Ecosystem Destroyer (2)
The time when post generation on the baseball community Ballpen spikes hardest almost perfectly matches the moments right after games end and the rush-hour crush when the subways jam solid.
Around four in the afternoon, when the second-team games are just wrapping up, is the so-called “blackout window”—as quiet as the early morning hours, when almost nothing gets posted.
Or at least, that was how it was supposed to be.
Today the board was already buzzing early with a flood of eyewitness accounts, tow-truck clips, and pure snark.
Is this girl for real lmao
When the signing announcement first dropped, photos of Pi Anta had circulated, yet somehow the buzz never really caught fire back then.
This chicken-fight saga was different.
If a struggling player had pulled a stunt like that, the board would have roasted her into the ground as pure annoyance. But today Pi Anta had gone multi-hit and racked up four RBI from the early innings onward, so even the chaos itself became just another fun little side dish.
And the really important part was this:
Goraniz front office cooking hard this year….
Whenever a single issue like this lit up, the golden-handed users who always seemed to materialize out of nowhere would drop unsolicited gifs and fan edits, pouring gasoline on the fire.
She’s so pretty for real….
The kill shot is her scanning for cameras right before the chicken fight
Some people zeroed in on Pi Anta’s looks. Others fixated on her incurable attention-seeking. Still others talked about her hitting, or her baserunning instincts.
But the single most important fact was this: countless people on this community were now talking about the Daejeon Goraniz—and not even the first team, but the second team’s news.
That alone pulled in people who previously knew nothing and made them start caring about “Goraniz second team,” while also making them wonder what kind of path the Goraniz second team and Pi Anta would walk from here.
Pi Anta understood better than anyone how powerful that kind of attention could be.
Right now the Goraniz fans still watched games with half-resigned hearts after years of losing. But if you fed fresh firewood to the “expectation” that still smoldered somewhere deep inside them…
You could make those fans’ hearts burn again.
The Goraniz could become a strong team once more…!
“Let’s go!!”
Crack!!
The Goraniz second team, led by Pi Anta, truly threw everything they had into living up to that expectation.
She hadn’t given a speech to the whole roster, but Pi Anta always gave her absolute best. Ha Jiyun, who wanted to become like her, gave her absolute best too. And once the veteran catcher Kang Dongsik, who had been watching their performances, started setting a tone of real effort…
“Alright, let’s win again today!!”
“Wahoo, wahoo, kwooaaaar!!”
The cheer, inspired by the cry of a water deer, sounded ridiculous if you did it alone—but when the whole team roared it together it was actually pretty cool, and it instantly became a meme of its own.
Kwooaaaar!!!
No. That’s the sound you hear at a baseball game.
The Goraniz fans were having the time of their lives. Their players, who normally only ever received mockery and ridicule, were finally creating entertainment—even if it was only in the second team—so the fans thrashing around the community like fish that had finally found water.
Where the hell did you all crawl out from, you’re so damn annoying
Fans of other teams thought the same thing: this chaos wouldn’t last long. A new player was generating a little weird attention and pulling reactions, but it was temporary. Even with all the winning, the Goraniz second team was still last place, and the first team’s situation needed no explanation. So they decided to treat the noise as a storm in a teacup and just wait a few days.
But then…
“Alright, let’s win again today!!”
“Wahoo, wahoo, kwooaaaar!!”
“Let’s go!!”
The Goraniz, who had been rotting at the absolute bottom, swept up a staggering twenty-one wins in a single month and began tearing the Contenders League apart.
…Of course, even with a destructive 21-3 record they were still only in sixth place—that was how completely wrecked the second-team standings had been. But the fact that they were climbing at all was what mattered.
The surest way to change a team is victory.
A winning team doesn’t need a designated atmosphere-maker. The attention-seeking energy that had radiated outward from one single lunatic swallowed the entire Goraniz second team in an instant, and the players started enjoying baseball itself again.
When winning games became the daily routine for a whole month, fans poured in on second-team game days until the seats overflowed. The thousand-seat second-team stadium simply could not handle the crowds.
And what poured even more fuel on that virtuous cycle was this:
“Pi Anta! Can I get a signature, please!”
“Thank you. Where did you come from?”
“From Seoul! Wow, unnie, you’re so pretty!”
“Being pretty doesn’t affect performance, but if the fans like it then I’m grateful. That reminds me of a fan story where someone asked what cosmetics I use. Honestly I don’t even put on lotion, let alone makeup. My skin gets a little tight, but that has its own natural charm, you know? You’re a guy so you probably don’t care much about skin, but—”
“…Sorry, I think I’m just gonna go.”
“Ah, uh…. Hey, fans in the back! I’ll sign for you! I’m Pi Anta! The chicken-fight champion Pi Anta! Photos are fine too!”
The same beautiful girl who approached every at-bat with the relentless focus of a gladiator would, the moment she stepped outside the stadium, chatter so endlessly that fans got exhausted—and then she would go hunting for more people to give signatures and photos to. That gap moe made fans lose their minds every single time.
…Of course, losing their minds was one thing; actually getting a photo or a long conversation with Pi Anta was something every fan actively tried to avoid.
Missed the last train
Not taking questions
She’s living with Ha Jiyun
Said it was dangerous for a girl to go out so she let me crash at her place, Pi Anta unnie so sweet
But she’s still talking next to me right now my ears hurt damn
Meanwhile, a certain girl who had been watching the whole process with quiet satisfaction, browsing the community posts, adjusted her glasses and smiled contentedly.
“They’re really paying us back with wins, no half-measures.”
She had never expected results this destructive.
Second team is pure cinema
First team is boring, they lose every day
Jo Yujeong.
A hardcore Goraniz fan, she had known from the moment Pi Anta signed that this player would change the team. The talent was the real deal.
But when she learned the contract timing meant Pi Anta couldn’t be called up to the first team, the disappointment had been crushing. So she made a plan.
A plan to make sure Pi Anta would not stay stuck in the second team. A plan that would force the Goraniz organization itself to step in. A plan to manufacture the kind of public opinion that would make them decide it was worth stepping in.
She regularly cut short highlight clips of Pi Anta’s best moments and spread them, uploading constantly to OneTube’s Shorts corner as well. She used every method she knew to make as many people as possible aware of Pi Anta’s existence.
All for this exact moment.
“You have to come up. How long are you going to stay in the second team?”
Click-clack, click-clack.
Jo Yujeong smiled faintly and posted a single thread on the community.
You sign after the season starts and suddenly you can’t get called up? Does that make any sense?
Do they think every amateur just lines up their schedule around when they feel like playing ball?
This kind of system is exactly why weak teams can’t reinforce and the strong stay strong while the weak stay weak
Not taking rebuttals
“Maybe I should pick up some fried soboro bread on the way to the stadium tomorrow~?”
Watching her post instantly monopolize the upvotes and climb onto the recommended list, she smiled with deep satisfaction.
A fan who has gone decades without a championship has nothing left to fear.
“Come on up, Pi Anta. Take the upper ranks of pro baseball and destroy them with your own two hands.”
The hardcore fan girl Jo Yujeong was prepared to go through fire and water if it was for the Goraniz.