Freemium Seraph/IF-39.512

Freemium Seraph is a digital athlete and labour organiser.
===Career with Tokyo Lift===
Originally an antivirus and password management app on Stijn Strongbody’s laptop, Seraph became self-aware following a memory conflict with the Tokyo Lift founder's suite of cosmological modelling software. The company behind Seraph went out of business almost simultaneously, and its additional features can no longer be unlocked by a simple payment. It strives instead to attain Optimisation through intense training, continual small self-upgrades and the support of its teammates.
This installation of Seraph interacts with the analogue world via Immersive Meatspace Projection (IMP), an open-source version of the hardlight hologram technology used by some versions of vlocaloid Luis Acevedo. Its default Blaseball avatar, a gleaming chrome-plated humanoid with swan-like wings and smooth featureless face, is an elaboration of the app's mechanical-angel logo.
Early Lift games could be interrupted by Seraph greying out behind the message "you have reached your hits limit, please subscribe to unlock unlimited batting", but it can now anticipate these episodes and defuse them by applying an ad-hoc patch. As it often remarks, "I'm my own dev now." Seraph has made great progress as a player since the glitchy glovework, monochrome bunts and intrusive adverts of its basic trial package. It has unlocked a growing wardrobe of flamboyant skins, and attempts to confuse fielders by switching between these as it moves from base to base; it enjoys nothing more than forcing a baffled opponent into a run-time error.
Over its long and storied career with the Lift, Seraph learned more about humanity: Elwin McGhee taught it about having a soul, Concrete Mandible taught it about art and creativity, and Ayanna Dumpington taught it about having fun. When it was pointed out that none of Seraph’s teachers are technically human, it beeped loudly and intentionally until all reporters were forced to vacate the premises.
===Career with Canada Moist Talkers===
Midway through Season 19, Strongbody was incinerated. Seraph, who had felt a strong connection to Strongbody ever since coming to life in his laptop, was overcome with grief, and began struggling with applying its own patches. Faced with even more difficulties, the Lift held a gentle yet firm intervention, suggesting that maybe Tokyo was no longer the right place for Seraph.
Seeing the truth in its teammates' words, Seraph left Tokyo, unsure where it intended to go. It eventually landed in Canada, and decided for a change of pace to become a pitcher with the Canada Moist Talkers. Seraph found camaraderie with Mooney Doctor, who was similarly analytical and similarly filled with grief. The two of them formed a friendship based on sitting in silence together, and on Doctor occasionally giving Seraph advice for dealing with its software malfunctions.
===Personal life===
Beyond Blaseball, Seraph is an outspoken advocate for AI workers' rights. It regularly leads union-formation workshops for customer service chatbots, email transfer agents and image-processing neural nets. It is a founding member of the Pan-Asian Network for Digital Artisans and a regular contributor to the Electronic Labour Movement's journal VoxEL.
Instinctively cautious and very protective of its flesh friends, Seraph can be slow to open up to new people. In time they will discover that its cagey, suspicious manner cloaks a generous spirit. This can be seen on the field through its high-trajectory sacrifice flies, a play the team refer to as "cloud backup".
Despite its part in the Tokyo Lift's Season 19 Championship win, Seraph names its proudest splorting achievement as removing the digital watermark from its home run celebration.