the price of perfection
Series Metadata
Listing Series
-
Tags
Summary
They see the world from all angles now, as if watching from a thousand windows at once into directions hidden from everyday eyes. Alone in a distant corner of the universe is the once-large window leading to their teammates, the glass now cracked and smudged and never cleaned because it’s easier to look away than to wake up one morning and find the view has changed yet again.
(PolkaDot Patterson pitches, and pitches, and pitches.)
Series
- Part 1 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
The rest of the team is faltering. They remember another game that seemed endless, remember the darkness and the horrible light that punctuated it. Dot remembers too, of course, but they don't falter, even though the game is tied and the extra innings are looming. The ball must be thrown, and so it is. Nothing can change that. Dot can only stop if the flames come for them someday too, and so they pitch, and do not allow themself to think of fire.
(Jaylen Hotdogfingers hits Workman Gloom with a pitch, Workman Gloom hits their final home run, and PolkaDot Patterson hits rock bottom.)
Series
- Part 2 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
The team has a lot to say, now that Dot can't hear them.
Series
- Part 3 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
The world cracks in half, and Dot falls out of it, falls into it, falls and lands on feet that no longer feel quite like feet.
Changed, again.
(PolkaDot Patterson readjusts to life outside the shell, with help from their teammates.)
Series
- Part 4 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Dot notices. Workman is still Workman, but they're different, too. And how could they not be, after going up in flames and then sleeping for years in the hall, dreaming, drifting in and out of memories of who they once were, and then being called back just to kill a god? Of course they're different.
Dot is different from who they once were, too. And that's not a bad thing, not for them, not entirely, but for Workman...
(Workman Gloom is back from the dead, free from playing blaseball, and PolkaDot Patterson's new roommate. And everything's going to be fine now, right?)
Series
- Part 5 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
PolkaDot Patterson finally attends the Annual Canada Moist Talkers Winter Offseason Skating Party, learns how to skate, and learns a few other things along the way, too.
Series
- Part 6 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Neither of them are very good at this, are they? For all they want to help each other, they’re not very good at being helped. They’re the kind of people who keep going as if everything is fine, who keep pitching as the world falls apart around them, who keep running as their body burns away.
It’s the siesta. Can’t they learn to stop, for a while? Stop and let themselves be helped?
(Three scenes from the Patterson-Gloom apartment during the Grand Siesta)
Series
- Part 7 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Dot and Workman talk on the eve of the election.
Series
- Part 8 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Pitching is what they're here to do. The here changes, but the what never does.
(The third and fourth days of the season, as experienced by PolkaDot Patterson in the Core)
Series
- Part 9 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
PolkaDot Patterson comes home.
Series
- Part 10 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
York Silk is gone. PolkaDot Patterson failed to save him again, and now there's only one thing they can still do for him: lead the Moist Talkers to a championship in his honour. Pitching is what they were made to do. This, at least, is the one thing they shouldn't fail at.
They're going to win. They have to win.
For York.
Series
- Part 11 of the price of perfection
-
the price of imperfection: wips and unfinished things by cyndakip
Fandoms: Blaseball (Video Game)
10 Jul 2021
Tags
Summary
An assortment of unfinished Dot scenes, compiled for the Blaseball WIP Amnesty event!
Series
- Part 12 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Dot never expected to be here. Here, in the finals again, in a Talkers uniform again, the team by their side again.
(PolkaDot Patterson pitches the last game of the playoffs, and reflects on the season they've had.)
Series
- Part 13 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
A phone conversation between Dot and Workman on Dot’s first day with their new team.
Series
- Part 14 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Other-Dot blinks at them, and then -- and then --
and then the worldworlds flipsflip upsidedownrightleftbackwardsforwardsinsideout and the skyground is downup and Dot is fallingrising and Other-Dot is risingfalling and --
And Dot reaches out, claws desperately with each of their many strange extradimensional squiddish fingers all at once, digs deep into the cracks of the universe and holds on tighter than they’ve ever held on to anything, slows their fall, braces themselves against the tide.
(The gods come to take Dot away for good this time. Dot refuses. Things get complicated.)
Series
- Part 15 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Staying in their own world will have consequences, but Dot doesn't have to face them alone.
Series
- Part 16 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
What do you say to someone who is you and yet not, someone who was torn from their world while you got to (mostly) stay in yours, someone who has to take your place in this deadly splort and leave you even more powerless to protect anyone, someone who’s been forced into the impossible task of trying to live up to a legacy you were originally forced into all those years ago?
Dot certainly hasn't figured it out yet.
(A story about Dot trying to deal with the consequences of staying in their own world, working at becoming a pitching coach, getting advice from some old friends, and bonding with Alto.)
Series
- Part 17 of the price of perfection
- Part 1 of not just a copy
-
Tags
Summary
Alto's first game as a batter doesn't exactly go as planned, but Dot's there to help them deal with the aftermath.
Series
- Part 18 of the price of perfection
- Part 2 of not just a copy
-
Tags
Summary
They're not even close to mastering moving between dimensions, if mastering such a thing can be possible at all. But they understand it a lot more than they did when they frantically clawed their way back into their own world, and that worked, so why not this? Maybe it’s not about knowing how to get somewhere, but knowing exactly where you need to be, and having the desperate will to keep stumbling towards it with all that you are.
(So many years ago, Dot was saved by their team's faith in the Monitor. Now, with their newfound abilities, they're determined to somehow return the favour and see their team safely to the Hall.
Fortunately, they've got plenty of help.)
Series
- Part 19 of the price of perfection
-
Tags
Summary
Dot sips their tea. “The best analogy I can come up with is that the giant snowglobe we're in is about to tip upside down, crack, and start letting the snow fall out.”
“And we’re the snow.”
“Well. The players are the snow. Someone wants to shake them out.”
They follow Dot’s gaze upward. “I was afraid that would be the case.”
(A glimpse of what not-quite-life has been like in the black hole for Dot and their family)
Series
- Part 20 of the price of perfection