Short Circuit Interlude – Circuit
Compiled and edited by Em Fring and Cat Stlats
Do you hear that, Blaseball fans? It’s the dulcet tunes of blaseballs hitting bats and other blaseball-thwacking-implements! All across the Immaterial Plane, stadiums are filling up with players, umpires, and fans, eager to see how this Short Circuit will go down. Who will take the Championship? Who will have the best Parties? What is a Short Circuit? Where are we? We here at BNN cannot guarantee answers to all these questions, but what we can guarantee is some spicy hot takes and hard-hitting journalism from our intrepid replorters. So let’s get to it before that pesky little Peanut comes back….
Uptempo Bop
Breckenridge Jazz Hands
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Squid Psst the Frozen? I thought not. It’s not a story the Monitor would tell you. It’s a Jazz Hand Legend. Squid Psst was a Pitcher of the Gamma Circuit, so uncoordinated and so weak she could use the snow to influence the microphone to create timelines… she had such a knowledge of the snow that she could even keep the ones she cared about from winning games. The Frozen side of pitching is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. She became so weak… the only thing she was afraid of was partying, which eventually, of course, she didn’t. Unfortunately, she taught her apprentice everything she knew, then her apprentice night-shifted her in her sleep. Ironic. She could save others from partying, but not herself from shadow boosts.
– Malst
Kansas City Breath Mints
The Breath Mints. finished the first half of this season in good form! Top of the Bops, we look set for a postseason run, though only time will tell how deep said run will be. Our record would place us second or third in any other division, but as the Tokyo Lift know, sometimes you just need to get your foot in the door to make it to the finals. Our performance at the moment consists largely of Tube Rust wins – Tube, a fan favourite and early charge contender, went unbeaten for the majority of the week, only losing that record on Thursday (historically a bad day for Kansas City). Alone, their games account for over 30% of our wins! Hopefully this will continue next week, bolstered by our buffed leadoff Shay Yoshida and boosted offense, after the Mixer mix-up. The threats to Kansas are as usual teams with better offenses – in particular, our eyes are on Mexico City, Boston, Atlantis, and the suddenly very threatening New York. This circuit has been a good one for Kansas City though – don’t count us out just yet!
– Finn (@finnblaseball)
New York Millennials
While the Fiesta may have been cancelled from noise complaints, the New York Millennials Partied as much as they could while the getting was good. The Mills were floundering in the first half of the Season, with only a few batters above average. A historically strong pitching staff (aside from Daniel Darko) kept the Mills afloat enough to get into the Midseason Fiesta with over 70 Games still to go. Daniel Darko became the Guest of Honor, Partying three times as a result and showing significant improvement, and will hopefully have a better second half of the Season. Irene Fashion, Violeta Cantu, Calvin Nether, Mordecai Damage, Coyote Stone, Max Quigley, Cynthia Chalk, Harold Castillo, Cy Knives all Partied hard on the first day of the Fiesta. Irene Fashion, now sporting a Jersey of Invitation, has been Inhabited by Players all across the Blaseball multiverse, notably Conrad Vaughan of the Beta Universe Millennials, Uncle Plasma IX of the Beta Universe Breath Mints (and hitting a home run in the process, thanks PiX), Grimbo Owlbears of the Pre-History Phoenix Trunks, and Amelia Reroll of the Gamma 2 Boston Flowers. While Irene has been performing admirably, we’re spinning the wheel on the quality of ghosts that might be visiting them. [CROWD NOISE] Loner Shelley, the first Yummy reaction since the Discipline Era, managed to beat the Crabs Loner Shelley, the first Yummy reaction since the Discipline Era, managed to beat the Crabs [CROWD NOISE] The Mills, after almost literally facing themselves in the Fiesta before the Monitor ended it, attended a Mixer, which happened to be more Formal than expected, and hopefully our homer output sees some improvement. What are the Millennials’ chances in the upcoming Season? 12 Wins behind the Breath Mints in Uptempo Bop is a steep hill to climb, but [CROWD NOISE] The 51% favored Mills will win! The 49% underdogs Mills will lose! The Mills will Mills.
– Clip Clipperson (@clip_ny)
Canada Moist Talkers
The Moist Talkers are your Midseason Fiesta champions! Following a noise complaint, the Monitor arrived to crown the Talkers and give them a “shiny”. What’s a shiny? Who knows! The team finds itself in an interesting situation. Both the lineup and the rotation saw personnel changes, with Goodie Phlegm being feedback swapped to the Yellowstone Magic in exchange for Gwyn Orange, and a Night Shift sending Roland Magehands to the Shadows for Eloise Butterworth. Butterworth is poised to be an offensive powerhouse, while Orange has yet to be tested. Partying hard in the Fiesta, seven members of the team were shored up with some extra power, while the entire team got to catch up with one another at an awkward mixer. Formal? Whatever it is, Lucky Runway is the Life of it. As a result? It’s hard to say how the team will finish out the season. With an abysmal 25-59 record coming into Week 2, making the postseason would take a herculean effort from these Talkers. With star pitcher Doug Palladium bowing out early and small improvements otherwise, it might not be enough to carry their powerhouse offense over the finish line. Oh well. The Monitor said our name. That’s the best victory we could ask for.
– Quinn (Ilaian#1001)
Downtempo Dirge
Hellmouth Sunbeams
Oh, uh, hey. Guess I’m guest writing here. Uh. Opinions my own, not my employers? The Sunbeams just barely slid into the midseason fiesta and the party benefits are really showing. Julian Greene is a superstar hitter and the lineup in general has picked up, becoming a well-rounded roster with no clear weak point beyond its overwhelming averageness. But the real story here is the pitching staff: the first time in history the Sunbeams can ever have been said to have relatively average- maybe even good!- pitching. The Spider twins Royce and Micah are ready to put in work, Silvaire’s learned how to actually throw, Amanda Rowdy is still decent and Elisa Park must throw the ball. For a team that wasn’t far out of playoff contention to begin with, there’s plenty of games left to make up that three-game gap between them and the Shoe Thieves, though whether they can compete with superstar teams like the Wild Wings and Georgias remains to be seen. The only thing that can stop them now would be some really disastrous weather, which, let’s be honest, nothing bad ever happens to the Sunbeams.
-Sins (@AMinmaximus)
The Sunbeams, once again, are hideously bereft of weather in the Short Circuits. Despite rumours that the dial has been turned up 200-400%, the gluttons in the rest of the league have been feasting upon these benefits without leaving a crumb for the rest of us, our rosters entirely intact. Where is the humanity? Where is the joy? Where is the fulfilment for our constant chants for violence? Human nature is change, change is the seed of creativity, of joy, of growing as individuals and as a team. Without change, how can we say we live? And the Sunbeams are bogged down, stagnant, grasping pitifully at only snow, left merely dreaming of bigger things like incineration, feedback, night shift, and the ever-elusive yummy reaction. We have a simple plea. Please, make us regret our cries. Make us regret ever thinking of the concept of weather. Destroy our team, piece by piece, and through that bring us life. Also, we partied a bunch and got some boosts so we’re better now. 5778!
– Dasy
Seattle Garages
The vibes have been high, but performance-wise, this week’s been a bust for the Garages. After opening up the season with some of the worst batting prospects in the league, Seattle fans were begging for something, anything, to change for the team. That change came in the form of a mid-week full-team reverb, the fifth ever in Blaseball history. But reviewing the prospects, the grand shuffle seemed to have just exchanged one bad hand for another. The lineup was marginally improved, mostly because it couldn’t get worse. But the new rotation has proven unable to throw a strikeout; even the team’s best pitcher barely manages five per game.
Still, the Midseason helped compensate for Seattle’s raw deal. Dimi Wobbler (good vibes, bad batting) became the Guest of Honor, and eight parties in the first Fiesta game tipped some Garages back into the realm of relevance. A two-game sweep of the Tacos left fans cautiously optimistic. But then…
Faced with a house that always won, Seattle tried to play solitaire. Twice the play, twice the parties. Unfortunately, going all in didn’t pay out, and the Party Crash led to the Fiesta being called off with no further stat boosts to show for it. After the noise complaint, Seattle opted for a Cookout in the Party Planning election, infusing the team with better vibes than ever.
As the team enters the second week of games, every win will count, else they’ll be nothing more than Wild Card wannabes. The playoffs approach, and Seattle’s in the hole. There’s no time to hedge their bets. The Garages might have doubled up, but now it’s time to double down.
– crab (@KGARBlaseball)
Chicago Firefighters
As a surprise to approximately no one, the key word for this circuit’s Chicago Firefighters continues to be temperance, temperance, temperance, and that trend only looks to continue as we head into the second half of the season. In true Firefighters fashion, after a midweek slump the team decided to go on a winning streak just powerful enough to narrowly pull themselves out of this weekend’s Fiesta/Siesta, which may cause trouble in the long run. On the other hand, weather has been no stranger to the team this season, with a shockingly good mutual feedback with the Crabs, an unshockingly bad allergic reaction, and a pitcher night shift for the third circuit in a row (giving us Owen Turbo, who has the second lowest ERA in the league as of writing this). With only two more weather events needed to catch them all, can the Firefighters do it? Only time will tell. BNN readers, I need to level with you. Our pitching? Bad, aside from the aforementioned Owen Turbo. Our batting? Sometimes there. Our baserunning? Extremely funny. And our defense? You know our defense is real. That is all to say, I don’t know how the Firefighters are going to do this week. What I do know? They’re going to keep us on our toes.
– Stara (@ChiBlaseball)
Uptempo Jam
Boston Flowers
The Boston Flowers have always been a championship contender, and have only grown stronger since the season began. Fate sent both an Incineration and a Feedback at them, but Easton Baguette and Squid Broom were improvements to their roster, catapulting them into 1st place in the League. Then the Flowers made Blake Chew their Life of the Party to improve their pitching rotation which already boasted two star pitchers, Jose Marzen, and the currently undefeated Rosemary Penguin. With arguably the best Roster, and definitively the best player name this Circuit, the Flowers are certainly a favourite to win the Championship, and it seems like nothing can slow them down. The question we have to ask isn’t “Can the Boston Flowers win?” but “Can the Boston Flowers be stopped?” Either way I expect the answer is “We’re the Flowers.”
– Kidror (@Kidror19)
Yellowstone Magic
The Yellowstone Magic’s dedication to maintain balance in the universe is shining through once again. In true uppy downy fashion, we’ve managed to end up snugly in the middle of being a playoff powerhouse and being allowed into what some are now dubbing the “Double Feature Party Crash”. Our plans to party hard were foiled by the enthusiasm of our strongest players. Peyton Drysdale, who we acquired from the Boston Flowers early on at the low cost of Squid Broom, turned out to love stealing bases. Assisting this master thief were their hard-hitting accomplices: Kay Pleck, our most reliable homerunner, and Isaac Puffins, who benefitted from having the second Yummy reaction since the Discipline Era. We soon discovered that our lineup had no interest in attending a noisy crowded gathering, preferring to stay comfortably at home watching some birds. Isaac Puffins in particular did not wish to partake in any festivities, deciding to clock out and let Slosh Chalk take the Night Shift. After throwing Errol Wool their own personal birthday bash whether they wanted it or not— gaining them a whole 4.2 stars in the process— we further strengthened our lineup by hosting a Rager in the park. With some of our players now maxed out in Friction and Continuation while others savored the much-needed boost to Musclitude, we’ve now hopefully covered our bases when it comes to buffing our lineup. Those who want to steal bases will continue to be good at stealing them, and those who aren’t will be more likely to score big when they do hit the ball. We aren’t going to party quickly, but we’re also going to have to be on our best performance if we want to be The Team To Beat. What will it be, Magic. Are we going up? Are we going down? Or are we going to stay jamming to our own uppy-downy tempo, blissfully warding ourselves from silly things like Noise Complaints and A Shiny? As always, only time will tell.
– Mal (malgic#8522)
Downtempo Ballad
Tokyo Lift
Before Fiesta the Lift looked like powerful contenders in the Ballad division, up where we belong if barely in sight of the Wings’ runaway train. Things look more precarious after a wind of change swept through the trailing Crabs and Pies, but objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are. Time after time the Lift’s weak point has been their rotation. Underrated Art Dembélé and Seth Bitters have put in the effort (remember those twenty-two-and-a-half innings of stalemate in the Los Angeli?) but the remaining pitchers seem out of their depth. Life of the Party Herb Swamp might insist that we don’t need another hero when he’s right here waiting, but if I could turn back time the team would be planning a mixer rather than a rager. The Lift can still triumph against all odds – it would take one fortuitous night shift, or Swamp reverbing with pretty much any hitter – but the die-hard fans who believe that nothing’s gonna stop us now, that we are the champions-in-waiting, are surely headed for a heartbreak.
– elmonstro (elmonstro#6813)
Mexico City Wild Wings
Oh, hi, sorry, we’re a bit disoriented around here. Y’see, we were planning on having a light get-together, but there was a mistake with the invites, and now everyone’s in tuxedos and ball gowns, and I’m meant to be reporting on the party but I’m reeeeeeeeeally underdressed for it, so I’m just kinda hiding in the bathroom. So, the Wild Wings. That’s also been a little disorienting, to be honest, because in all my years covering this team, they’ve never been what one would conventionally describe as good. But these Wings… two of the top five batters in the league by OPS are Wings (Lillian McKinley and Soledad Drama) and Soledad leads the league in hits and home runs, and is second in total runs only to Lillian. As a team, the Wings lead the league in runs, home runs, runs batted in, slugging percentage, OPS, and total bases. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most talented group of batters I’ve ever covered, and that was before Nova Bye was chosen to lead the party. Pitching wise, this rotation is less exceptional. Elijah Bader is a rising star, and Patricia Rhodes and Badger León are reliable presences alongside them, but Mitch Pink survives only by the good graces of the offence, and Tobias Diallo… well, Toby never met a team he couldn’t hand 15 runs to. Toby definitely stands out as the weak link in this pitching rotation. Um, ok, someone’s knocking on the stall door, I’m gonna have to stop typing until they go away, and if it’s Slow McDonald (which is not even their nickname), I’m gonna be here a while. Wings good, and I’m scared.
– Spludge
