Long Game 96: KKC in the Modern Age

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 622 words, DISCUSSION, 600 words]

[OOC: Aight. Sart's viewed the thread a couple of times, but no response, and since I have not been offered anything that can really affect my read on Sart which has been all over the place, I'm going to call it a night as it's almost 0530hrs and I'm dead tired. Also, I've finally broken the 40k+ mark, which is a relief as I'm almost there, and having the time to dedicate to writing is so good >> And I feel like a god of words tbh.

(Seriously guys, is it so fricking hard to just say more and help people read you? If you're Village I really don't want to kill you, yes I'm not hardKasing but I don't like MLing findable Villagers. F's sake. I'm annoyed because I legit think there's a chance of V!Sart here but he just feels like a black hole I don't know which way to lean on: V considerations being apparent complete dgaf about defense or the votes on him and the E considerations being the fact his voting just feels like a thinly-veiled CC.)]

3 minutes ago, Archer said:

I just had the very fun experience of trying to guess whether or not that was an example of evil me. Apparently Xino and I were village in that situation. 

[OOC: You were all Villagers. The point I was making is the same point I made in LG95 when I was trying to stop the Village from exeing our leader, which is that Szeth tends to do pretty counterintuitive things as a Villager. The fact that so many fellow Villagers (you, Xino, and Mat and Stick (last two admittedly observers) in the dead doc) had their hackles raised by him points IMO to the fact that I don't take the PM start TJ is flagging to be something indicative of E!Szeth and actually...see, the thing is that I wouldn't be surprised if TJ didn't pick up on it because it didn't affect him in that game (and I don't think he pushed Szeth for it there, which could be good here.) I do think E!Szeth has a slight tendency to be a bit more careful with initial thread presentation but I don't feel strongly about this. Just believed this was a pertinent point and wanted to see if I could get TJ's reaction to it, but yeah that's not happening.

IDK I suppose I have a 'what's the point of that question?' back at TJ. What's the point of asking that? Szeth be that way, so how AI is it really? You were there for it too. It's consistent with both wanting to just get a feel for people, and to spider/go under the radar (but then why PM everyone and apparently just disappear?)

What I find more ??? is the passive approach that Szeth has taken to this game, in contrast with how actively he participated in and RPed in QF66 (also RP-centric game) and how much he functioned as a game driver in LG95. Agree it's overwhelming, but almost wonder if it's a deliberate under-the-radar approach because like...again, bread-and-butter right? Same with LG95. Same with QF66. It doesn't matter if it's a vanilla game or a complex game, @Szeth_Pancakes. Basic bread-and-butter analysis sort of still applies? Etc. 

But full disclaimer that I had a gut V read I can't justify on Szeth and the fact I can't really justify it doesn't make me too happy. I just feel (I guess) that the dgaf Sympathy request sounded pretty good, and I do wonder if an Elim would've been more careful about revealing that capability. I do think E!Szeth is capable of counterintuitive decisions, though. It do be that way sometimes.

Oh wonderful Sart posted @Sart yo what are your suspicions/reads at this stage of the game thanks]

lii. tutor

They were all watching him: some of them students, and a few E’lir. According to the attendance rolls Master Anders had given him, there was an El’the in Artificing in this class as well, and Kevan wondered why he was taking the introductory module to Rhetoric and Logic. 

He set down the stack of handouts on the table. He’d worked on it, mirroring Master Anders’s syllabus. They were covering basic logical principles in lecture, so this tutorial was meant to clarify some of the concepts where students were likely to stumble. He figured he’d gotten some of them, like the truth table for ‘if’, and probably’d missed a lot more.

(“Always be honest with them,” Aksel had advised. “Students can respect when you don’t know something but are willing to admit it.”

“I should know though, shouldn’t I?” Kevan had protested.

Aksel smiled. “Think about it,” he said. “How many times have one of us told you ‘That’s a good point, I don’t know, let me check and get back to you’?”

He was right, Kevan realised. Of course he was; Aksel’d taught so many of Master Anders’s classes that he’d become almost as much of a fixture in Rhetoric and Logic as Master Anders himself.

“The important part,” Aksel pressed, seeing he’d gotten Kevan’s agreement, “Is that you absolutely have to uphold your end of the commitment. You aren’t expected to know everything. But you are expected to make a good effort of looking it up and sharing with the student what you’ve found. The whole reason you’re a tutor is because we think you’re capable of doing that sort of basic research, and probably more effectively than the student asking in the first place. And it doesn’t compensate for knowledge of the basic material!”)

He took his time selecting a piece of chalk and scrawling on the chalkboard, his back to them, listening as they filed in, slowly. Alone, in pairs, in one case, in a group of four.

“RHETORIC & LOGIC,” he scribbled on the board, and underlined it a couple of times. Figured they may as well remember they’d signed up for this class. 

As they watched him, Kevan felt his heart hammering in his chest. The worry was already setting in: despite Master Anders’s words, he wasn’t certain he’d prepared enough, or that he even knew enough. He heard a few of them whispering: “...got promoted to El’the…second term…” and felt that old sense of inadequacy unfurl in his chest, spreading strands like sea kelp.

The last student filed in and took her seat. Kevan drew in a deep breath and began.

In that moment, the fear, the fretting and the anxiety: all of it melted away. There was no room for it, not here. He had to focus on the task at hand, and the job Master Anders thought he was capable of doing.

“Welcome to the introductory class for Rhetoric and Logic,” he said. “I’m Kevan, and I’m your assigned tutor for the module. If any of you haven’t signed up for Rhetoric and Logic or have gotten turned around—I know Mains can be a labyrinth at times—”

Laughter. Everyone knew how cursed the corridors in Mains could get. The building was designed such that you could take easily twenty minutes to move between classes, even if the rooms were right next door to each other, due to how unpredictably the corridors and hallways turned about or led to dead ends or rooms that had been bricked off and sealed.

“—or if any of you are experiencing buyer’s remorse, now’s your time to escape this classroom.”

More chuckles, but no one moved. Good enough.

“No one? Well then. Let’s get started with the principles of logic.”

[Sart he/him]

Alright vote analysis, go! I'm going to assume off the bat that those who were driven insane were targets of Skindancers, and thus real Students.

T1M1:

Spoiler

Archer (2): Araris Valerian, Drake
Matrim's Dice (2): Steeldancer, Drake
Steeldancer (1): Kasimir
Drake (3): Archer, Archer, TKN
Szeth_Pancakes (2): JNV, Ash

T1M2:

Spoiler

Archer (4) TJ, Wonko, Drake, Kas
Drake (2): Archer, Archer
Sart (2): Mat, Mat
Stink (2): Araris, Araris
Araris (1):  Ash
Steel (1): TJ
Ash (0): Kas
Szeth (1): Ash
Kas (0): Sart,  TKN

T1M3:

Spoiler

Sart (8) - Mat, Kas, Kas, Wonko, Wonko, TJ, TKN, TKN
Araris (3) - Mat, Ash, Stink
Mat (3) - Archer, Archer, Sart
Stink (2) - TJ, Araris
Steel (1) - Ash
Wonko ()) - Araris
TJ (0) - Sart

Crap. Haven't done a vote count, but I'm running out of time, and I'm presuming that I'm leading in the votes. I still have a bad vibe on TJ, so TJ TJ. I'm going to keep writing a post, but I'm not sure it's going to be done before rollover.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 2717 words]

6 minutes ago, Sart said:

Crap. Haven't done a vote count, but I'm running out of time, and I'm presuming that I'm leading in the votes. I still have a bad vibe on TJ, so TJ TJ. I'm going to keep writing a post, but I'm not sure it's going to be done before rollover.

[OOC: Look, is there a way you can articulate your TJ read? Because that's really what it's about for me. I'm willing to believe there's a V!you world and just really want better ability to formulate a read on you at this juncture. If given more reason to believe V!Sart, I at least am willing to shift my vote. Expulsion won't kill you - that analysis can wait. I just need a way to read you, more or less. I'd like to think I've had a decent run of IDing V!you in past games. Definitely don't want you losing your analysis, just, yeah.]

[OOC: Also, I can neither confirm nor deny having taught this repeatedly as a tutor for the Logical Problem of Evil in Introduction to Philosophy to the point I am well used to both student expressions and the damned questions they will ask me >> As well as the great lengths I have to go to to explain propositional logic to arts students writhing and screaming >> ]

liii. explosion

“Master Kevan sir?”

“It’s just Kevan, Sera,” Kevan corrected the student who’d addressed him. “I’m a R–an El’the, not a Master.” Fortunately, no one seemed inclined to call any attention to his slip. It felt strange, being addressed as though he were a Master, when he felt as though…

It was a strange sort of perspective. For all he felt inadequate, the students struggled with the basic concepts of Rhetoric and Logic. It was possible to understand that there was a gap there: between his facility with the subject, and their ability to grasp the rudiments he was trying to impart to them. It made him feel as though he could handle this, tutoring these students. He didn’t feel so lost, so out of his depth.

He could do this.

And maybe, just maybe, if this gap really existed between him and the students he was tutoring, then it was possible to think that Master Anders hadn’t been mistaken after all. (And if Master Anders wasn’t mistaken, perhaps Master Bob wasn’t mistaken, either. He reflexively shied away from the idea—practically recoiled from it, and the visceral knowledge of his inadequacy, but it was at least a thought he could entertain for a moment.)

“Si—Kevan,” Sera managed. “Why do we care about non-contradiction? Why is it a law of logic?”

“I mean,” said another student, “What would it even mean to say something like ‘water is wet’ and ‘water is not wet’ at the same time? How does that even work? It just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Yes, but…” Sera frowned. “It feels like we’re just making arbitrary rules about how logic is supposed to work. Nothing says the rules have to be that way. We just made them that way.”

“It’s a social construct,” said yet another student. Kevan swore to Tehlu he was going to ban that damned word from his classroom.

“Well,” he said firmly, stepping in. “First, let’s be very careful about the term ‘social construct.’ We don’t really want to go into debates about mathematical realism here, so we’re better off bracketing this issue for now.”

“Sir, what’s bracketing?”

Merciful Tehlu, was he ever this bad as a student? Kevan wondered. “It’s a technical term,” he said, with a silent apology for having slipped into it. “When we say ‘bracket’, we mean we’ll treat it as a given, as true for now. We don’t want to interrogate too many things at once because if we do, the class loses focus.”

He was greeted by dutiful murmurs, so he went on. “Another thing to keep in mind is that social constructs can be meaningful. Your grades, for instance, are a very good example of a social construct. As is the entire Admissions process. Anyone here wants to volunteer stories about Admissions nightmares?”

He got a few chuckles out of the E’lir and the Re’lar, and a few late-term students. “Watching Master Herkimer suddenly show up to your Admissions slot wearing nothing but a kilt and asking you what he’s got in his pocket would give anyone nightmares,” E’lir Pashan muttered.

“Ugh, my eyes,” said someone else. “Honestly I’d file a complaint and see if I could bring him on the Horns. Try my luck.”

“He’s not that bad to look at! I mean, would you consider even Master—”

Kevan cleared his throat. “Maybe let’s leave how attractive the Masters are out of this,” he said, warningly. “We’re getting too far afield. So we’re bracketing questions about the ontology of the laws of logic for the moment. Well, there’s an epistemological dimension. We want to know—and this is what Sera is asking—what grounds the laws of logic, such as the law of noncontradiction.”

On the chalkboard, he scrawled, “~(P & ~P).” 

“Why should we think you can’t do something like this? And this is where the talk of it being arbitrary comes in: when Varice says it’s a social construct, what she means is that it’s a convention. We could just as easily choose to make this illegal instead.” He added ‘~(P ^ ~P)’ next to it. “It’s a grounding challenge—we’re interested in the justificatory basis of these laws.”

He looked at them, trying to figure if he’d lost them, and then forged on. 

“Noncontradiction is an interesting case, and one that’s a bit fun to demonstrate. Makes for a good party trick, even if it’s less flashy than sympathy.” Oh, he certainly had their interest now.

“Has anyone in this class heard of the Principle of Explosion?” A large majority of students were shaking their heads slowly. “How about the phrase ‘anything follows from a contradiction’?” A small minority of students nodded, and Kevan called on one of them. “Synthia. Why don’t you share with the class what you know about this?”

“I…I don’t really know,” Synthia muttered, staring at the floor. Some of the class laughed, and Kevan skewered them with a stare.

“It’s alright not to know in this class. Sometimes, even I don’t know the answers to your questions, but I’ll do my best to look up the answers and get back to you on them. The point of this class is to learn, and if any of you knew all the answers, then you shouldn’t be taking this!” 

There was always more to learn, though. Even on his second time taking the introductory module to Rhetoric and Logic, Kevan’d so many questions, so many things he still didn’t understand. Sometimes, it felt like learning didn’t so much answer questions as equip you to ask different, even newer ones. Master Anders had told him, more than once, that he’d felt that you’d succeeded in this subject when you discovered you’d asked a good question. It wasn’t about the answers. It was about the questions; the questions were what drove you. That and the journey seeking answers to them.

He scrawled, ‘1. Water is wet and water is not wet,’ on the top half of the board. Next to it, he added the translation, just for the sake of completeness: ‘1. P & ~P.’ “To see why this is a problem, we’re going to do something called a reductio argument, which is the short form for ‘reductio ad absurdum’, but ‘reductio ad absurdum’ doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, and if you say it too quickly, some student might think you’re saying something about abs. So, we’re doing a reductio argument here. That is, we’re going to just assume that it’s fine to have a contradiction. Then, we’re going to see why that creates problems for us, at least within the confines of classical logic. I’m going to be using both the logical form and writing it out in terms of statements as I know not everyone is on board with the logic yet. We’re aiming to get you there by midterms.”

Next, he added, “2. Water is wet,” right below the first line. Next to it, he added a simple, ‘2. P.’ “This move,” he explained, “Should be pretty uncontroversial. If it’s true that water is wet and water is not wet, then it’s also true that water is wet. We can derive it from the first statement. This follows from how ‘and’ works, logically-speaking: for an ‘and’ statement to be true, both halves of the statement have to be true.”

He hadn’t lost them yet; some students were frowning at the chalkboard, but he saw enough nods that he felt confident making the next move.

Then, he wrote, ‘3. Water is not wet,’ below the first statement, followed by a ‘3. ~P.’ “If you understood the previous step,” Kevan said, “This one is more or less the same thing. From the first statement, we can also derive the statement that water is not wet. Once again, this is just about how the connective ‘and’ works.”

“This is where it starts to get interesting,” he warned them. The next line he wrote was, ‘4. Water is wet or Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire.’ He heard the roar of appreciative laughter as he finished off the statement, and then added the translation next to it. ‘4. P ^ Q.’ “Anyone want to take a guess at why we can do this?”

“Because Master Herkimer’s kilt is a monstrosity, sir?” asked one of the students.

“Loredan, I’m telling you that burning it off him is not an improvement,” said another.

“Apart from that,” Kevan said, firmly. 

He got a few students shaking their heads before one of them ventured, “Is it…does it have anything to do with the truth of an ‘or’ statement?”

“Good,” Kevan said, absently realising that Master Anders was coming out automatically now when he opened his mouth, which probably said something fairly dire about his state of education. “Can you say a little more about that?”

The student in question, probably another Yllish, from that lilt and that true-red hair, hesitated and then shook her head.

“Not even a try?” Kevan prompted. But the student would not budge, and he wasn’t about to put her on the spot. Sometimes, you had to give them time to get comfortable, he figured. He’d classmates like that, in any case. Sometimes, he’d felt that way too. “What’s your name?”

“Aife,” she replied, her voice soft enough that he’d had to strain to catch what she was saying.

“Well, thank you, Aife. Aife’s given us part of the key to understanding this move. Does anyone else want to help Aife out?”

A ruddy Cealdish student with solemn eyes raised his hand. Kevan acknowledged him and he leaned back in his seat, exuding confidence. “Well, it’s how it works, right? ‘Or’ statements are true as long as at least one half of the statement is true.”

“Exactly so,” Kevan said, approvingly. “Thank you…?” he let his voice trail off in a question.

“Staven.”

“Thank you, Staven. So getting back to the statement, ‘Water is wet or Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire,’ we can see that this is a true statement. We’re allowed to make this move. Because we already have this line, right here—” He tapped his chalk next to the second statement. “Since we’ve asserted P, that water is wet, we can simply tack on a second clause using the ‘or’ connective for free. The resulting statement ‘Water is wet or Master Herkimer’s kilt on fire’ is therefore still true.”

Some of the students looked far more confused now, so Kevan paused a moment to let it sink in.

“Remember,” he added, hoping this would help them out. “Each step so far has to preserve truth. Logic is about truth-preservation, after all. We know from an ‘and’ statement that it’s safe to infer both P and Q, or both that water is wet, and that water is not wet. This is because the move is truth-preserving. We’re doing the exact same thing here: we’ve already deduced that we can assert that P, or that water is wet. So if P is true, then P or Q is true. Or to put it in terms of another example: if it’s true that you are admitted to the University if you are extremely intelligent, then it’s also true that you are admitted to the University if you are extremely intelligent or in possession of a kilt. This will be a bit clearer when we go through the truth table for ‘or’ next week. I’m just trying to give you the intuitive take here.”

A few students looked less confused. Kevan decided it was as good as he was going to get. Now for the move that would really upset them.

“Here’s the problem. We’ve discovered we can infer that Statement Four is true. That is, either water is wet, or Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire. Now let’s take a closer look at this statement again. We also know that water is not wet.” He tapped his chalk next to the third statement. “Remember, we’ve inferred this from our starting statement: that water is wet and water is not wet. This is fair game so far.”

Right below, he scribbled, “5. Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire,” and next to it, “5. Q.”

Silence. 

He watched them process the move, trying to make sense of it, and waited for the objections.

“You can’t just—” one of the students gestured vaguely. “—do that.”

“Why not?” Kevan wanted to know. “We’ve inferred 4. As far as our system is concerned, we’re allowed to use 4 to generate more inferences. Since water is not wet, which is Statement 3, if we combine Statement 3 and Statement 4, we get Statement 5. Recall that for the statement ‘water is wet or Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire’ to be true, at least one half of the statement must be true. We’re using the result that water is not wet. This automatically entails that we’re committed to the second half of the ‘or’ statement being true instead: that Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire. There we go, we’ve just shown that Master Herkimer’s kilt is on fire, and everything so far has been perfectly legal.”

He watched them try to wrap their heads around that. Remembered what it was like, being a student and being shown this. Being dead certain some form of trickery or chicanery had just taken place, but being unable to point to where the trick was.

“The reason we say anything follows from a contradiction is because you can substitute anything you like here.” He drew a circle around the last statement. “Just keep it consistent. You can say something like Master Volatile really detests coffee, or that the sky is green, or that the moon is made of blue cheese. Anything is allowed, as long as you keep using the same Q statement throughout the entire reductio. Some of you are thinking this is a cheap trick, and that something’s gone terribly wrong here.” He looked at the sea of nodding heads. “You’re right that something has gone terribly wrong here. For one, it’s patently absurd that I can trivially prove just about anything this way, including what’s very much false. For another, I want you to hold on to the feeling that this is just broken, that I’ve somehow cheated. Let’s take a brief detour, and suppose we’re all in a game right now.” He waited, giving them time to adjust to the change of tack. “Let’s say I’ve figured out a loophole in the rules of the game. It could be corners, it could be tak, it could be some form of social deduction game. Here’s the question. Say I exploit the loophole and I win, and absolutely overwhelm you. That sounds pretty broken and pretty absurd, yeah? Do you think I should be allowed to do that?”

Some nods, some shakes of their heads.

“Maybe, intuitively, some of you would think, ‘Well, then the rules of the game are just screwed.’ If you’re still thinking that the principles of logic are just a fancy game we’re playing, hold on to that thought. Even if it’s a fancy, arbitrary game, we want it to be internally consistent. We want it to make sense. We don’t want it to be absurdly broken, with loopholes that any canny player can exploit to large extents. And that’s sort of what’s going on here, because ‘explosion’ happens. You can prove anything at all. This also goes back to what Master Anders told you in his introductory lecture about logic as a path to knowledge. If you can prove just about anything, then logic is pretty rubbish as a way of reasoning about the world. Because all statements can then be shown to be trivially true. But that’s not what we’re after, is it?”

He set down the chalk. A good place to end the lesson, to give them food for thought. To situate and recontextualise the point of it all, what Rhetoric and Logic was really on about for all of them.

“Class dismissed. Please, remember to do your readings, and work on the problem sets I’ve assigned you. We’ll discuss them in the next tutorial. And keep the questions coming—remember, Master Anders and I are here to help you. If you don’t understand something, please ask me. I can’t tell just by looking at you.”

[Mat he/him]

So... that's not really vote analysis, that's colored vote counts and an unrelated vote (TJ voted on exactly zero of the people Sart greened). Feels like an attempt to replicate something useful but that couldn't have taken more than two minutes.

Also, to put a finer point on my Archer response-- that looks like a clear double agenda to me, as his reason for unvoting TJ also applies to me (arguably more so as I had a longer elim streak, though I know that's not how probability works etc) but he still double voted me.

[Sart he/him]

Dang it. Copied and pasted your question, and lost my analysis. To answer why I suspected TJ first. I thought his votes didn't have a lot of thought put behind them, and thought he was sheeping someone. However, after analyzing the votes, I can clearly see that he was the first vote on both targets, so that analysis doesn't hold water.

The problem is, I still have a poor gut read on him, and I think I can back it up with evidence. 4 separate people all voted on Archer on Month 2. TJ, Wonko, Drake, and you Kas. In the world of E!Archer that would look pretty good for TJ and Kas. However, the Elims choice of kill confuses me. Archer votes for Drake twice in the same cycle that the Elims decide to kill him. Why bother with that? Wouldn't it be better to vote on someone who might get expelled, in order to further damage the village? That's why I'm leaning slightly village on Archer. In a V!Archer scenario. I suspect that the leading train would have an Elim on it. 2 of the people on that train have gone crazy, leaving only you and TJ. I know that voting you won't do much, so I'll try hurting TJ.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: DISCUSSION, 370 words]

6 minutes ago, Sart said:

I suspect that the leading train would have an Elim on it.

[OOC: Why would it? Or rather: why can't they side-train? The hypothesis that the lead train has one E isn't unreasonable but it's equally likely they went side-train in a V!Archer world (Archer is my strongest V!credence right now) - and it's just as plausible the Elims would be happy to let the Village make their own mistakes, given the Archer v Drake throwdown and just vote and get $.]

6 minutes ago, Sart said:

The problem is, I still have a poor gut read on him, and I think I can back it up with evidence.

[OOC: I'm interested in where the poor gut read is originating from, since you're phrasing it as something that exists independent of your read of the voting. I think there's independent, activity-based reason to V!read Archer.]

Edited to add:

6 minutes ago, Sart said:

Dang it. Copied and pasted your question, and lost my analysis. To answer why I suspected TJ first. I thought his votes didn't have a lot of thought put behind them, and thought he was sheeping someone. However, after analyzing the votes, I can clearly see that he was the first vote on both targets, so that analysis doesn't hold water.

RIP, sorry. Definitely not my intention, just wanted insight into your thought process.

Edited to add 2:

[OOC: Right, sorry, tired - forgot to add that I do think it depends on your view/read of the landscape, but if Elims weren't significantly endangered, then there's no reason not to just be participatory either, and not draw flak. Let me put it this way: if you are V, then you know that three of the lead trains on M2 are all Village. In that landscape, why do the Elims care if they are not under significant pressure? 

Going back to the count:

Spoiler

Archer (4): TJ, Wonko, Drake, Kas
Drake (2): Archer, Archer
Sart (2): Mat, Mat
Stink (2): Araris, Araris
Araris (1):  Ash
Steel (1): TJ
Ash (0): Kas
Szeth (1): Ash
Kas (0): Sart, TKN

This minimally makes it a three Villager lead, with the last (?) depending on Wonko. TKN adds me in by voting me at the last second, which doesn't really do anything due to the fact I hide behind the Pony but in a world where TKN and I are V/E, this is arguably either major DGAF or vote dilution, and could for instance make sense in an E!STINK world or E!you world, though the fact STINK didn't bother voting might be a positive indicator on his part.

I don't really think it would be weird for TJ to be Village, but neither am I strongly sold on V!TJ. But I don't really know how/why you want to pull that statistical argument when the trains were so damned diluted that it seems to indicate there was no strong convergence, and that the Elims were just fine with the main candidates, which...

Well, kraem. Ok, I guess...Time to make El grumpy. Ish but also not.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: ANALYSIS, 305 words]

[OOC: Yeah the swearing just now. Let's take it back. For the Elims to be ok with the state of the results, we need certain estimations about their risk appetite. My read is that since TKN's vote on me came out at the last second, it's reasonable to see something like this:

<Archer, Drake, Sart, STINK> - at most one Evil, and I'd argue it's between Sart and STINK. I am...decently willing to give Sart a chance at this juncture. At most one Evil given otherwise low tempo seems to suggest Elims are ok with the spread and the lead, and which means I am better off not voting in this set. (Though I honestly still think STINK could use pressure.)

(I'll note that contra Sart, I always prefer to do analysis on trains first, then voters: voters are better off with vote shift analysis, as trains and your reads of the trains are better at IDing where the incentives are and therefore what the more likely Elim disposition is. But I don't feel this disagreement is alignment indicative, more just Sart being Sart and being perpendicular.)

<TJ, Mat, Szeth, TKN, Steel, Ash>

Based off my current credences, it's between Mat and Szeth. Steel ruled out for obvious reasons, very light reason to V read TJ and Ash.

Mat
Mat 

Possibly willing to rethink TKN for muted response (sometimes feels TKN harps a lot about one thing that he hasn't said anything about so far at this juncture) but pretty much would like sleep sometime soon. Despite the analysis, might be willing to pressure STINK, not sure, depends.]

Edited to add: TKN thing being how much TKN harps when V about Elims loving to vote him and it's interesting he was chill with backing down earlier this cycle instead of bringing it back up again.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

Should I just give up on going for EP then? Cause like being expelled isn't in my gameplan at all but I could definitely work it in if it'll just happen inevitably anyway. Would rather be transparent about it than overwork trying to resist it I guess. Araris isn't wrong in that there's still stuff for me to do.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Should I just give up on going for EP then? Cause like being expelled isn't in my gameplan at all but I could definitely work it in if it'll just happen inevitably anyway. Would rather be transparent about it than overwork trying to resist it I guess. Araris isn't wrong in that there's still stuff for me to do.

Just gonna say that Sart had 8 complaints last turn and didn't get expelled.

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

What I find more ??? is the passive approach that Szeth has taken to this game, in contrast with how actively he participated in and RPed in QF66 (also RP-centric game) and how much he functioned as a game driver in LG95. Agree it's overwhelming, but almost wonder if it's a deliberate under-the-radar approach because like...again, bread-and-butter right? Same with LG95. Same with QF66. It doesn't matter if it's a vanilla game or a complex game, @Szeth_Pancakes. Basic bread-and-butter analysis sort of still applies? Etc. 

But full disclaimer that I had a gut V read I can't justify on Szeth and the fact I can't really justify it doesn't make me too happy. I just feel (I guess) that the dgaf Sympathy request sounded pretty good, and I do wonder if an Elim would've been more careful about revealing that capability. I do think E!Szeth is capable of counterintuitive decisions, though. It do be that way sometimes.

Honestly I’ve just been having a hard time gaf. I said this in PMs, but I feel kinda disoriented by all the textwall posts. I’ve been trying to keep up with the thread, but I haven’t had anything to say. I haven’t had much inspiration for RP, either, though I’ve been trying to brainstorm some stuff…?

Yeah idk

[Mat he/him]

11 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Just gonna say that Sart had 8 complaints last turn and didn't get expelled.

You had three and did ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

5 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Honestly I’ve just been having a hard time gaf. I said this in PMs, but I feel kinda disoriented by all the textwall posts. I’ve been trying to keep up with the thread, but I haven’t had anything to say. I haven’t had much inspiration for RP, either, though I’ve been trying to brainstorm some stuff…?

Yeah idk

There aren't really any textwalls, tbh. No more than every other game, unless you count Kas' RPs, which I don't as it's not strictly game related.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: ANALYSIS, 1364 words]

K this whole thing is just gonna be OOC. Someone called for a textwall so I came. Last, best effort because I don't wanna ML Sart if he's V and I sort of don't wanna vote Mat if he's really a Villager having a Very Bad Day. Feelsbad in either situation.

Would appreciate if people don't expect further hardVillage things though  I guess I'm just gonna die this cycle but whatever. I don't know if I can in good conscience keep putting my RP spree above saying what's pretty much been on my mind and...sigh. It's selfish but whatever if it happens it happens I'll just have to get over it.

Quote

Here is the strongest case I can make for V!Mat:

-Ease and comfort with which he names himself a Villager in a game where lies can be actually tested
-The fact Archer isn't actually dead yet.
-Mat tends to prefer noise kills and threat kills (this is more an Araris kill meta right now)
-He proactively tried to source for suspicions/thoughts in the M2 communism PM (the group one that Mat resurrected).
-Noted Village pace was too slow, which is good Village mindset. E!Mat prefers to let the Village make its own mistakes.

This can be solved/responded to in a few ways:

-Mat isn't the sharpest on rules (sorry not sorry), and Drake argued contra me that he found Mat sus and also that he would not be careful about claiming Villager until LA and Plum Bob come into play.
-Archer and Mat could be teamed (note I don't believe this)
-Wonko and Drake were also threat kills. Drake pushed Mat, whereas Wonko seemed to soft Namer, and Mat has shown he's capable of picking softs up.
-It was a one-off question that he never came back to.
-What's the point of noting if you ain't gonna do anything about it?

Quote

Here is the strongest case I can make for E!Mat:

-I don't feel he's really had or developed suspicions. They've stayed stable on Araris/Sart with little interest in the game, engagement, or development. The way I see it, a Villager should be questioning. Look at low bandwidth me: I went from Wonko E!slip??? to V!Wonko to Wonko Kinda Sus Tbh between M2 and M3 and kept oscillating between them. Araris and Sart feel like convenience targets. Even after I respond to him questioning my E!Sart read, he just...doesn't seem to care about that at all and I don't know why he wouldn't, since he admitted in the Communist PM that he wasn't impressed by his own suspicions. I remind everyone that Elims know what the answers are, so they struggle to fabricate genuine fog of war or organic thought process shifts.

-I consider lack of WiM or overall reactiveness/failure to develop discussion substantively to be an E!Mat tell.

-Distro-wise, I feel one SD is either in the Nobles or the Ruh. I currently feel it's more likely to be in the Ruh, as I have V reads on all three of them, with Szeth being my weakest V read relative to both of you. Strength goes something like: Archer > TKN > Szeth. Araris's last posts read more V to me (agreed with Archer here), and JNV being D1ed makes them Village. PoE points to Mat.

-Some of Mat's D3 emotions are off. 

I am trying to articulate why I find this post weird. 'xD' is a very weird emotion to project or feel at this juncture, especially since Mat hasn't really seemed to have struggled with my alignment too much despite his comments about the potential E/E with you. And like, why would you even say that about Sart's vote? It's like he's trying to tie my alignment to his, rather than trying to solve for mine. Sart's vote being a sign I'm Village isn't connected - it's just that he can't properly sus me for that response to Sart if he himself got irritated by Sart. Nothing to do with my alignment.

-I do think Mat's inability to recognise his response to Sart is essentially the same as mine to his and to not draw the obvious conclusion suggests there is something off there.

-His Sart vote feels like a 'u suck' vote, which is the fact that Sart voted him off RP. I legit don't know what's there to miss - yes, Sart did that. Ok. And this has been fueling your lead sus across these two cycles? I'd argue my Sart suspicions differed in valence - I was more willing to consider a V!Sart world, and my issue with the RP vote is that I felt it was functionally a CC vote and that E!Sart has a greater tendency to CC. As I intimated, I would also have been willing to unvote Sart, had Sart responded and just gave me more to work with. Mat keeps saying we misunderstand him but I don't see what we're not understanding - we're questioning the fact that he's sus of Sart and Araris for RP voting because really that shouldn't be the entirety of it???

-Overdefensiveness does feel like a thing Mat does more often when E. I think I was tired when I responded to Archer that Turn. The way I'd put it is this: sometimes, E!Mat keeps his cool very well. We explicitly overlooked E!Mat in I think LG94 and potentially a bit in LG95 because he kept his cool. But he doesn't always do that - so calm Mat doesn't entail V!Mat but that isn't the same as saying that defensive Mat doesn't entail E!Mat. These are not logically equivalent statements. There's a lot of annoyance/irritation bleeding through on my read and it feels like something I'd attribute more to E Mat. 

-I think it's also possible to argue that the strain of being E and Ruh are more likely to put him in a place of pressure where he gets grumpy. E!Mat lets negativity bleed through more if he experiences setbacks, see the perspective shift in LG94.

-Cf. MR64 - E!Mat has a tendency to go for LHF arguments/pushes at times. Sart and Araris (or at least, his pushing them for RP votes) does feel like the way he allowed the Alpha push for...claiming Evil. Sorry but that was a really obviously bad move that V!Mat should know better than to do. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

Mitigating factors:

-I could see V!Mat being genuinely upset/taking Sart's vote personally because finances are tight for the Ruh and he ended up in what's functionally a gameplay death spiral of expenses due to the suspicion that never died. (But this doesn't address the passive posture and lack of WiM/other points I raised tbh.)

I get a tonal positive read off Sart, and a tonal negative read off Mat's attack on Sart - it didn't feel like good faith; Sart's panic felt a bit genuine, and a bit raw, and I kind of think E!Sart tends to hide the panic more in the doc. 

Like, look at this viz I have of game posts distro. Seriously.

Yes, I know, I post a lot. I'd like to think I delivered my share of analysis too, even if I went kayana with the RP. The thing is, look at basically the next top two posters. Most of Mat's bandwidth this cycle was spent defending. In light of that, the lack of evolution of thought is wild, as is the lack of driving anything. I'd argue the TKN vote almost appears opportunistic, in light of STINK already pushing TKN. 

I don't think TKN gets off really well either because for the second top poster, he doesn't really say or do anything too constructive, so there's that as well.

Functionally I guess I'd be willing to hedge my bets:

Mat
STINK

Out of respect for the V!Mat world where he's having a pretty damn bad game. Between Sart and STINK, I'm probably a bit more willing to see an E!STINK world at this juncture. But yeah. I'm going to take off that hardKas hat now. Appreciate if I'll be able to yeet it for good. I really just wanted to RP and I mostly got that I think. 

Goodnight, everyone. I'm done.]

[Ashbringer he/him]

Alright, time for me to exercise my brain a little bit.

JNV, Drake, and Wonko are pretty different kills. JNV and Wonko are more low-info, Drake is... not. 

 

So without further ado:

M1 - JNV

This seems pretty much like a low-info kill, not much else to note about it. JNV posted RP and poked Szeth, Archer voted JNV briefly before turning to double-Drake... and that's it.

Mat Kas TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

(I'm taking out the 3 Insane individuals, because obviously. I'm not taking out Araris because I don't think many people expected him to be expelled when he was, he only got expelled the past turn, and he could have made calls on when and where to kill things).

Szeth had no posts M1. I don't think Szeth is the kind of player to shoot someone for a solo vote without calling it out in thread, so I feel safe taking the two of them off the list.

Mat Kas TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris Stink Sart

Sart and STINK both have 1 barely-post in D1. I haven't run into E!Stink very often and thus am a little more paranoid of them, and E!Sart can be... I don't really have time to check. But for D1, I think a more active Elim would be calling the shots.

Mat Kas TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris

Kas wouldn't shoot JNV D1, if anyone wants to fight me on that bring it on

Mat TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris

Now for the tricky part.

Archer is the only other player who actually acknowledged JNV D1 outside of Vote Counts and things. I don't know if that excludes him from doing an NK on them, but it's being noted because its all there is to note.

There's also the note that in the last MR, Mat and TJ were Elim and shot JNV on C2 (with Mat making the final call on that). That's been brought up in thread before. By Archer. At least twice.

What do I make of that? Not entirely sure. The paranoid part of me wonders if that means Archer-TJ are E-E. But for NKA, I'll leave that rabbit hole alone. Archer isn't out of the woods on this case though.

TKN* Steel Archer Ash Araris

Think that's as far as I can go. Asterisk on TKN that they mentioned wanting to ask JNV what they elevated in, but that could go either way. Also an asterisk on Araris (already expelled), Steel (inactive later but decently active M1), and Ash (solely because that's me and I'm not going for me) on who to not go for. I'd go for TKN as an ultimate target looking at only M1. 

 

M2 - Drake

Drake is decidedly not a low-info kill. He was apparently using PMs a lot (even excluding the Overthrow The Nobles PM), and active in thread. In addition, Drake has another note - he didn't Elevate M1 (or M2, though the Elims wouldn't know that). Drake was also up for the exe - only by 2 votes, which isn't a lot, but depending on DP enough to be threatening. And notably those two votes were also both from Archer.

Mat Kas TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

Bye Kas 

Mat TKN Steel Archer Ash TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

Steel was completely inactive this turn. I don't think anyone else was? 

Mat TKN Archer Ash TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

Drake had public suspicions of both Archer and Mat, with side willingness-to-vote both Wonko and Ash but reasons not to vote either. Archer had double voted on Drake, again - don't think that would lead to him also putting a kill on Drake as well. It's... possible, but I don't think it's Archer's MO, not if he's actually pushing Drake.

Mat TKN Ash TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

I'm going to remove myself here, if only because I have the argument that I wouldn't kill Drake both because of joint RP and joint (at least publicly) alchemical aspirations. (Part of this is also something I can't quite talk about yet, but is another argument that I want to keep Drake around.)

Mat TKN TJ Araris Szeth Stink Sart

What from here. I'm not really updated on kill metas as much as I was, just that this probably isn't a direct fear kill as much as a potential one. Mat is a decent candidate for this as the only one really directly in the sights of Drake besides Archer, or someone like... literally anyone deciding to take out Drake before he had time to ramp up whatever he was planning. Szeth (or TKN) might have fear-killed Drake off of LG95 (he brought up something with that in a PM with me).

And I'm running out of time, great.

Anyway, the swap from low-info kill to fear-kill is notable. Drake might have become a target because of no elevations, or just a classic fear kill. Could be different players making decisions which throws things off.

 

M3 - Wonko

Thoughts on Wonko - Wonko had 1 elevation. One post the turn before he went Insane, though was talked about. This feels like another low-info, perhaps? Perhaps not if the softing was there I'd need to double check. I want to give that due dilligence later rather than half-do it now.

 

 

Ultimate conclusions:

Look, maybe there's an argument for E!Kas going full RP mode a la Dingo. But Kas isn't doing that anymore, and Kas shooting JNV M1 and Drake M2 makes absolutely no sense, so not today PTA 

Archer is strange, but I don't think Evil unless he's spending time covering for allies (TJ?).

Steel is inactive and we can deal with that later.

I'm me, Ashbringer, who needs to go to work now.

TKN is Village read-ish and I need to double check why because he might be a good candidate for M1'ing JNV.

Mat might become a discussion black hole, and their interactions with Archer are a bit noteworthy but mostly from Archer's side.

Sart is... ??? Gonna be honest, I haven't kept up with the thread that much but I'd need to check if he's Village read now after getting out of 8 votes.

 

My work break is probably going to be over rollover, so TKN. More just for tuition than suspicion, and I also haven't finished analyzing or checked on what reasoning's going on this turn and need to leave so I don't have time to. But also, a bookmark for later.

[little wilson she/her]

The turn is over!

[Elbereth she/her]

---

JNV and Wonko broke out of the Crockery!

TKN, Archer, TJ, and Sart were elevated!

Mat was charged with Conduct Unbecoming and expelled! Sart was charged with Reckless Use of Sympathy and lashed! TKN and TJ were charged with Undignified Mischief and must apologize!

 

Mat (5) - Mat, Kas, TKN, Archer, Archer
Sart (3) - Mat, TJ, TJ
TKN (2) - Ash, Stink
TJ (2) - Sart, Sart
Stink (1) - Kas
Szeth (1) - Stink

 

Player List

1. Matrim's Dice - expelled
2. Kasimir
3. The Known Novel
4. Steeldancer
5. JNV - formerly insane
6. Wonko the Sane - formerly insane
7. Archer
8. Drake Marshall - insane
9. Ashbringer
10. TJ
11. Araris Valerian - expelled
12. Szeth Pancakes
13. Stink
14. Sart

[Mat he/him]

Told ya so  

At least I saw it coming, and at least I don't really have to worry about money anymore :P. At least as far as tuition goes. The other good news is that I'm actually still at Ankers because the GMs forgot about Ruh half price tuition, so I didn't get kicked from the Mews onto the streets.

I still plan to 'vote', but I'll do it in orange. I was going to respond to Kas' big post but there might not be a point to that anymore lol

Idk, wasn't my best game. My mind was somewhere else I guess and there wasn't a lot I latched onto. Only got one elevation in a field I wasn't even going for. Ah well. Maybe I can still get talent pipes...

Edit: wait a second @little wilson @Elbereth why am I voting on myself? My votes were Sart/TKN

Edited August 5, 2023 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I still plan to 'vote', but I'll do it in orange. I was going to respond to Kas' big post but there might not be a point to that anymore lol

[OOC: There's still point insofar as V!reading you, I think. If only because it helps establish whether it's worth just taking your suspicions at face value or doing a lot of kayana circling and paranoiding about them.]

2 hours ago, Elbereth said:

JNV and Wonko broke out of the Crockery!

[OOC: Wonderful! Crockery breakout! Crockery breakout!  

Looks like no one got hit this time? Sounds like it was a roleblock - that's noteworthy. Any sabotage that got stopped should be reflected as an 'attacked and survived'.]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Edit: wait a second @little wilson @Elbereth why am I voting on myself? My votes were Sart/TKN

[OOC: Huh.]

Edited to add:

[OOC: @DrakeMarshall smh slacker get out of there damnit >:( ]

Edited August 5, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

Oh a player list thank you 

Whyyyy are there only 4 elevations? Is Imre that enticing for people?

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: DISCUSSION, 205 words]

[OOC: Dashing this off quickly as I have gaming session with Wyrm, then the dash to 50k while still alive :

@Ashbringer - wrt your last Turn's post:

• With Sart, it's just a tonal read + the fact I generally tend to think that if he sounds kayana, he's probably Village, due to the fact that V!him usually exasperates me in terms of how he acts. The fact he's doing a voter shoot kind of felt like that to me because I disagree with not even giving a damn about...everything else. The context is important when doing voting analysis. I guess you could argue that it's not really Sart kayana. IDK. Jury's out I think, but in an E!Araris world, I feel Araris's defense of Sart is noteworthy, but then need to relook M2 in light of trains (and there's arguably a TKN connection there in terms of voting to dilute for Sart's benefit.)
   
• So IDK if there's a global re-evaluation of Sart: I at least did because my read of him oscillated a lot.
   
• Willing to revise TKN as I don't like his backing down wrt STINK et al - I feel he has a bigger tendency to 'no u' when voted when Village.]

Edited August 5, 2023 by Kasimir

[STINK he/him]

Going out drinking with friends today let's get this thread popping people

[Archer he/him]

Either that d20 is rigged, or somebody did some good work to get those two out. 

I'm having a little trouble reading whether the elims would bother CWing, but if they would, Sart and TKN would seem like the targets but it'd weird Mat split their vote about it. (Allegedly. :P.) 

I'll admit my blindspot in SE is elims going inactive works to make my suspicions go away, so I struggle to support pushes based on that. 

What my pattern recognition brain is grappling with right now is why two people put a lot of effort into analysis right at the end of the round. Deadlines clarify the mind? Or trying to justify votes? Or trying to squeeze some tuition reduction out? 

*

Jincs liked to watch the disciplinary hearings. They had a thing for bad boys. 

"The student is hereby charged with Reckless Use of Sympathy!" 

"Well you have my sympathy, fellah."

"Rhe student is hereby charged with Undignified Mischief!" 

"Implying the existence of dignified mischief?" 

"The student is hereby charged with Conduct Unbecoming!" 

"Take me home with you and I'll be-" 

"The Crockery has been breached!" 

Jincs did some quick mental math. That odds of two students escaping from there were astronomically low. 1 in 400 even! They hardly made numbers much larger. And now students were at large. 

"Thats HOT."

[The Unknown Order he/him]

About storming time.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 989 words, ANALYSIS, 358 words, CW: dark, depressing, alchemy]

3 hours ago, Archer said:

What my pattern recognition brain is grappling with right now is why two people put a lot of effort into analysis right at the end of the round. Deadlines clarify the mind? Or trying to justify votes? Or trying to squeeze some tuition reduction out? 

[OOC: As you yourself have said, the day I stop trying to legislate/work out/doubt myself all the way down to rollover or whenever I have to go to bed (apparently, 7AM+ on a weekend) is when I'm probably Evil. Not hardKasing doesn't mean I don't want to get it right, or at least I don't want to be voting a player that I could've worked out was Village if I'd just tried a bit more or and Sart wasn't cooperative until the last moment. Which yes, I do find frustrating.]

liv. nigredo

Kevan washed his hands in the cold rush of running water from the metal tap. Watched as streaks of red swirled in the basin. The mind was drawn to patterns, the way the blood circled about, spiralling down the sink until it was gone, draining out through the pipes. The icy shock of the cold water felt distant against his numb skin. As though it was happening to someone else, a stranger.

The water had been red at first, then it grew increasingly pink-tinged. He picked up the soap and began scrubbing. When you went into the Medica, you were taught how to do it, if you were expected to be performing any kind of surgical procedure: all the way to the elbows, with the brush for under the nails. You did each finger, one by one, and he went through it now, mechanically, as though he was still preparing, even though it had long ended.

The soap was harsh and it stung his skin. Master Bob’d always wanted a Re’lar working in chemistry to figure out something that was gentler on the skin, that didn’t leave you feeling half-raw when you were done with cleaning up. No one’d cracked that mystery just yet. He guessed there was an El’the elevation hanging on that.

It still didn’t feel real.

The water still looked faintly pink and his hands stung.

It still didn’t feel real.

He remembered going out on a lake in winter: balancing precariously on the thin ice, feeling the ice groan and creak beneath him. One of the kids, someone two years younger than him, had drowned in the lake the year before, the ice giving way. There were always ice warnings, and one of the adults had to measure and check the ice thickness, but it didn’t stop them from doing foolish things, things they should’ve known better than to do.

It was that same sense now: as though he was on ice, cracks spiderwebbing their way beneath his feet. The crystalline moment before solid ground gave way to freezing water in an instant.

He’d never drowned. Stupid thought to have, really: you never survived drowning, unless you were lucky, or someone was near enough to save you, and knew how to administer compressions and rescue breaths and to deal with hypothermia. Sometimes, even that wasn’t enough. Sometimes you could drown on dry land, water still trapped in your lungs.

Kevan wondered if that was how his father had felt, one way or another.

Drowning, even on land.

He realised he was bent over the washbasin, his skin raw and stinging, and tears in his eyes, his breath coming out in heaving gasps.

Maybe he’d been drowning, all his life. He’d just taken a while to realise how deep he was in for it.

The water was still tinged with pink. He didn’t know if it was his blood, or the patient’s. Didn’t know if it mattered. 

Inside, there was the hollowness. Aching, crushing. Threatening to engulf him. His lungs felt as though they’d been scraped out, scoured clean by ice.

He was used to failure. He’d told himself this. He was used to being awful at Artificery, had laughed off the comments he was the despair of Master Artificer. You had to do this: to accept the pain, to make it part of you, so people couldn’t use it against you. So people couldn’t hurt you. He’d thought he could do that. There was something like that in Ademic thought, about the double arrow. About how holding on to your sense of loss, or your pain, was just driving the arrow deeper into your own flesh. 

He couldn’t seem to let it go, couldn’t seem to assert any sort of control over his breathing. 

Dissolution.

You couldn’t assert the dominance of the self over the pain. There was only pain, and he existed in it, forsaken, forswarn, and so terribly lost.

Desolation.

You could be used to failure, and you could still hurt so terribly when you weren’t good enough. When you thought you’d done everything you could, but you just—

You just didn’t have it.

(You ruined everything you touched.)

“El’the,” Master Bob had said, kindly, and his words were incomparably cruel, “He’s gone.”

And Kevan should’ve realised it: should’ve realised it at least ten minutes ago, but you never wanted to stop trying, and Master Bob had warned him about this, about the tendency to get attached, about leading in with his heart and not his head, and desperately, futilely trying to stop the bleeding and suture the wounds and deal with the trauma injuries even though the patient had stopped breathing, had bled out on the operating table.

Pink swirling into the water. Probably bleeding.

He didn’t even know the patient’s name.

He’d only been a child. 

All of that, ended. 

Easy for tunnel vision to set in, for everything to narrow down to the few wounds you were trying to treat, to try to resuscitate a patient, even if the patient was bleeding out, even if vitals had been lost: there wasn’t a pulse, wasn’t breathing.

Even though the patient had slipped away minutes ago, and you hadn’t even realised it, all of you hadn’t, because you were supposed to do your best, and to take that fight against death, even if it was hopeless, even if you weren’t sure if you could succeed, even if every time you tried and you failed, you bled yourself out a little more for it.

(“You have to learn to set aside the patient, El’the,” Master Bob was saying, but there was no critical distance here. He’d never been very good at the Heart of Stone, had never mastered it. Maybe that was why he’d been an average sympathist at best, indifferent at worst.

He was going to have to carry that weight with him.)

Alone in the washroom, Kevan wept, and hated himself.

Edited to add:

[OOC: Ah, fy faen. Ok. Been running some brief scenarios to see how much leeway more we have - obviously, we have anywhere between 3-4 SDs. I think we are more screwed than I thought we were and I guess I only have myself to blame.

[DYSTOPIA] Assume four SDs, and that both Mat and Araris are Villagers. At least I don't think this world is implausible. Steel has decided he doesn't want to play the game after all, which really shouldn't remotely be surprising to anyone who has been playing the last couple of games in SE and I probably should be less salty about it but I'm really still very done with LG94. 

JNV, Wonko, and Drake all count as already having been sabotaged. So effectively, subtract them for now. That leaves us with nine players, meaning a five V : four SD ratio in this world. I think they win at outnumbering, meaning that we ML (ME?) one of us this Turn, and then that's it, gg. 

Effective ratio is a bit weirder as JNV ( @JNV ) and Wonko ( @Wonko the Sane ) can vote (please, please do, you two!) and Steel and @Szeth_Pancakes will presumably continue to Nichtstun, meaning it's still effectively 5:4, minus weirdness with any vote shenanigans.

So the big question is: are we in [DYSTOPIA]?

We have more breathing room in [DYSTOPIA-] but only just barely: this is a three SD world, where the SDs sabotage someone and then we expel someone else, so we go from 6-3 to 4-3, and then need one more Turn to get to lylo.

If Mat and Araris have at least one Elim between them (this boils down in part to a question of whether you believe the Ruh are entirely clean, as I think one should have very high V!JNV credences), then we do have a bit more breathing room than the [DYSTOPIA] or [DYSTOPIA-] worlds. Part of the problem is that I don't really have a strong E!read of either of them, so RIP. 

...I hate that I got scammed into playing a bloody flipless game on stilts smhhhhhh >> ]

Edited August 5, 2023 by Kasimir

[JNV]

Okay hi hi hi glad to be out glad to be free its great um Ive basically missed everything so heres my thoughts while catching up with things

So my month 1 conclusion is Ill always distrust Novel its just sorta a thing everything they do feels evil and Ill always trust Kas thats just a thing also something about the way Archer fussed about Drakes votes just feels off might be because I dont get the argument but yeah hm

Month 2 Szeths sympathy flop feels like the sort of didnt read the rules carelessness of a good guy also Matrim I always RP with punctuation this flow of consciousness styles kind of just for game thoughts cause if I had to format these nicely too theyd never happen Sart feels weird but I always find Sart a little weird Im feeling fine with Stink which feels weird to me honestly 

Month 3 Listen as a fellow Ruh I get the money struggle but somethings really pokey about the wordy denial but then their surprsie at the rollover swap is like I dont really think thatd happen if youve got a doc of conspirators hm honestly my analysis feels very surface level and falls into the trap of everything could be faked I still dont trust Novel but at this point I think its default Novel hm rather than unusual Novel hmm

New month 1 I think the reason why my brain is feeling decent about Stink is cause tons of their posts are sandwiched between Kas RP and the good vibes are rubbing off so dont trust the feels on that but the more Matrim protests the more my brain rings alarm bells not entirely sure why its might be a sort of ideology misalignemnt its like the way they argue isnt the way my brain thinks would be a reasonable argument and they fuss at things I wouldnt fuss at but also I cant really remember if I get the alarm bells when theyre village cause my brain is not in gear right now so yeah but I guess they got expelled now so its not really an issue of thoughts anymore you know what Im dropping the Matrim thoughts they arent as relevant now

I guess my total thoughts is Novel feels weird but not significantly more weird than usual Archer gets an eyebrow raise and I need to get another look at Stink Sart just feels weird but my brain is making that clicky noise cars do sometimes when they wont turn on so Ill look back in a bit for now RP break

 

Jenali's hands wouldn't stop shaking. They weren't mad anymore. They weren't. It was a temporary affliction dealt by the hands of creatures that did not belong at the University, and Jenali was fine now. They were completely authorized to leave the Crockery and return to the University, even if they were sitting very quietly in the back corner of their classes and trying not to draw any attention. They were a student of the University and had not shattered any walls at the Crockery. Everything was fine, and they did not need to visit the Medica. They did not need counselling or help or guidance. They were just fine. 

They were still staying at their old residence. Technically, they hadn't paid for the room, but no one had wanted to take the room of someone who had gone mad, and all their old things were there, and they hadn't been told to leave. That last one was probably because they had been purposefully dodging the owner of the place, but it was fine. Everything was fine. They had stopped hearing the singing beneath the wind that had pulled them from their bed and sent them wandering into the Omethi, surviving only because some benevolent stranger had been on a late night walk and fished them out. They had stopped clawing at their ears in an attempt to make the singing go away. They had stopped humming along to the tune.

They were fine. Every bit of classwork was completed promptly and on time. It was almost a relief to not have to worry about impressing the Masters anymore. They could just show up and listen. They didn't even have to worry about exams because if they did poorly, they could just disappear into the night. They had found a place where no one would ever find them. It was cold, but out of the wind that whispered their name in the depths of the night. There would be no singing winds in corridors of stone. 

But there were still many things to learn at the University. Now that no Master would elevate them, they were ironically more free to pursue other fields. They had sat in the back of a tutoring session for Rhetoric and Logic, despite not actually attending the introductory course, and the elegant chains of absurd conclusions made with impeccable logic were somehow soothing, as though the world could be divided piece by piece into neat little chains. Mathematics was similar in terms of peace of mind. The numbers would not suddenly change if they looked away or start singing to them in their sleep. The Archives had the opposite effect. A labyrinth of knowledge accessible only through competing filing systems of long-dead Archivists, countless tomes lost through the silent wars for perfection in distribution of knowledge. So many important things slipping through the cracks.

They avoided the Medica. They could not go back.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 712 words, CW: dark, depressing, loss of father]

lv. broken sleep

In his dreams, pink swirls in the saltwater and his father staggers.

He’s bleeding, and Kevan is wading in after him, crying out, begging him not to leave, and he knows those wounds, the ones his father traces with bloodstained hands: the knife wounds aren’t the worst, it’s the trauma wounds that will be etched in his mind forever, he has a good memory, sharp enough to cut himself on, and he’s bleeding out now, as he watches the trauma wounds he couldn’t treat, because who the hell thought making fragmentation broadheads was a good idea, much less allowing them in city limits?

Blood in the water, too much for him to stop, and then the boy slips away on the operating table, and Kevan wakes up, gasping, still drowning, even on dry land.

He lies there, staring up at the ceiling of his room. Still the same maddening shade of bright white that Soren and Valerra had criticised, so long ago. (Not so long ago, but it feels as though it’s been forever now. He was someone else, then. All these things hadn’t happened yet. And maybe there was a certain freedom about being an E’lir, something he can’t quite seem to remember how it felt, to be so light, with all his future at the University laid out before him.

Even further back: Tirnagh receding into the distance, becoming a distant smear on the horizon, and then nothing. The Aturan roads leading him to the port of Caillimh, and then beyond that, the bright blue waters of the Reft, separating Yll from the Commonwealth and the mainland. The sense that he might go on to make something of himself, to leave his own mark on the world.)

Probably should talk to someone, he thinks, but the truth is the pain is so private, so deeply-felt it feels impossible to articulate, or to burden someone else with. Re’lar and El’the struggle with loss at the Medica all the time. Knowing the rules—knowing Master Bob’s rules—doesn’t make it any easier to take the first step.

As far as he can tell, beyond the window lies darkness. If he’d just get up and go to the window, perhaps he can make out some of the lights at the University, or of Imre, even at this hour. (Probably. He reckons it’s still late at night, but he probably isn’t going to get much more sleep. Really, he’s tempted by the thought of getting up, crossing the room, sitting at the desk and making more headway on the translation project but the tiredness has sunk deep in his bones and he can’t seem to bring himself to do that, either.)

In his dreams, his father says, “You can’t save everyone,” and sea water tinged with blood drips from his hands at his side. And Kevan knows that, knows that acutely, because at the end of the day, neither the innocent love of a child nor his mother’s love saved Jair, in the end. Neither of them were enough.

(And it tastes like brine, the knowledge. Balanced against the memory of his father sweeping him up into his arms, closing off the world within their circle, his father saying, “You know, I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. As you get older, you know. Whatever it is you do.”

In the end, it wasn’t enough for any of them. Not love. Not the hook in the heart.)

And then he’s in the Medica, as Master Bob briefs the entire room of El’the during rounds, and Master Bob is saying, too, “You can’t save everyone,” and he knows, intimately, to his very marrow that he cannot (an intimation of mortality) but it doesn’t stop him from failing, hurting, falling; infinitely mortal, imperfectly human.

Daylight slips in through the window, the sunlight on his skin but it doesn’t warm him, and dark hollows under his eyes, Kevan shivers past the tiredness and forces himself to his feet.

Wonders about just…giving up. Lying back down.

Classes to teach, he reminds himself. Books to read, and always, ever rounds, and perhaps something in them will lead him back to himself, if only for a short while.

For the moment, the sense of duty wins.