Doug and Topaz - Blaseball
May. 8th, 2021 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAt a post-nanite (but pre-prosthetic) noodle outing, Topaz asks Doug about weird internet things, because of COURSE Doug knows everything about weird internet things.
"Runs are canceled out by what?"
Topaz was fairly certain Doug had lost his mind. She looked at his noodles, slightly concerned, before taking a bite of her own. It'd been ten minutes and she understood whatever they were talking about even less than she had when they'd started.
"Balloons. Because in blaseball, runs are a physical object which has mass, and thus can be canceled out by counteracting their weight." Doug wasn't exactly sure why Topaz wanted to know about blaseball, but he was certainly willing to share his knowledge on the subject.
Asking had been a terrible mistake. She'd just seen a reference somewhere and thought hey Doug would know. "But balloons are..." She made a waving motion with her chopsticks. "How many balloons does it take to cancel out a run?"
Doug snorted. "See, your first mistake is attempting to understand blaseball. Blaseball is an eldritch thing, and trying to apply logic to it isn't going to work." It was one of the many things he loved about it. That and it being fantasy sports betting taken to its inevitable and ludicrous extreme.
"And people.... enjoy this?"
"People enjoy all kinds of things," Doug observed as he shoveled some noodles into his mouth. "I mean, you've got people who go way down the rabbit hole of tactical wargaming, or yoga, or fishing." His nose wrinkled. "But one person's obsession is another person's what-the-fuck. Fishing is mine, for instance. Can't stand it." He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table after setting his rubber banded chopsticks down. "Plenty of people enjoy trying to piece together systems from limited information. Teasing out rulesets, trying to find loopholes. Or for some people, just the absurdity factor of fake player names and creating storylines around a simulation."
"I suppose," Topaz said doubtfully. "Sounds a bit too ridiculous to actually be any fun, but what do I know. I might just hate fun."
Doug threw the wadded up chopstick wrapper so that it bounced off of Topaz' nose. "You just have different ideas of what constitutes 'fun', I know there are things you enjoy doing, and as long as you aren't harshing other peoples' enjoyment of something, you shouldn't diss yourself like that."
She wrinkled her nose, rolling her eyes at him. "Fine, fair. Is there any significance to the team names?"
"Almost certainly." Doug's lips pursed up and he shrugged his shoulders. "Mostly in that they're part of the surreality of it all. When you've got actual minor league baseball teams with names like the Akron RubberDucks, somehow the Dallas Steaks don't seem nearly so farfetched by comparison."
Topaz was already back on her phone, looking things up. "I understand that this is a thing I'll never make actual sense out of, but I'm still curious."
"And that's how fandom starts," Doug observed with a sharklike grin. "The first hit is always free."
"Runs are canceled out by what?"
Topaz was fairly certain Doug had lost his mind. She looked at his noodles, slightly concerned, before taking a bite of her own. It'd been ten minutes and she understood whatever they were talking about even less than she had when they'd started.
"Balloons. Because in blaseball, runs are a physical object which has mass, and thus can be canceled out by counteracting their weight." Doug wasn't exactly sure why Topaz wanted to know about blaseball, but he was certainly willing to share his knowledge on the subject.
Asking had been a terrible mistake. She'd just seen a reference somewhere and thought hey Doug would know. "But balloons are..." She made a waving motion with her chopsticks. "How many balloons does it take to cancel out a run?"
Doug snorted. "See, your first mistake is attempting to understand blaseball. Blaseball is an eldritch thing, and trying to apply logic to it isn't going to work." It was one of the many things he loved about it. That and it being fantasy sports betting taken to its inevitable and ludicrous extreme.
"And people.... enjoy this?"
"People enjoy all kinds of things," Doug observed as he shoveled some noodles into his mouth. "I mean, you've got people who go way down the rabbit hole of tactical wargaming, or yoga, or fishing." His nose wrinkled. "But one person's obsession is another person's what-the-fuck. Fishing is mine, for instance. Can't stand it." He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table after setting his rubber banded chopsticks down. "Plenty of people enjoy trying to piece together systems from limited information. Teasing out rulesets, trying to find loopholes. Or for some people, just the absurdity factor of fake player names and creating storylines around a simulation."
"I suppose," Topaz said doubtfully. "Sounds a bit too ridiculous to actually be any fun, but what do I know. I might just hate fun."
Doug threw the wadded up chopstick wrapper so that it bounced off of Topaz' nose. "You just have different ideas of what constitutes 'fun', I know there are things you enjoy doing, and as long as you aren't harshing other peoples' enjoyment of something, you shouldn't diss yourself like that."
She wrinkled her nose, rolling her eyes at him. "Fine, fair. Is there any significance to the team names?"
"Almost certainly." Doug's lips pursed up and he shrugged his shoulders. "Mostly in that they're part of the surreality of it all. When you've got actual minor league baseball teams with names like the Akron RubberDucks, somehow the Dallas Steaks don't seem nearly so farfetched by comparison."
Topaz was already back on her phone, looking things up. "I understand that this is a thing I'll never make actual sense out of, but I'm still curious."
"And that's how fandom starts," Doug observed with a sharklike grin. "The first hit is always free."
