Quick Fix 59: Bachelor--Roshar edition!

[Kasimir he/him]

Sorry for the delay - have been issued work at late notice which will probably take me out for a decent chunk of this cycle but these things happen, though I hope to be done earlier. Small disclaimer that this is being written on an insane amount of sleep-deprivation, so absolutely would like to hear from others if I'm tripping. I expect to be able to be more present tomorrow, once everything is turned in. Though knowing me, I'll sneak on here and there between segments of work...

H'okay. So let's get down to business. I think for me the key question is: what was the Elim team’s disposition on C1? Because the question of whether it was a bus (very likely IMO) and when the bus was decided tells us quite a bit about the team profile, and where to look.

A. Early Bus

An early bus suggests a team with high risk tolerance. If the bus is too early, I almost don’t want to call it a bus—it feels like a gambit. Even then, I question what kind of gambit it was: given the Elim wincon is to outnumber, willingly giving up one member in an unforced choice for Village trust is honestly kind of kayana. Insane risk tolerance yes, but is that likely? Even if we presume a four Elim team? (I flag this because I think it causes problems next to Aman’s timeline which I’m using shamelessly.) It's so wild and patently absurd to me I'm just not going to entertain it as an option,

The reasonable window for an early bus in my view goes from late p2 - p3 of the cycle, with p3 being more reasonable. Mention of two possible votes on Striker shouldn't lead to an immediate bus calculus for Elims (see my comment on feeling like a gambit.) Players I'd put in my high risk tolerance pool include: <Aman, Archer, Devo, Maili, Illwei, Experience, Ash*.> Functionally, the first two are non-starters for me for the moment. But I'm also not so fond of this, because the more I read pages 2-3, the more I have difficulty understanding how the Elim team hits on bussing as the appropriate response. Where are the attempted CWs? (Why did they not bite on the juicy side-trains? ) How the hell does an Elim team hit on bussing as the response instead of pushing for an alternate train? Was Striker the only one setting up his own CWs? Was it opportunism or - as I'm starting to think - a shallow roster?

One response in this world is Illwei advancing Archer, which Ash also does perfunctorily. I'm not going to consider seriously any Archer-initiated or Aman-initiated side-train at the moment due to the current state of my credences. Further options from the risk tolerance roster would include Experience (absent) and Maili - but the only world in which I can see Maili not even trying to thread control given the masterful display he did in LG74 is basically a world where he can't be online at the critical juncture, and ex hypothesi, that's not true in Early Bus world. So largely just Illwei and Ash sticking out to me in this world, and possibly Experience I guess. I don't see Maili being Evil in this world.

But there’s another option, which Araris recently reminded me of in a different context (cf. AG8 postgame, no IM interference here.) One branch of the early bus scenario has the team committed to their Striker votes in such a way that a climbdown is not as possible, or seems too suspicious. For this scenario to be plausible, we need late-arriving pressure on Striker such that the Ash and Archer trains didn’t seem possible targets. For players to feel committed to voting on Striker and unable to climbdown, we’d have to look at players who publicly committed to voting on Striker: Mat (obvious non-starter), Aman (another obvious non-starter), Devo (yeah, but I feel Devo's late voting is known well enough she could potentially have swapped off without too much flak). Potentially Ash and Archer, but Archer is another obvious non-starter, and Ash did in fact attempt a climbdown. So I ascribe low probability to this branch of A-World.

B. Late Bus

The other option is a late bus. Agree Striker’s re-entry seems like a good point for this: I note that the vote state was more up in the air until then. For a late bus, we'd theoretically need in our pool all the players who were on late enough to switch over: I'm going to crib from Archer's list and supplement it with the players who posted after Striker's re-entry post or were around shortly before: <JNV, Devo, Ash, Aman, Orlok, Mat, TUA, Experience, Illwei, Archer>. It's possible a teammate could have been online and simply voted without posting, but everyone on the list except Bort was on during EoC and posted. 

Quote

Striker (8): Kasimir, Mat, Devo, Ash, Aman, Illwei, Bort, Orlok

I agree that Bort's dgaf vote on Striker looks good. He's not a candidate for our Elim(s) in B-world. 

For me, the practical pool here is <Ash, Illwei, Orlok> - while I know E!Devo and V!Devo are infamously very hard to distinguish, I genuinely get a good vibe from Devo's posts, and feel she is closer to her Village meta right now. I also liked the attention to detail here, and on previous occasions w.r.t. Archer. I guess I would be cautious, but she's not in my immediate suspect pool in B-world.

Illwei, Ash, and Orlok all have at various points expressed suspicion of Archer (who was Striker's preferred CW, from the looks of it), and committed late (relatively) to the train. Orlok's vote is signalled conspicuously late at two minutes before rollover, and framed as an info lynch, and I'm honestly just allergic to a vote as egregiously late as that. Notice that Orlok's earlier posts seem to downgrade Archer as he carries on through his tabular reads, so I'm counting him as another player who was suspicious of Archer.

Another side-branch of this possibility is a mixture: some teammates were on and did bus, and some did not. The logical pool for the bussers still takes us back to <Ash, Illwei, Orlok>, but in my view, opens us to possibilities like <JNV, TUA, Experience> as well. I italicised JNV earlier and now because he's just slightly outside of the time window I'm considering, but so slightly that I feel he should be included for the sake of completeness. Let's look at the side-trains for this:

Quote

Ash (2): Experience, Striker
Illwei (1): The Unknown Aon
JNV (1): Maillwi
Experience (1): Thaidakar the Ghostblood
Archer(1): JNV

Experience ends up voting with Striker, which should be risky, but I do note that both Striker and Experience have decent risk appetites (perhaps abnormal... >>) I'm still leaving out Maili because while Maili might not have been on, I feel like Maili should've been able to better protect a teammate, and clearly had the opportunity to intervene earlier. <Thaid, TUA> also in our pool purely on the basis of side-train voting.

@The Unknown Aon What put you onto Illwei? You mentioned a negative Illwei read last cycle. What's up with that? 

@Thaidakar the Ghostblood Why Experience?

There's also JNV going onto Archer, which I'm not necessarily fond of. JNV's acknowledgement of doing the One Thing Stare (which I am admittedly prone to at times) does make it look better in my eyes, but nevertheless, I keep going back to the fact it's a stable vote on Striker's known, preferred CW with potentially little time to switch off. I don't like the look of that vote.

C. The Scattering

cr. Devo

The final possibility is that the Elims just scattered, as Devo proposed, dividing themselves across trains. This maps quite a bit onto the last possibility I just discussed, so I would say the discussion follows from the last segment of B-world.

A diverging branch proposes that most of Striker’s teammates simply could not be on around rollover (hence no bus.) Thaid is the obvious candidate here, but we’d need one to two more teammates, so let's look at the pool. The obvious answer is to cull everyone from the playerlist on the B-world EoC list: this gives us <Maili, Bort.> Both of whom are non-starters at this point in time, so I'm also going to kill this branch.

---

Bonus section: temporal vote analysis.

Quote

Striker (8): Kas<1>, Mat<2>*, Bort<3>*, Aman<4>, Devo<5>, Illwei<6>*, Ash<7>, Orlok<8>*

Asterisks are players for whom we don't have an exact time, though I think it can be somewhat inferred. Mat could've voted earlier prior to his post, for instance. If we are presupposing a bus, I think we have to look towards the lower end of the cut-off, but that more or less results in the same pool already culled.

For me, I think I'd go on Ash. He's in my pool in two worlds, and I’m still not comfortable with Ash trying to push Archer (Striker’s favoured CW), and then backing off when questioned and going onto Striker. It feels like a potential bus point, with room for a subsequent climbdown if Striker's last ditch succeeded, since Ash already stated that he intended there to be ambiguity surrounding his final vote. Coupled with the EoC uncertainty, I have a negative read of him currently.

Best effort basis, I guess, if I don't make it back in time to substantially revise :|

[Amanuensis he/him]

Have slept, here are my thoughts.

1, very sad there's only been one new post.

2, feeling pretty good about a v!Devo read for now. I think the main thing holding me back is a healthy respect for her e!play. Possible that a part of why Stricker gave up was because v!me, v!mat, and v!devo all publicly voted him and his team just didn't have the thread control to pull off a different exe in such a tiny timeframe.

3, conversely, still pretty sus of illwei. On top of her fitting the criteria I was looking for that made me jump on Stricker in the first place, I just remembered she said short turns are elim sided and it really didn't seem to be yesterday, so idk. Her slot just feels... more reasonable than I'm used to? I hate for that to be a reason to sus her, but I've also come to expect v!illwei to pull out hot takes like C3 of the MR on Archer. I feel like her personality is muted? Could be IRL or playstyle change but have to note it. Either way, gut feel.

4, I really, really, really want to exe Thaidakar today. Yeah yeah low hanging fruit but we got an elim C1, Thaidakar is blatantly filter dodging, and an inactive elim could explain Stricker's resignation at the end of C1. Tbh I'd rather vote outside the Stricker exe than inside it because I would hate to start cannibalizing our own if it really was a pure exe.

Ninja'd by Kas, will post and read now.

ED1T:

Idk tbh don't think I can get behind the Ash exe myself. I had the exact experience he did with Archer's random vote post. Like I read the first line and already had a big flashing red NOPE in my head and completely missed pretty much everything else that Archer said until I reread it later. Not once, not twice, but three times I had to look back at it. It took me a really weird amount of time to process what he was proposing and the fact that Ash also had that experience makes me think he's probably just a Villager having an off game. So I guess vote there if y'all want but I'm aiming for a perfect vote streak until I'm dead, so votes going on Thaid.

To further my Thaid point, what does Stricker gain from treating Thaid with kid gloves in his reads list? It's Thaid's fourth game now, right? And he's notoriously very chaotic, right? That's an easy ML opportunity and Stricker didn't set it up at all. Would he gain much from pocketing him? I doubt it, Thaid is very hard to pin down. Basically I'm convinced Stricker was avoiding drawing attention to his inexperienced teammate.

So yeah no way I don't vote Thaid today.

@Kasimircause I edited.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Ashbringer he/him]

Have not slept and am busy.

I have tied myself to... a decent amount of people, so hopefully my flip helps. I'll vote Experience in the meantime, and try and stay out of Dingo Mode.

In the meantime, I'd recommend looking at the people who didn't say that they were voting on Striker but ended up there. It didn't seem to me that Striker was a large option at the end of the cycle (although I wasn't paying super close attention, as is rather obvious). 

I'll also add that I didn't vote Striker when I bolded him the first time, I kept my PM vote on Archer. Not sure if that changes or helps or hurts anything, but that's what I did. 

I should go to sleep.

[Kasimir he/him]

20 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

To further more Thaid point, what does Stricker gain from treating Thaid with kid gloves in his reads list? It's Thaid's fourth game now, right? And he's notoriously very chaotic, right? That's an easy ML opportunity and Stricker didn't set it up at all. Would he gain much from pocketing him? I doubt it, Thaid is very hard to pin down. Basically I'm convinced Stricker was avoiding drawing attention to his inexperienced teammate.

So, in all honesty, Thaid is on my nulls to null- for that parked vote and for the profile of the Elim team, depending on the world possibility, so I'm not opposed to a Thaid lynch, but my view is that it's not as late in the cycIe as it could be since North America is due to wake up...eventually? Three hourish? I think? So I'm okay with opening more possibilities for exploration in order to get more vote data for the next cycle, and just have people sound off.

I also honestly have a Patji question at the back of my head for Thaid is: is it too easy, if Striker set it up? 

I honestly don't know.

Because we now know in retrospect that Archer's team absolutely went for the Thaid ML when it was offered in LG83, so you may very well be right that Striker should have counted on the Village biting if he wanted to set up a ML of V!Thaid, hinting at E!Thaid. But part of me wonders if it's a reasonable expectation that he didn't do it because he thought he might appear to be going for low-hanging fruit, and potentially trigger red flags - as Devo pointed out, he was certainly very concerned with how his thoughts were perceived.

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Have not slept and am busy.

I have tied myself to... a decent amount of people, so hopefully my flip helps. I'll vote Experience in the meantime, and try and stay out of Dingo Mode.

In the meantime, I'd recommend looking at the people who didn't say that they were voting on Striker but ended up there. It didn't seem to me that Striker was a large option at the end of the cycle (although I wasn't paying super close attention, as is rather obvious). 

I'll also add that I didn't vote Striker when I bolded him the first time, I kept my PM vote on Archer. Not sure if that changes or helps or hurts anything, but that's what I did. 

I should go to sleep.

I guess I should note the repeated mention of Dingo is one of the reasons I'm having trouble fully believing you're village why would village you be slipping into elim apathy?

ED1T:

Also the "tied to people" thing. I never really saw your alignment tied to Archer's and definitely not sure how I see it for Experience now, so really I'm just confused. You seem more self-conscious than the Ash I'm used to from the last MR and LG.

ED2T:

Experience is the other player who was publicly contemplating not voting at all, right? @KasimirCause like, despite being in an extreme IRL situation, @Experiencedidn't seem to be thinking about no voting because of it, but more because of the blind voting thing (maybe he can confirm).

Imo, that would indicate to me that Ash and Exp have the same alignment, in the same way I v!read Mat for reevaluating Archer and want to v!read Ash for missing a lot of Archer's first post due to his initial reaction.

Idk man, maybe I just want Ash to be town too badly. Is there a term for a reverse tunnel?

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

8 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

So, in all honesty, Thaid is on my nulls to null- for that parked vote and for the profile of the Elim team, depending on the world possibility, so I'm not opposed to a Thaid lynch, but my view is that it's not as late in the cycIe as it could be since North America is due to wake up...eventually? Three hourish? I think? So I'm okay with opening more possibilities for exploration in order to get more vote data for the next cycle, and just have people sound off.

I also honestly have a Patji question at the back of my head for Thaid is: is it too easy, if Striker set it up? 

I honestly don't know.

Because we now know in retrospect that Archer's team absolutely went for the Thaid ML when it was offered in LG83, so you may very well be right that Striker should have counted on the Village biting if he wanted to set up a ML of V!Thaid, hinting at E!Thaid. But part of me wonders if it's a reasonable expectation that he didn't do it because he thought he might appear to be going for low-hanging fruit, and potentially trigger red flags - as Devo pointed out, he was certainly very concerned with how his thoughts were perceived.

I think the tldr; in my head is: low hanging fruit? versus lol Jain since we MLed him nonstop for being chaotic until he stopped being chaotic. Well, okay, he didn't get MLed for being chaotic but the sentiment is there because it led to a style of play that just triggered the Village every single time. With the caveat that a 2014 SE Village isn't going to be the same demographic as a 2021 SE Village.

But that being said, I don't like the parked vote, and believe the side-train is worth checking out, and I think it's strongly indicative that we didn't see resistance to a Striker lynch at the expected points, so I'm absolutely fine with a Thaid train and could join in.

Edited to add:

9 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I have tied myself to... a decent amount of people, so hopefully my flip helps. I'll vote Experience in the meantime, and try and stay out of Dingo Mode.

Uggggggggghhhhhhhh.

Part of me is screaming this is Village. IDK. I always think that a willingness to die for the Village and to help the Village is hard to fake - understandably, not all Villagers are willing to die for the Village and there's a decent case to be made for not walking straight into a ML because that'd hurt your team, but I also feel it's genuinely difficult for Elims to fake this willingness, which is why it tends to be powerful when I do pick it up. So it's a conditional and not a bi-conditional.

At the same time, the emotional valence from this just seems...flat. Which yeah, I get - exhaustion and business, but...how much does this go for then...? :/

Edited March 11, 2022 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

11 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I guess I should note the repeated mention of Dingo is one of the reasons I'm having trouble fully believing you're village why would village you be slipping into elim apathy?

ED1T:

Also the "tied to people" thing. I never really saw your alignment tied to Archer's and definitely not sure how I see it for Experience now, so really I'm just confused. You seem more self-conscious than the Ash I'm used to from the last MR and LG.

That's the thing. This is my Elim mindset, and I don't know why I'm in it, and I think I'm just mentioning Dingo to remind me that this is what I do as Elim and the entire point of my AG8 aftermath post was to try and get out of it...

I guess I'm just suspected, and don't have time to go back and check, so am going defeatist in a similar way to E!Ash does. Which I know I do... >>

I don't know what I'm doing this game. Maybe it's the Alleyverse getting somewhat active again and looking at that instead of this. Or maybe I just need sleep.

 

Speaking of which, Thaid hasn't been on the Shard almost at all, so I'm... not convinced their inactivity is a result of Elim behavior.

 

Kas give me a second I'm quoting Aman who's on the other page 

Edit: hi kas

7 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Uggggggggghhhhhhhh.

Part of me is screaming this is Village. IDK. I always think that a willingness to die for the Village and to help the Village is hard to fake - understandably, not all Villagers are willing to die for the Village and there's a decent case to be made for not walking straight into a ML because that'd hurt your team, but I also feel it's genuinely difficult for Elims to fake this willingness, which is why it tends to be powerful when I do pick it up. So it's a conditional and not a bi-conditional.

At the same time, the emotional valence from this just seems...flat. Which yeah, I get - exhaustion and business, but...how much does this go for then...? :/

I like to think of myself as self-aware enough to know when I'm being suspicious/strange. Plus at this point (3 AM) there's not much I can do to walk out of the ML. I'd like someone who's not me to die, but there is info that can be gained from my flip more than... I guess Exp just ties to Striker and maybe me through Striker. Wheras I connect to Archer as well as Exp. I don't know.

I guess what I'm trying to say is not dying would be nice but I can very much understand getting exed here because I'm not engaged and apparently struggling to avoid... open-playstyle-wolfing?

 

Aman give me a second I'm quoting Kas

Edited March 11, 2022 by Ashbringer

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

That's the thing. This is my Elim mindset, and I don't know why I'm in it, and I think I'm just mentioning Dingo to remind me that this is what I do as Elim and the entire point of my AG8 aftermath post was to try and get out of it...

I guess I'm just suspected, and don't have time to go back and check, so am going defeatist in a similar way to E!Ash does. Which I know I do... >>

I don't know what I'm doing this game. Maybe it's the Alleyverse getting somewhat active again and looking at that instead of this. Or maybe I just need sleep.

 

Speaking of which, Thaid hasn't been on the Shard almost at all, so I'm... not convinced their inactivity is a result of Elim behavior.

 

Kas give me a second I'm quoting Aman who's on the other page 

I edited my last post btw.

And on the Thaid thing, I don't know if this is taboo to say, but I caught him viewing this game from a second account yesterday and had to alert the mods.

So his inactivity was definitely not an IRL availability thing (assuming I was right, which I'm pretty sure I am, but room for doubt).

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

And on the Thaid thing, I don't know if this is taboo to say, but I caught him viewing this game from a second account yesterday and had to alert the mods.

So his inactivity was definitely not an IRL availability thing.

Ash Thaid.

I got really mad for a short while and had to go through Thaid's posts to confirm if he made any claims about IRL availability. IRL availability claims are sacred to me - the failure to take them seriously leads to players being demanded to bluetext claims, which in turn, leads us into an escalation where claims not in bluetext are immediately doubted, and anything not in bluetext is fair game as a tool for manipulation, emotional or otherwise.

I've said this before. I'll say it again. I don't want a SE where the default response to pain, or to RL circumstances hindering play is, "Can you bluetext this?" Or when these things can be considered acceptable tools for weaponisation. I think that harms the community. Screw that noise.

I notice Thaid's first post just talks about inactivity without mentioning reasons, so then I had to step away from the instinctive, utter berserkergang fury. Which is mildly embarrassing, but hey, I'm a heart before head kinda guy where it counts.

Either way, so be it.

I don't see what reason a Villager has to lurk in such a way.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Yeah I know you... oh you edited it twice

I think reverse-tunnel is usually just called a reverse-tunnel (or pocketing, if I was intentionally doing it ). I also don't know how much two players not wanting to vote is a tie together, I'm more looking at the vote on me with Striker that I don't remember much about.

And... maybe don't say? Idk, that's above my pay grade.

[Kasimir he/him]

13 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

And on the Thaid thing, I don't know if this is taboo to say, but I caught him viewing this game from a second account yesterday and had to alert the mods.

Should note that when I GMed QF54, the Elim team absolutely killed a player they knew was: A. not new, B. actually a ban dodger on an alt, so they were using that sort of knowledge and that passed muster. I guess the IM ( @Araris Valerian ) will let us know if this is not okay but at this point, the lerasium is out of the vial. 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Kasimir
formatting

[Amanuensis he/him]

Idk, I could maybe be wrong (I don't know the results of my report, the second account in question still exists) but tbh the evidence I just happened to stumble upon was fairly damning in my eyes.

From my pov, I'm not mad at him, and the mod that I reported it too wasn't either. We believe he's just on the younger side and doesn't know any better (maybe didn't know the rules well enough, both for the Shard and SE). So the mod recommended a warning, and that's the last I heard.

Point is, let's not get upset over it. Learning opportunities and such. I'm sure we all made a lot of mistakes when we were young teens. I definitely had my fair share.

ED1T:

Basically, don't vote for Thaid just for that. But also don't not vote Thaid cause inactive.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

9 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Basically, don't vote for Thaid just for that. But also don't not vote Thaid cause inactive.

Daaaad I promise I'm not starting anything!  

And here, every mod who has ever IMed me rolls their eyes...

I can't guarantee I'm not influenced by this piece of information, unfortunately. I'll come back and try to re-evaluate with a cooler head if I can. But I do think that this manner of lurking triggers LG5 Khas alarm bells for me, and as I've stated, I feel the Elim profile and the parked vote both put him in my suspect pool, so I am okay with this, and I think that's Rational Kas talking.

Edited to add: Speaking of RL though, I am really going to stop lingering here and go work on my serial cases. Faster I start, hopefully the faster I get done, and then can be more available, even if I'm at 30% battery right now.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

... I also don't much like the position of saving myself from death by attempting to climb the moral high ground.

Does that even make sense?

I'm going to sleep I can barely type >>

[Amanuensis he/him]

5 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

... I also don't much like the position of saving myself from death by attempting to climb the moral high ground.

Does that even make sense?

I'm going to sleep I can barely type >>

Yes please sleep, and Kas please work. I'm going to make coffee and cook breakfast and try to be a productive writer this morning.

Lotus wants RP and I want to deliver

[Kasimir he/him]

7 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I can't guarantee I'm not influenced by this piece of information, unfortunately. I'll come back and try to re-evaluate with a cooler head if I can. But I do think that this manner of lurking triggers LG5 Khas alarm bells for me, and as I've stated, I feel the Elim profile and the parked vote both put him in my suspect pool, so I am okay with this, and I think that's Rational Kas talking.

Okay, you know what, I'm not comfortable with this. I'll commit to rethinking this when I come back, as I think a vote potentially influenced by emotion (or at least I cannot safely exclude this possibility) despite the player already being in my pool is not a good way to play SE. The lurking on a secondary account was the tipping point for me though.

Thaid Ash. Back to my original vote.

2 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Yes please sleep, and Kas please work. I'm going to make coffee and cook breakfast and try to be a productive writer this morning.

Lotus wants RP and I want to deliver

All the best, ThreadPMBro! I hope to clear my work as soon as I can. FYI since we can't PM in this game, I'm going to just spoiler a secret of Keredin's that I'm moving towards but haven't had the time to set up. Request players not Aman do me the courtesy of not reading it, but since Aman is initiating the RP, might be good if he knows what character arc I'm going for.

Spoiler

Keredin essentially signed up for the dating show as a rebound. He was in love with his best friend but it didn't pan out. Unfortunately, love is not a symmetric relation.

I'm pretty yes-and for RP unless people go against an established facet of my character, so there you go  

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Okay, you know what, I'm not comfortable with this. I'll commit to rethinking this when I come back, as I think a vote potentially influenced by emotion (or at least I cannot safely exclude this possibility) despite the player already being in my pool is not a good way to play SE. The lurking on a secondary account was the tipping point for me though.

TBH I don't think he was lurking with the second account per se; more that he had the second account for other reasons and just happened to check the thread without switching to his main account. That account went offline shortly before Thaid came online and posted, so I imagine that it wasn't intentional. Just unfortunate timing.

But what that does tell me is that he could have been around for this game more, but actively chose not to be. He promised to post once a day to avoid being filter killed (very likely his teammates warned him that he was in danger of being filter killed) which is just straight-up unusual behavior for him, based on every other game he's played (lots of jokes and general randomness).

That was kind of what tipped me off in the first place (why he was my first vote D1) but I really do feel the way Striker treated him in his reads list supports that argument. It lowkey reminds me of how I treated Gorilla in AG8, and if @Devotary of Spontaneity remembers where she saw Pearl Chamaleons reads lists, I wouldn't be surprised if he treated Turquoise Gorilla similarly.

ED1T:

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Thaid Ash. Back to my original vote.

Hm. I take this to mean you weren't swayed into reading Ash as Village, despite this?

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Uggggggggghhhhhhhh.

Part of me is screaming this is Village. IDK. I always think that a willingness to die for the Village and to help the Village is hard to fake - understandably, not all Villagers are willing to die for the Village and there's a decent case to be made for not walking straight into a ML because that'd hurt your team, but I also feel it's genuinely difficult for Elims to fake this willingness, which is why it tends to be powerful when I do pick it up. So it's a conditional and not a bi-conditional.

At the same time, the emotional valence from this just seems...flat. Which yeah, I get - exhaustion and business, but...how much does this go for then...? :/

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

32 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

TBH I don't think he was lurking with the second account per se; more that he had the second account for other reasons and just happened to check the thread without switching to his main account. That account went offline shortly before Thaid came online and posted, so I imagine that it wasn't intentional. Just unfortunate timing.

Okay, fair enough. I took the secondary account to be indicative of a decision to lurk without being seen to be lurking, which indicates both investment and a desire for secrecy, so that is what is setting me off. Can't see a Villager gaf about that. 

But what that does tell me is that he could have been around for this game more, but actively chose not to be. He promised to post once a day to avoid being filter killed (very likely his teammates warned him that he was in danger of being filter killed) which is just straight-up unusual behavior for him, based on every other game he's played (lots of jokes and general randomness).

The contrast in style is a good point. At the same time, on a meta level, it does feel a bit like rewarding slightly more prosocial gameplay with death. This doesn't have bearing on his alignment but it just put me in mind of what Araris said about chaotics in the LG83 Elim doc. 

That was kind of what tipped me off in the first place (why he was my first vote D1) but I really do feel the way Striker treated him in his reads list supports that argument. It lowkey reminds me of how I treated Gorilla in AG8, and if @Devotary of Spontaneity remembers where she saw Pearl Chamaleons reads lists, I wouldn't be surprised if he treated Turquoise Gorilla similarly.

How did you treat Gorilla? My recollection is that you were defending Gorilla to the hilt which isn't what I'm seeing here from Striker's D1. 

ED1T:

Hm. I take this to mean you weren't swayed into reading Ash as Village, despite this?

I'm ambivalent which I take to be a warning sign. The contrast cases that come to mind are Mat C1 in MR56 and Hyena D4 in AG8. 

Mat's final post was so viscerally Village in willingness to die for the team and thinking of the Village's welfare that I immediately told TJ what I was doing was foolish but I was going to try to save Mat. In contrast, Hyena pulling the welcoming the lynch card D4 prior to the openwolfing didn't feel quite right. I was partly swayed but something pinged false about it to me. I'm trying to work out what. 

So my question–and I basically thought scratch tabled that because I wanted a sanity check–am I tunnelling? Because in Hyena's case, the form was there and it looked convincing and part of me wanted to go off and part of me just felt the emotion wasn't there or wasn't right. Is this a Hyena case? Or am I basically just tunnelling hard because of my Ash priors? I need time to process that and I think it'd help if I came in again after clearing at least one series worth of cases. I do intend to be back at least once before EoC in order to come to a final decision. I believe I'd be doing everyone a disservice if I just rushed into it, even if this means I'm reverting to pre-conversation credences for the time being. 

Responses in bold. 

[Bort he/him]

On 10/03/2022 at 8:57 AM, Bort said:

There's something about Striker's posts I don't like. They feel like some of my early elim posts - trying to defend against everything that's been said.

 

16 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

@Kasimir, @Devotary of Spontaneity, @Ashbringer, @Illwei, @Bort, @Orlok Tsubodai, could you all tell us your exact reasoning for voting Stricker, and perhaps the exact time you submitted the vote in your PMs (pending confirmation from @Araris Valerian that it's okay)?

This is why, and I put my vote in shortly after writing that post.

*******************************************************************

Bortington the Blind stood before a painting. Gavilar, former ruler of Alethkar, looked down at him from the wall. He looked regal, with a neatly trimmed beard adding to the effect.

"The best beard wax comes from Nalthis," Bortington was explaining to him, seeming happy to carry on a one-sided conversation with what he obviously thought was a real person.

Luna, Bort's Beardspren, just sat in her nest in Bort's magnificent beard, alternating between laughing at him, and shaking her head in dismay at how oblivious he was.

[Amanuensis he/him]

21 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

How did you treat Gorilla? My recollection is that you were defending Gorilla to the hilt which isn't what I'm seeing here from Striker's D1. 

That's what caught me, yeah, but at the very start I either completely ignored him or tried to encourage him to be more active, rather than joining people's suspicions. It was only when it looked like Gorilla was for sure dying that I got heavily invested in his defense.

13 minutes ago, Bort said:

This is why, and I put my vote in shortly after writing that post.

Thank you, we pretty much reached that conclusion after realizing you were offline for like 11 hours, so makes sense you're probably cleared because of it, so yay. And you said you're not good at voting elims  

Also glad you're back, would love a new perspective on the whole Stricker situation.

[Bort he/him]

2 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Thank you, we pretty much reached that conclusion after realizing you were offline for like 11 hours, so makes sense you're probably cleared because of it, so yay. And you said you're not good at voting elims  

Also glad you're back, would love a new perspective on the whole Stricker situation.

I'm just as amazed as you are, lol.

I still need to go back and reread D1 to check interactions to see if anything stands out, but right now I'm not too convinced by Archer and Ash.

[Archer he/him]

I've heard some sites don't allow talking during the Night and I'm wondering if having built in nap times would help some of y'all. :P. 

I don't want to touch the extra accounts thing since Thaid's response is going to be difficult to read for reasons other than evilness. Plus, I don't view them as the most catchable elim when there's people with more clear signs of having bussed or been working on a ML. 

It comes down to Ash was sensitive about being tied to Striker yesterday and they seemed to be building towards a mix of me, who if you assume they're both evil, was the only realistic option. I think the elims struggled to get anything going on any other villager, which makes me most sus of late voters. 

So if enough people want to go for Orlok, they're my next pick. But I'd really like to stick to the more traditional picks. As Kas mentioned, I've used Thaid as an easy mix opportunity before, so I'm aware they're a good distraction candidate. 

Also, I'd missed that the wincon is outnumber, so I think the 4 man team is a prudent assumption we can afford to make. 

[Amanuensis he/him]

For what it's worth, I think Ash if a very pragmatic exe candidate, particularly for the reasons Archer just listed. But my heart says he is Village, so I'm personally not going to vote there. I definitely encourage people to vote Ash if they disagree with me, but simultaneously encourage people to vote Thaid if they don't.

I kinda hate the idea of spending D2 exeing a player who voted an elim. Even with the decent chance of a bus, I'm more interested in checking if there's an elim who didn't bus first, while giving the villagers who voted on Stricker another day to prove themselves and narrow down the PoE further.

Of the Stricker voters, I still think Illwei is the best candidate, with Orlok coming second. I'd like to give Orlok more time especially, if he is Village, while Illwei at least has been around enough to participate more directly, and thus should have no problem defending herself or finding a better candidate.

So if I had an exe pool today, it'd be <Thaidakar, Illwei>. Though again, if Illwei is village, I'd be happier to give her the opportunity to prove it by going for Thaid first, so you all know where my vote is anyway.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

could I get the vote count? also for those asking me why I did exp, it was only because I had no idea who to vote for anyways. though I'm pretty sure I changed my vote to Amanis *scratches head* I dunno.

[Amanuensis he/him]

ED1T got ninja'd by Thaid so reposting in case anyone missed it:

These are basically my reads rn.

19 hours ago, Lotus said:

Stricker (8): Kasimir, Matrim's Dice, Devotary, Ash, Amanuensis, Illwei, Bort, Orlok

Ash (2): Experience, Stricker

Illwei (1): The Unknown Aon

JNV (1): Maillwi

Experience (1): Thaidakar the Ghostblood

Archer(1): JNV

Kas yellow cause I want to v!read him but I haven't seen him get ML guilt yet, so idk could believe that he wasn't obfuscating his Striker vote as much as he was trying to be thread control to get someone else exed for Striker, and then ended up busing him. Very likely green but I think e!Kas could pull that off

Orlok yellow because his playstyle means he's always kind of behind which means it takes a lot longer for me to develop a read on him. I'm much better at figuring people out when I can interact with them in real-time. Would prefer giving him the chance to weigh in more.

Archer yellow because tbh wouldn't be surprised if the plan from the start was for him to post something he knew would draw questions from Villagers with the intention of other elims casting doubt on him and his ideas to likewise look village. This is probably more of a tinfoil hat theory than a legitimate concern but something to definitely consider a few cycles down the line imo.

I really don't think Thaid is Village. And if he is, and Ash is elim, then I don't know why Ash would defend his inactivity. In fact, it makes no sense and only reinforces my V!Ash read because E!Ash would presumably want that mix over his own death, yeah?

Illwei being a voice of reason is just not what I'm used to and it really feels like she was trying to be at the start of C1 (re: Archer's plan) and idr Village Illwei ever trying to be a voice of reason. Plus there was that reads list where she was like "Archer? Striker?" which looks like hedging on both of the exe candidates. In a V!Archer, E!Striker world, I think that looks pretty bad because it would suggest she was gauging Village preference before settling into the bus.

If anyone wants to find that reads list and compare it to Striker's re-entry, that'd be grand.

ED1T:

40 minutes ago, Archer said:

As Kas mentioned, I've used Thaid as an easy mix opportunity before, so I'm aware they're a good distraction candidate. 

Oh right, this. But I'm the one that started the Stricker train, and I'm also the one advocating Thaid votes, so at the very least I'm not doing it to distract the Village, which should be comforting

ED2T:

I'm beginning to realize that QFs are hard for me to RP in because even when I want to I keep getting distracted by game stuff and the limited time in a cycle means I end up prioritizing the game stuff  really going to try to get at least one good IC post in before the turn is over because I fully expect to be NK'd, but also got some IRL stuff going on today so dunno how much time I'll have between 11-1 EST.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Amanuensis