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1) We do a little Season 1 picture but in writing
There's a single, tattered photo pinned on the corkboard in the captain's office in The Gleek, featuring the ILB Season 1 roster for the Canada Moist Talkers.
Front and centre, Kennedy Alstott, with their arm wrapped around Trevino Merritt, pulling him in from where he is trying to shy away. Tyler Violet is off to their right, grinning fondly at their antics, and still looking like an active participant despite also doing their best to prevent anyone from getting a handful of their poison spikes from an errant touch.
Off on the left side, the pitching roster. Oliver Notarobot poses with their best smile, while still managing to look as awkward as one would in a formal photo, despite this being anything but. Ortiz Morse, smiling big and wild as he seems to be mid-sentence, talking to Mooney Doctor, who has her nose buried in a clipboard as she writes. Jenkins Good, fiddling with their sleeve, seemingly adjusting their attached Wliimote, as Greer Lott looks at their fiddling with her hands in her pockets, half hidden behind her cardboard cutout.
On the right side, the rest of the batters, Jesús Koch posing confidently and somewhat arrogantly. Elijah Bates, holding a teacup, seems to have been interrupted during his tea time and decided to bring it with him. Eugenia Garbage, still a formless pile of slime with a Moist Talkers jersey and various bits of trash floating within her form, is just barely tall enough to be within the bottom of the frame, while Richmond Harrison with Hobbs Cain on his shoulders barely fit the top half of the frame, with Hobbs half falling off Richmond's shoulder as Richmond visibly gurgles happily. Joe Voorhees is just barely visible behind Richmond, he doesn't seem to be doing much but the aura he gives off is quite menacing.
The picture is yellowed at the edges, and has many water stains as is expected of any paper document stored within The Gleek, but it has been spared as much wear as the other documents of the corkboard, due to being covered by so many other documents.
By the time Ziwa Mueller takes over captaincy for Tyvi in Season 3, the picture has already been covered by a myriad of other documents.
Ziwa never sees this picture. Nobody does, until Ziwa is gone to Yellowstone and the captaincy has fallen to Eugenia.
Eugenia spends a day cleaning out the corkboard and finds the picture.
Eugenia realizes at that moment, just how many of them are left.
(Kennedy Alstott, Incinerated
Tyler Violet, Incinerated, then Ambushed to the Tigers
Trevino Merritt, Incinerated
Elijah Bates, Incinerated
Hobbs Cain, Incinerated
Joe Voorhees, Shadowed while Shelled, on the Sunbeams
Jesús Koch, Alternated Season 4, on the Magic
Richmond Harrison, on the Dale
Mooney Doctor, Shadowed on the Moist Talkers
Jenkins Good, Alternated Season 4, Currently 'active' for the Moist Talkers
Ortiz Morse, Shadowed on the Garages
Oliver Notarobot, on the Garages
Greer Lott, Alternated Season 18, Currently 'active' for the Moist Talkers
Eugenia Garbage, Shadowed on the Moist Talkers)
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2) Sometimes a little amnesia is good actually
Kennedy Alstott doesn't remember being incinerated. They remember a bright light, they remember their own rage… That festering, hot and ugly feeling that built and built since Trevino was incinerated, they remember being cold last of all. Nothing in between. They don't remember the umpire's eyes, they don't remember hearing the way Tyvi screamed at them, they don't remember the heat, the fire, the ash.
But here, in the moment after they arrive in the Hall of Flame and take a deep breath of the slightly humid air, in the moment after Trevino lets out a sob as he watches Kennedy stagger a few steps as some nearby players steady them gently, in the moment where Kennedy makes the move to hold Trevino in a tight embrace as he cries and cries and clenches unclenches his fists in the back of their shirt, this is the moment they remember the strongest of all, even through the brain fog that persists after, and honestly? It's one of their most important memories, one of the things they cherish most, and even in this unfamiliar place, as always, they know that anywhere with Trevino Merritt could feel like coming home.
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3) You can only really have one Normal Dude per team
-Content warning mentions of mean bad parent boooo-
The thing everyone notices about Velasquez Alstott, after spending at least a little time with her, is that she changes ages in twos. This is a power that she gained after the incineration of Morrow Doyle, after often sleeping under the Trans Dimensional Violet Tree. This ability was made stronger, due to her getting beaned by one of Jaylen Hotdogfingers pitches in Season 7. But that power is somewhat similar to a power held by her parent, Kennedy Alstott.
Unlike Vela, however, Kennedy's power is not tied to their age specifically, and is tied to their appearance. In their youth, Kennedy often changed what they looked like drastically from one day to the next, one day sporting pink hair and a thin, waifish body to being hulking and muscular with a natural hair tone the next. Whatever trend or idea they saw, they would try it out. These changes were not true shapeshifting, as they had to keep a human form, but they were also able to procure a tail or a set of wings if they so choose.
This adventurous spirit was eventually dampened by their father, who was also the reason they started playing professional Flootball when they were 18. Their father, Mike Alstott, was stern, and while he often tried to be well meaning, he had been focused on Kennedy playing Flootball since before they were born.
It was him who finally convinced them to try out one set appearance, just to be recognizable and a steady presence on the Flootball field.
Kennedy was very good at Flootball, there was no question about it. They knew the plays, knew how to perform their role to the best of their ability, but Flootball wasn't their passion, and it really showed in their on field performance.
Risky plays, yelling, aggression, that was how Kennedy Alstott was on the field. They felt like a completely different person, and that was something that really scared them.
It wasn't until they were 23 and Vela was two when they figured it was time for a change, and not the visual kind, but well, also the visual kind.
When Kennedy quit Flootball to pursue Blaseball, it was quite the event in the family. Their father insisted they couldn't make this big of a decision on a whim, especially because of how good a player Kennedy was. But Kennedy was reaching the end of their 5 year contract with their team and was going to essentially take retirement before their career had even really begun.
This started a fight, of course. Mike Alstott had never really known Kennedy for anything beyond who they were when playing flootball, and thus the argument ended badly, and also ended with Kennedy and Vela leaving and deciding for them both to play blaseball, partially as a form of rebellion, but also because they both thoroughly loved the game.
When Kennedy Alstott shows up to the Charleston Shoe Thieves clubhouse a month before the official start of the season, sporting furious red eyes and holding Vela on their hip, the team doesn't know what to expect.
"I signed her up for a rec league." Kennedy explains to Cornelius Games, while Vela meets her new teammates. "I have no idea how she ended up on the ILB roster, especially on a team I'm not on."
Cornelius knows a bit about the legacy of the Alstotts, having dabbled in various sports betting in the past before finding his niche, and also from research he's done into most of the publicly known ILB players. He knows who Kennedy Alstott is, how they left flootball to founded the Canada Moist Talkers. He doesn't, however, understand how such a monumental mistake of signing up your child to an ILB team could be made, though from the sound of things Kennedy doesn't either.
"I've looked into legal stuff, regarding Vela playing." Kennedy continues, they aren't making eye contact with Cornelius, arms crossed and looking over to where Vela is. "There's no loopholes, according to my lawyer. She has to play."
Kennedy looks at Cornelius then. Up until this point, Cornelius could have sworn that Kennedy was far shorter in stature just a few minutes ago, but in this moment, Kennedy towers above them.
They extend a hand, and grasp Cornelius firmly on the shoulder.
"Look after her for me, please." Kennedy says.
Cornelius Games says yes. There's nothing else he can say, this isn't a formal agreement, but the fear in Kennedy's eyes, their concern for their child, shakes Cornelius to the core.
Kennedy sighs after that, and absently rubs one of their eyes. When they open them again, they have turned into a less angry colour, though the soft pink hue still seems prepared to flip back at any point
Vela stays with the Shoe Thieves from then on out. She understands that Kennedy had to go, though it doesn't prevent her from being sad about it.
Cornelius Games writes up Esme Ramsey as Vela's legal guardian on Kennedy's behest, seeing as though Esme was the one Vela immediately attached to.
Season 3, Day 19, Kennedy Alstott is incinerated.
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4) Your best friend is trolling you, Trevino
Trevino Merritt still doesn't understand how he managed to be convinced to do this.
Kennedy seemed so excited when they held up the deed to the old Spittle Park stadium, announcing that they wanted Trevino to join them in founding the Canada Moist Talkers blaseball team for the ILB.
This was all well and good, but the stadium was half sunken, as most things were in sunken Halifax, and Kennedy's minor shapeshifting abilities apparently didn't extend to gills
(It was bullspit, Trevino told them, he was pretty sure he remembered Kennedy shapeshifting gills once. Kennedy just grinned and hoisted him over their shoulder, tossing them into the deep puddle behind third base)
Nevertheless, Trevino becomes the one in charge of surveying the structural integrity of the stadium (The Gleek, as Kennedy wants to call it) due to his natural ability to hold his breath underwater for long periods of time.
Trevino sometimes cursed his half beaver heritage. He has some round little ears on top of his head that made it uncomfortable to wear hats over unless they were custom made, his tail is so wide and often drags on the ground, causing him to trip often, he had so many problems with his teeth when he was younger and still has braces at 23… Not to mention his asthma, though thankfully it had gotten much better over the years.
Most of these complaints completely went away when he swam underwater.
Trevino could always hold his breath for a long time underwater, even in the peak years of his asthma. Something about the water almost made him stronger, took away a lot of the things he was self conscious about on land. His tail let him swim with ease, and even his senses underwater felt heightened.
He had been going to school to become an underwater researcher, and it seemed that Kennedy knew how important it had been for him, despite Trevino accepting their invitation to start the Moist Talkers, so when Trevino finally exits the water, Kennedy is nowhere to be found. Though there is a clipboard and a pen that seems to have been left for Trevino's use.
Kennedy comes back an hour later with coffee. Trevino has filled all the given pages of the clipboard with notes and diagrams about the structural integrity, flora and fauna, and natural resources of the small patch of water.
As Trevino spouts plans to Kennedy about the stuff they will need to fix to make the stadium safe, barely half his attention actually on Kennedy, they slip the coffee into his hands, to which Trevino smiles in gratitude.
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5) How many times have I written 'Ty Vi' in this fanfic? Too little, they deserve more
They both agreed that neither of them would be good captains for the team.
Trevino was too anxious, too used to second guessing his every move in an effort to not upset people or be hurt, his self confidence fluctuates rapidly on a day to day basis, and he is also very clumsy.
Kennedy is too much of a perfectionist. They will correct and adjust every single inch of any project they have control over until they deem it perfect, and in high stakes situations their anger burns hot and burns long. Kennedy does not simply forgive and forget.
Regardless, they decide the Canada Moist Talkers captain will have to be someone different. Someone they choose.
They are surprised when Tyler Violet shows up, honestly.
Ty Vi knew Trevino and Kennedy from before Blaseball, though the details of 'before blaseball' had been fuzzy since they signed up for the team. Despite not knowing exactly how they knew Ty Vi, they both could never forget the presence they carry around with them.
Ty Vi takes to leadership easily, bouncing ideas off Trevino and Kennedy and connecting easily with the rest of the players.
(It's Ty Vi that tries their best to piece together Kennedy's broken heart once Trevino is gone.)
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6) Ty Vi deserves a little violence as a treat when Kennedy is being stupid, i think.
-Content warning is really just that Ty Vi and Kennedy have a little fight i spose. Ty Vi has a good punch)
Ty Vi punches them once, a few weeks after they've both entered the Hall, and Kennedy had honestly been expecting it since Ty Vi arrived. They yelled at Kennedy until they were both in tears. They didn't expect to find out that Ty Vi's natural poison was nullified in the Hall, of all things, after Ty Vi hugged Kennedy to comfort both of them, completely on instinct.
The number one secret that everyone keeps from Trevino Merritt is the complete 180 that Kennedy’s personality did once he was gone.
The number one secret that Trevino keeps from everyone else is that he already knows.
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7) nm, Kiki was incinerated
-Content warnings in that i talk about all the incinerated players for the Moist Talkers perhaps?-
Trevino, Kennedy, and Ty Vi become a trio for a long time. The only three Moist Talker incinerations for many seasons.
They form a sort of camaraderie, the kind of trio where one cannot be found without the others. It helps keep Trevino's anxiety down, knowing he has two friends who are willing to comfort him on his bad days, and Ty Vi starts getting used to being able to hug both of them, since their poison has no effect now, when before the list of people they could make physical contact with was very small.
When Hobbs arrives, he is absolutely enamoured at the existence of the Hall, despite how he got there. It takes him a few days of writing down almost an excessive amount of notes to finally talk to the trio about what they had missed in their absence, and boy, there was a lot.
They were all honestly hoping they would be the only incinerations for another long while. But then comes Elijah Bates two seasons later, with a haunted look in his eyes.
Then the quick succession, Kiki Familia, who they later found out was Bates replacement, the poor girl, then Antonio Wallace, former Shoe Thief currently in Moist Talker blue.
Three quick incinerations for the Moist Talkers, not to mention the incinerations on the other side of the game for the Hades Tigers of Moody Cookbook and Mclaughlin Scorpler.
Then comes Workman Gloom, another former Shoe Thief turned Moist Talker, beaming through their tears, knowing that they hit that final home run.
York Silk in season 14 shows up in the Hall with the air of bitterness. They watched his peanut count rise and rise and rise and knew he wasn’t staying long. He knew it too, and over the course of the few days he was there, he got older and older.
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8) Wow Trevino, how come Mailor lets you break the rule about no crying in blaseball?
-Content warnings for this one Trevino cries a lot and is pretty depressed and has anxiety and panic stuff going on-
Trevino's time in the Hall before Kennedy arrived was mostly a blur. Scattered moments of fear, so, so much of the colour blue, nightmares, people yelling.
He mostly remembers how much he cried.
He remembers sitting and leaning against a wall in a haze, crumpling his jersey in his hands in a clench unclench motion, tears streaming down his face as he makes his best effort NOT to cry. His sniffles attract the attention of Tyreek Olive, who ends up spending a lot of their time in those first days soothing Trevino to sleep, if only to give him a momentary reprieve from the confusion and the loneliness.
Trevino likes Tyreek, they have this warm presence about them, and they never really ask questions. They most likely don’t quite understand why Trevino is so upset, but in reality Trevino doesn’t quite know himself.
(This is a lie, Trevino is upset for a myriad of reasons he doesn’t want to think about. Losing his team, losing his life and his dreams and his future… He isn’t sure if the Hall is a sort of Heaven or Hell, not that he really believes in either concept, but he does seem to be stuck here.
He feels guilty for thinking about all the people he wishes more than anything he could see again.
He misses Kennedy
It's easier to let himself get lost in the memory of his own incineration than to think about everything else)
He gets a little more stable after a few days, but only after he has run out of tears to cry and is left with this hollow empty feeling. The next time Tyreek finds him, they pull him into their arms and rub his back until he falls asleep again, and soothes him through his panic when he wakes up later from a nightmare.
He doesn’t cry another tear until Kennedy shows up, but oh boy, does he bawl like a little baby, while Kennedy holds him steady even with their post incineration brain fog.
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9) Ziwa Mueller, the champion of 'does a gay little guitar solo that makes you mad'
-Content warnings for this one, mentions of depression and stuff and also Kennedy doing Very Badly at handling grief, also mentions of medications i guess on Ty Vi's part-
The last at bat Trevino Merritt takes, he hits a sacrifice fly to score Kennedy. It's a good play, all things considered, and it gets them their second point.
The team is on defense when he is incinerated, a half inning later. Kennedy doesn't remember much from when it happened, just that their knees buckled when they looked over to see the ashes of what used to be their best friend, and then Ty Vi yelling at Richmond to pick them up. They figure they must have been screaming, by the urgency in Ty Vi's voice and the shushing sounds Richmond makes.
(A part of their brain at the time goes 'Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, and they think they remember giving a delirious and wet giggle while Richmond rocks them back and forth)
Kennedy has never dealt with grief well, mostly due to a lack of having to experience it throughout the course of their life, they go numb for the rest of the game. They have two at bats where they have to be coaxed onto the field by Ty Vi, managing to hit a single on one and get walked on the other.
Ty Vi disappears after it first happens, reappearing with a beautiful urn, which they hand to Kennedy to hold, and they sit and rub Kennedy's back as they hunch over the urn, forehead pressed against it.
They want to cry but, there is no crying in blaseball.
(It only occurs to them later the fact that Ty Vi had been touching them and they didn't get poisoned. When they ask them later they just shrug and say 'I have medications for that. They have spit-awful side effects so I only take them in emergencies' and Kennedy is sort of glad that a whole person being incinerated counts as an emergency)
Ty Vi doesn't let them go home alone after that game. Kennedy gets bundled into a lot of blankets by Richmond who burbles sadly after them as he gently places them in Ty Vi's car. They spend the rest of the season barely coherent in their depression, with Ty Vi trying their best to make sure they eat and sleep and look after themself.
('They're gonna stay with us for a while.' Ty Vi tells Ziwa. 'Their best friend was just incinerated and I'm not leaving them alone until I know they aren't going to turn around and attempt to meet the same fate.' Ziwa shrugs, picking up their guitar and playing a little tune while Ty Vi starts up the oven burner to make some soup.)
It doesn't matter in the end. Season 3, day 19, Kennedy Alstott has been moving past their grief slowly but surely.
Then they see that umpire.
And we know how that story ends.
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10) You're beautiful... and evil too
Kennedy is massively pissed off for the first month they're in the Hall, and then just rather unapproachable after.
Ty Vi and Trevino try to get them to at least stop glaring at every single person who walks close to them, but it ends up being a lost cause.
Kennedy doesn't give a spit about what the other people in the Hall think about them. They have Trevino and they have Ty Vi and nobody else matters.
Until one Derrick Krueger attempts to worm his way into Kennedy's space.
It was on a dare, at first. Some of the other players daring Derrick to talk to the unapproachable Kennedy Alstott, and eventually it became less of a dare and more of a challenge.
Let it be known that Derrick had persistence in this endeavour. He did his research, eventually learning that in order to get to Kennedy, he most likely should get to know Trevino and Ty Vi.
So he does, and it's surprisingly easy. Ty Vi knows about the Garages band from Ziwa constantly talking about them, and Trevino's anxiety apparently doesn't extend to meeting new people. So Derrick makes some time every once in a while to hang out with Ty Vi and Trevino, while Kennedy glares at him.
It's Season 5, by the time Kennedy manages to get comfortable around him enough to get past the glaring. The day Kennedy finally starts being more of their jokester self around him is when he brings his guitar to one of their hangouts. Ty Vi is off doing something, so it's just Kennedy, Trevino, and Derrick.
Trevino loves to listen to Derrick play his guitar, even though he doesn't know a lot of the songs, once he learns the lyrics he has a rather nice singing voice.
It's on this day that Derrick Krueger learns that Kennedy Alstott should never be allowed to sing.
Ever.
It starts fairly innocently. Kennedy likes to watch Derrick play the guitar since they have no instrument knowledge of their own. One of the first signs that Derrick was starting to become more familiar to them was when Kennedy made the active choice to sit beside him to watch.
But this time, Kennedy looks Derrick in the eyes and starts to grin in a way he would describe as evil, and slings an arm around his shoulder before they start to sing.
And oh no,
It's bad, they're awful, they can't hold a tune and they're singing in random octaves. It's an affront to Derrick's music sensitive ears.
But then they watch as Kennedy sings loudly and badly in an awful serenade to Trevino, and Trevino laughs so hard he cries and the memory of it is enough to send him back into a fit of giggles for the next couple hours…
And well, Derrick starts to realize why it's always Kennedy-and-Trevino-and-Ty Vi as a unit. Take one out and it's a recipe for disaster.
(When Ty Vi comes back and sees Trevino and Kennedy laughing, and Derrick looking horrified off into a middle distance, they facepalm)