's back from the dead and living with them and they've got a whole lot of stuff to work through!

I've written a lot about the guilt and how they deal with it and start to move past it, and I've written a lot about how the two of them are close now, but one thing I'm looking forward to doing is filling in some of the gaps! I want to explore some of the little interactions they might have had in the early seasons before they were close (and you'll get to see one in my upcoming Lachlan fic!), and I also want to explore how their relationship develops over the course of the Grand Siesta, because at that point Dot has a lot of stuff they're working through.

Especially after becoming squiddish, Dot is uncomfortable in their body for a long time; it doesn't even really feel like their body anymore, and they can't imagine that anyone doesn't think they look weird, or that anyone would ever want to touch them. Workman really helps them a lot with overcoming that, just with something as simple as showing that, no, they're not afraid to touch Dot’s hands, because their hands aren’t wrong. It takes them a while to really believe it, but they start to get there!

I think Dot spends a lot of the Grand Siesta trying to figure out exactly what their feelings are for Workman, because they've never been close to anyone like that, and it's like... “yes, obviously I love them, but am I in love with them??? how does it feel to be in love?” They just kind of spend some time working it out and eventually land on "I love them and that's what matters", because strong platonic relationships are important too! (Dot is pretty much universally interpreted as aroace by the MTs and I think that's very important. They love Workman and Workman loves them and just because it's not romantic doesn't mean it's not something incredibly beautiful!)

I want to leave off with my favourite example of Dot’s character development! First, this moment from gliding, early in the Grand Siesta, where Workman reaches out to them and they’re hesitant to respond:

“Workman holds out a hand as if to help Dot up, and Dot doesn’t move at all, because suddenly they don't understand anything anymore.

Workman offers their hand like it’s the natural thing to do, as if Dot’s own hands are normal like theirs, rather than fourth-dimensional and more like tentacles than hands and incomprehensibly many, and as if Workman would not mind touching them at all. But that can’t possibly be true. No one touches Dot’s hands, ever. How could anyone bear to? How could Workman, when these hands did nothing but throw pitches over and over and over and couldn’t let that game end until it was too late?

“I do not need help,” Dot says, and it comes out much sharper than they intended.

“I… I know. I'm sorry.” Something about Workman seems to shift slightly as they withdraw their hand, becoming more closed off, almost as if they’re disappointed. How could Dot be doing the wrong thing by keeping those hands away? Dot doesn’t want to hurt Workman in any way, ever, never again, but if it hurts them to not accept their help… then what?

“But. I would not be opposed to receiving some anyway. If you are offering. Though you do not have to. And I do not understand why you would.”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“Because... because I… I am…”

“Because you're you?”

“...Yes.”

“But that's exactly why I'm doing this.” Workman holds out their hand again, and though this still does not make sense, Dot wants it anyway.

And so Dot reaches up cautiously and lets Workman fold perfectly normal fingers into their ever-shifting eldritch ones. Workman doesn’t even flinch as they pull Dot up, and despite the strangeness of it all, they don't let go afterwards, giving the hand-that’s-not-quite-a-hand a gentle tug instead.”

Dot starts off being incredibly hesitant and unable to believe they deserve anything like that... and then, fast forward an entire Grand Siesta, five seasons, and one failed attempt by the gods to drag them out of this world, and we get (in it’s how I know that I’m still here) :

““I thought you were gone,” Workman says finally, and their voice, normally so steady, wavers on that last word.

Within half a second Dot is up and has all their arms around them, clinging tightly, reassuring them both that yes, they’re here, they're both here, they're here, and it feels more real than ever.

“I was gone,” Dot says. “But I came back. And I might be gone again, but I will come back then, too. I told them I wouldn't let them take me, and I didn't let them take me, not yet, I fought them and I will keep fighting them as long as I can because I won't let them keep us apart again. Not forever. Not ever.””

...That. Dot’s come a long way :’)

woooo boy that got long! To answer the second question: I don't really have any blaseball OCs, and I absolutely don’t have time to talk about all my non-blaseball OCs because there are So Many and I just fried my brain writing this absolute textwall (but I'm so glad I had the chance to write it! thank you very much for the ask). So I'll just very quickly say: before I got into blaseball, I wrote 200k words about my Nuzlocke protagonist, Sad Scientist Tessa Linden, who coincidentally is a lot like Dot in that they both go through some very traumatic things and push people away because they're afraid of losing anyone else, and their arcs are about learning to open up and love again!!!