Jaylen Hotdogfingers (feels the shadows’ call)
Written by: iliana quorum, Headmistress of SIBR
For many early Blaseball fans, including myself, the name Jaylen Hotdogfingers was our first glimpse into the immaterial plane. I was introduced to Blaseball through a Twitter screenshot of the Season 1 Election results, signed up for an account that night, joined the Discord the next, and was hooked.
Even by the end of Season 2, most Blaseball fans never saw Jaylen pitch a game. But “star player” was no understatement; official league stat sheets, discovered many seasons later by the Society for Internet Blaseball Research, indicate that they pitched the first perfect game in ILB history. And until Hotdogfingers’ first Enhanced Party Time stat change toward the end of Season 13, they retained their originally-generated stars from all the way back in Season 1. Those stars gave them a 2.75 ERA in Season 1, and a post-necromancy 3.01 ERA from Seasons 7 through 13.
Their perfect game and ERA don’t matter and never did. They could be a 5-star or half-star pitcher. Jaylen’s impact to the league isn’t measured in strikeouts or walks: it’s measured in players laid waste by overactive umpires, a dozen mid-game pitcher swaps, and the end of an Era.
[IF WILL PASSES AS PLANNED] The Seattle Garages fanbase, through the league’s formal group decision-making process, have decided to close the book on Jaylen Hotdogfingers. Jaylen is one of Seattle’s strongest pitchers, but the Garages chose to end their Fliickerrriiing wanderer’s chaos on pitching rotations across the league and write a formal end to the most chaotic career in Blaseball.
[IN EVENT OF JAYLEN REMAINING ACTIVE] Jaylen has played for eleven teams so far, and the Garages’ plan to Foreshadow Jaylen Hotdogfingers has failed to pass. While Jaylen remains one of Seattle’s strongest pitchers, they won’t remain for long; Jaylen pitching under Feedback weather is incredibly likely to introduce a new pitcher to Seattle’s rotation. For now though, Jaylen is home, and we close the book on one era of the Jaylen Hotdogfingers World Tour and begin writing the next.
[IN EVENT OF REVOKING JAYLEN] While the Seattle Garages fanbase decided to Foreshadow Jaylen Hotdogfingers and close the book on the most chaotic career in Blaseball, that Will failed to pass, and instead the Garages have Revoked Hotdogfingers, sending them to a new team to begin the second leg of their world tour.
[IN EVENT OF FORESHADOW FOLLOWED BY PLUNDER, LEAVING JAYLEN ACTIVE] The Seattle Garages fanbase, through the league’s formal group decision-making process, have decided to close the book on Jaylen Hotdogfingers. The rest of the league, through the same decision-making process, have decided that Jaylen must continue their world tour, closing one chapter on the most chaotic career in Blaseball and opening another.
[IN EVENT OF TRADE WITH DECEASED SUTTON PICKLESTEIN] The league has, again, somehow managed to trade a perfectly alive Jaylen Hotdogfingers for a deceased player. While the Garages hoped to close the book on Hotdogfingers’ chaotic career, Jaylen instead became the first player to die three times, and Sutton Picklestein became the third player to return from the Void.
[IN EVENT JAYLEN HOTDOGFINGERS IS TRUSTED WITH FLIPPERS, TRADED TO ANOTHER TEAM, AND TRUSTED WITH FLIPPERS AGAIN DUE TO A GAME BUG] It is impossible to say exactly what the league had in mind in today’s election, but the Garages’ plan to shadow Jaylen Hotdogfingers has thoroughly failed, as Jaylen triggered a bug in the Election that resulted in them having a redundant set of flippers and entering the pitching rotation of [INSERT TEAM NAME]. With the first chapter of the most chaotic career in Blaseball coming to a close, we enter a new era of the Jaylen Hotdogfingers World Tour.
[IN EVENT OF JAYLEN TRADE WITH TILLMAN HENDERSON] In another highly-chaotic election, history repeats itself: Jaylen Hotdogfingers is inexplicably traded for Tillman Henderson for the second time in ILB history. This time, however, Jaylen remains alive; as the Garages attempted to close the book on the most chaotic career in Blaseball, the next chapter begins with the Charleston Shoe Thieves.
[IN EVENT OF JAYLEN TRADE WITH DECEASED SUTTON PICKLESTEIN, FOLLOWED BY SHADOWING, FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER, SECOND TRADE FOR SUTTON PICKLESTEIN] Note to editor: just cancel this article I guess
Necromancy and debt
Many know the story by now: the Forbidden Book opens, 4-star pitcher Jaylen is incinerated, a wrathful floating peanut god is upset by Blaseball fans obtaining negative infinity peanuts, and the fans decide they don’t like the god after discovering (but not learning) that actions have consequences. The league introduces idolatry, and the fans proceed to learn via Boston pitcher Caligula Lotus’s incineration that dead players can remain and become idolized. Five minutes after hearing of this, SIBR researchers produce the player page for Jaylen Hotdogfingers, and one hour later, Jaylen finds their way to the idol board following an experiment by Moist Talkers fans.
The plan to resurrect Jaylen Hotdogfingers quickly caught on across the league. Garages fans were initially hesitant as others pushed league-wide propaganda to implement the plan. The idols board rapidly shifted up until the Season 6 Election, when the results revealed: Jaylen Hotdogfingers Returns.
It’s important to reflect on what could have gone “wrong” here. Blaseball.com slowed significantly as the clock got closer and closer to the top of the hour; plenty of fans had switched idols not realizing Jaylen shifted into the right spot fractions of a second prior. And while the league overall was shooting for Jaylen to return home to Seattle, the relatively high-for-a-blessing 58% of the vote means there was still a 42% chance Jaylen returned to another team, perhaps any team. But despite the odds, the “right” thing happened. Jaylen returned to Seattle, but not without the ire of the Shelled One.
The ledger must be balanced, and debts paid; Jaylen returns with “Debt”, and for the first time in Blaseball, a pitcher hits a batter with a pitch. The hit batter becomes Unstable as we spend what seems like an eternity wondering what that means.
And suddenly, the fans learn very quickly what Unstable does. Jaylen’s first Debt was collected on Season 7, Day 32, when an umpire incinerated Moody Cookbook; four more players died in that game and the next, an event fans call Ruby Tuesday. Cookbook’s instability chained to Elijah Bates, who umpires incinerated next. By the end of the season, 12 players became incinerated as payment.
Under mysterious terms, the Microphone refinances Jaylen’s debt, and their beanballs leave players Flickering, making them more susceptible to Feedback’s reality flickers and swapping teams. Microphone icons make their way to the idol board, and fans manipulate Jaylen to one of the icons, making them permanently flickering.
The tour begins, and Jaylen dies again
Having seen the league reshaped by Feedback, fans braced themselves for additional swaps. Jaylen first swapped for the Pies’ Betsy Trombone, then found their way back to the Garages fourteen days later. After briefly swapping to the Moist Talkers, Jaylen stayed put on the Charleston Shoe Thieves, who with Jaylen reverse-swept the two-time Internet Series winning Baltimore Crabs, upsetting what was a likely ascension run. The Shelled One descended and thoroughly whooped Charleston’s butts; Jaylen, of all players, ended up pitching against the Shelled One’s Pods, and was cursed along with the rest of the team upon their defeat.
With no Feedback weather in Season 10, Jaylen remained on the Shoe Thieves for the regular season. A rogue umpire incinerated Baltimore Crabs pitcher Tillman Henderson mid-way through the season, and the Crabs attempted to murder Tillman Henderson a second time.
The Crabs experiment led to an important clue on the idol board that season, and as usual, a plan was hatched: get six players to the six weather icons, with Tillman Henderson assigned position 15. A microphone labeled position 14, and the plan settled on putting them there, for lack of a better idea.
As the dust settled around the idol board, fans realized that Jaylen Hotdogfingers had died again, and Tillman Henderson returned from the dead. Position 14 on both the idol board and the Hall of Flame swapped, and Jaylen found themself in the Hall, now Fliickerrriiing, with the same tribute that Tillman had.
The Shelled One descended again and thoroughly whooped Baltimore’s butts, only to be greeted by the top fourteen players in the Hall of Flame playing as the Hall Stars, with none other than Jaylen Hotdogfingers pitching. Over the course of the lengthy boss battle, Jaylen swapped with Pods pitcher Axel Trololol nine times; at the end, Jaylen remained on the defeated Pods, and Axel was Released along with the rest of the Hall Stars.
The battle between the Pods and the Hall Stars was frighteningly close throughout; one of many factors for the Hall Stars’ victory was their Loyalty modification made Jaylen a Saboteur every time they swapped to pitching for the Pods, making them have a chance of deliberately pitching into a Hall Stars home run.
After the Discipline Era
As the Shelled One’s Pods randomly fell back to teams in the league, Jaylen joined the San Francisco Lovers. With no Feedback after the Crabs retrocausally activated the Black Hole, they remained with the Lovers for the remainder of the Discipline Era. During the Coffee Cup, Jaylen pitched for the Heavy FC tournament team.
As the Expansion Era began, the league quickly learned that Fliickerrriiing greatly increased the likelihood of swapping teams in the Feedback. In just two seasons, Jaylen made their way onto the Yellowstone Magic, the Hawai’i Fridays, and the Core Mechanics, before returning to Seattle a third time toward the end of Season 13.
The Discipline Era ended a decade ago, but the league is still feeling the impact. Rogue umpires continue to incinerate players, peanuts continue to rain from the sky and are somehow attracted only to those with peanut allergies, and the fans’ decision to raise the dead continues to have consequences, even if less severe than before.
It is not surprising the Garages [IF WILL PASSES AS PLANNED] chose [OTHERWISE] planned to move Jaylen Hotdogfingers to the Shadows; the Discipline Era is very much behind us, and the reminders that remain continue to sharply impact the league. They made the conscious decision to remove a legendary player from active play in the name of moving forward as a league.
[IF WILL PASSES AS PLANNED] And perhaps, someday, we can find an end to Jaylen’s Fliickerrriiing, and they may pitch for the Garages once more.
[OTHERWISE] Despite that choice, the [IF GARAGES WIMDY] Garages’ [IF OTHERS WIMDY] leagues’ Wills chose differently. Jaylen remains an active player, and will likely wander to another team this season. The second leg of the Jaylen Hotdogfingers World Tour begins soon.
