Quick Fix 75: The Tower's Pressure

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

"I think that Teejay has been around for far too long. It's frustrating how much attention has been focused on him. He's either the one doing this too me, or he's a pawn they're using to hide. I want him gone."

Midius cocked an eyebrow in the general direction of the ceiling. "You're willing to kill him if he's innocent, just to deprive your enemy of a resource?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Well, as long as you're aware that's what you're doing, I'm fine with it."

By the time they reached the Hall, the guards, and many of the suspects, already had Teejay isolated and surrounded. The crowd looked angry, though there were some who looked sad or confused at the far reaches of the room. Midius noted them, wondering if there was more than one Enemy at work here.

"Teejay, unfortunately for you, there is quite a bit of evidence stacked against you in this strange case. So, you're going to be removed."

The man glanced around, seeming more resigned than panicked. "I can't say I didn't expect this. Thought it was going to happen yesterday, but Roy got got instead. He was innocent you know? You do know that, right? Talinele and Roy were both innocents, murdered because of my experiments?"

The room went silent. Midius blinked, and looked around very quickly, he hadn't been expecting a confession, and wasn't fully sure how the Sibling would react.

Teejay opened his mouth to say more, but there was a cracking noise, a rumbling, a hum and hiss and roar all at once, and part of the ceiling extended. A dome, too small to provide cover, but large enough to block a splatter, slammed down from the ceiling onto the man. Part of it sheered off, and descended into the floor, leaving nothing but a redder patch where once had been a man.

Quick Fix 75: The Tower's Pressure, Turn 4: Justice

@|TJ| was Executed! (Finally) |TJ| was an Enemy!

All of Lord Spirit's votes have been erased.

Player List and Current Vote Count:

1. @BigBadBagsworth One               
2. @KelsierApologist Two
3. @The Unknown Order One
4. @YEVAD Three
5. @IcedOutPenguin Two
6. |TJ| Executed Turn 3
7. KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren Executed Turn 1
8. @ThatOneWorldhopper One
9. @Negative_Null Zero
10. RoyalBeeMage Executed Turn 2
11. @Lord Spirit One
12. @Tinwatcher Two
13. @THE DEMON Four
14. @StrikerEZ Two
15. @Aster One
16. @Kasimir One

[Kasimir he/him]

12 minutes ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

All of Lord Spirit's votes have been erased.

That's twice, isn't it?

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

For reference since we have an hour left

• |TJ| (11 KelsierApologist-1, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-1, KelsierApologist-2, The Unknown Order-2, KelsierApologist-3, Lord Spirit-3, Kasimir-3, StrikerEZ-3, |TJ|-3, Tinwatcher-3, BigBadBagsworth-3
• The Unknown Order (3): Negative_Null-1, BigBadBagsworth-2, Lord Spirit-2, The Unknown Order-3,
• YEVAD (3): Yevad-1, Yevad-2, Yevad-3,
• THE DEMON (3): The Demon-1, The Demon-2, The Demon-3,
• Aster (2 Lord Spirit-1, Aster-2,
• IcedOutPenguin (2): The Unknown Order-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-3, 
• Tinwatcher (2): Tinwatcher-2, Aster-3,
• StrikerEZ (2): BigBadBagsworth-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-2, Negative_Null-2,
• ThatOneWorldhopper (1): IcedOutPenguin-2,
• KelsierApologist (1): |TJ|-1, Kasimir-1,
• Kasimir (1): Tinwatcher-1,
• BigBadBagsworth (1): IcedOutPenguin-3,
• Lord Spirit (1): Negative_Null-3

Voted Aster C1, voted TUN C2, voted TJ C3.

Curious they didn't use Mercy here - unpalatable targets in YEVAD/DEMON?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

That's twice, isn't it?

Nope. ThatOneWorldHopper got erased, than BigBadBagsworth, now Lord Spirit.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

Nope. ThatOneWorldHopper got erased, than BigBadBagsworth, now Lord Spirit.

Not referring to that Mr GM sir  I was saying it's twice someone's taken a vote off TUN in the process.

TOW

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Why TOW?

Also, what is the mercy shot? I don’t think I saw anything about it in the rules

[OoklaApologist She/her]

13 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Why TOW?

Also, what is the mercy shot? I don’t think I saw anything about it in the rules

It’s the ability of the elims to save a player from the execution.

34 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Curious they didn't use Mercy here - unpalatable targets in YEVAD/DEMON?

Isn’t it once per game?

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Also, surface motives of the soothe (is that the right term?) seem to be to be to take TUO out of the second (now first) place tie, and possibly to lower pressure on Aster too. But of course, that could just be framing TUO, especially because of how easy it is to get momentum enough on a train to get someone else out. Still, just cuz I don’t personally have any other leads, I’m leaning toward TUO

@KelsierApologist they didn’t use it yet.

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

35 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Curious they didn't use Mercy here - unpalatable targets in YEVAD/DEMON?

I don't think it would have been worth it. The |TJ| train would probably start again, and they'd lose him no matter what.

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

@Kasimir why vote @ThatOneWorldhopper?

Also, it seems curious that @ThatOneWorldhopper, who’s only played two games of SE before, would figure out the best way for, the elim team to use the mercy shot than @Kasimir, who, I’d gander, has been here for slightly longer than 2 games.

Also also, @A Jo in the Bush, shouldn’t @YEVAD have four votes, since he didn’t vote for anyone last turn?

[Lord Spirit he/him]

8 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir why vote @ThatOneWorldhopper?

Also, it seems curious that @ThatOneWorldhopper, who’s only played two games of SE before, would figure out the best way for, the elim team to use the mercy shot than @Kasimir, who, I’d gander, has been here for slightly longer than 2 games.

The elims can coordinate using their doc, so TOW could have had advice from TJ, who has also played more than two games. 

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

That’s my point

But @Kasimir, I’d still like to know why you voted for TOW, especially since you cast that vote before he said anything this turn.

[Kasimir he/him]

  

2 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

• |TJ| (11 KelsierApologist-1, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-1, KelsierApologist-2, The Unknown Order-2, KelsierApologist-3, Lord Spirit-3, Kasimir-3, StrikerEZ-3, |TJ|-3, Tinwatcher-3, BigBadBagsworth-3
• The Unknown Order (2): Negative_Null-1, BigBadBagsworth-2, Lord Spirit-2
• YEVAD (3): Yevad-1, Yevad-2, Yevad-3,
• THE DEMON (4): The Demon-1, The Demon-2, The Demon-3, The Unknown Order-3
• Aster (2 Lord Spirit-1, Aster-2,
• IcedOutPenguin (2): The Unknown Order-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-3, 
• Tinwatcher (2): Tinwatcher-2, Aster-3,
• StrikerEZ (2): BigBadBagsworth-1, ThatOneWorldhopper-2, Negative_Null-2,
• ThatOneWorldhopper (1): IcedOutPenguin-2,
• KelsierApologist (1): |TJ|-1, Kasimir-1,
• Kasimir (1): Tinwatcher-1,
• BigBadBagsworth (1): IcedOutPenguin-3,
• Lord Spirit (1): Negative_Null-3

If this is wrong again it will be appropriate for me to commit seppuku at once

This should be prior to the Soothe on Spirit. TUN voted at an hour to EoD.

Theoretically I think it's more appropriate to look on-train than off-train here, which means <Triple B, Tinwatcher, Striker, Spirit, Polly. > Both a function of train size (nearly half the game on TJ) and IMO, the Elims will feel pressure to bus here for Village cred. I don't expect the full team to be on TJ and I definitely expect a healthy side-train presence regardless, but it's useful to have two pools.

Formally:

BUS: <Triple B, Tinwatcher, Striker, Spirit, Polly, Kas>
Side-train: <Penguin, Null, Aster, TOW, TUO>
Inactive: <Yevad, Demon> -> We don't talk about these guys, no, no, no, no

Again, assuming a team - if this were a pure normal game, I'd expect 3-4, I now think maybe 4-5 here. I don't want to super look at 3-worlds because I think they're too optimistic and Village is usually better planning for the worst case scenario. Given the fact that the Elims here are just Magyars, I am beginning to think I'll just ignore 6-worlds.

BUS:

On a first pass, I think it's fine to give Polly some cred for being on the TJ train D1 regardless. I do think this is a bit more cursed because of the Soothe, but let's just run with this and we can asterisk Polly for revision subsequently regardless.

BUS: <Triple B, Tinwatcher, Striker, Spirit, Polly, Kas>

I am going to say I kind of V!lean Spirit, but the meta point is weak. I've felt Spirit is kind of lacking in WiM, and I've seen that more in his Elim play. But it's been a while and I'm not sure if that/RL swamps it. Regardless.

BUS: <Triple B, Tinwatcher, Striker, Spirit, Polly, Kas>

I low key still want to read Striker as being Village because of his entrance, and in general his posts, but don't super feel I can completely exclude him from PoE regardless.

So I'll keep this as my PoE for the moment.

SIDE-TRAIN:

Side-train: <Penguin, Null, Aster, TOW, TUO>

IMO similar deal for TUO. I think E!TUO would feel compelled to hard-bus if he did bus, but he can have some credit for having the push regardless, with an asterisk. (I say asterisks a lot more here because I'm more concerned here that a game with a high new player % will forget not to hardclear.)

Side-train: <Penguin, Null, Aster, TOW, TUO>

I go back and forth about Aster. I didn't like Aster's EoD post D1 about no KSauce dogpile:

On 5/22/2025 at 10:00 PM, Aster said:

i really don’t like sense of humour’s vibes but i also don’t super want to exe them rn - if they’re just desperate town that really feels bad

i’m pretty content with my vote on royalbeemage but think in about it more i do think it intriguing that maf are not trying to dogpile on sense of humour - possibly elim indicative?

In that I still want to know how/why Aster believes the KSauce train is pure. (KSauce had Penguin, Roy, and Striker.) I still think trying to suggest at exact rollover point that KSauce flips maf feels a bit more like a Villager speculation - I'm not sure I think an Elim naturally thinks to keep the jig up. I also liked Aster's brazen pro-tie position. I don't agree with it, but I feel that it does make Aster very villagery compared to everyone else in contention. That being said, I would expect this kind of play from Stick, e.g. AG9, where she sent a message to the player she was going to kill (hi) for Village cred.

Aster can be Village on balance.

Side-train: <Penguin, Null, Aster, TOW, TUO>

28 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Why TOW?

Partly PoE in the side-train pool to open the day. (I need more time and energy to look at the main train more carefully but side-train is smaller and a little easier for me right now.) I kinda have some reasons to V read Penguin (entrance, plus the whole "if not you then who do I vote" exchange with KSauce. I guess the other thing is, if you're an Elim voting someone who is begging for their life and who you know will flip V, do you really want to more or less tacitly admit you're just voting them for no particular reason?)

Realistically in this pool, it's more strongly between Null and TOW for me.

For Null, I liked that Null seemed to just realise the game had ties, and then wanted to change to vote there. But I also didn't feel Null's position seemed very Villagery. I've spelled out my issues with Null previously, but they boil down to Null voting TUN to 'break a tie' at a time where TUN wasn't anywhere in tie contention (it was between TJ and KSauce) and Null lurking at EoD despite the potential for a three-way tie. Null later mentioned being satisfied with their vote on TUN but - your whole vote was to tiebreak! If it doesn't tiebreak, then what's the basis of this vote for you to be satisfied with it? I just don't feel Null's player behaviour matches their stated motivations well. (K, I'm tired so I've referenced my previous post on this.)

On 5/23/2025 at 9:17 PM, Kasimir said:

I'm also trying to understand this D1 post from Null:

On 5/22/2025 at 6:43 PM, Negative_Null said:

That's also a good point, that we can see who will be saved by the Elims. Regardless, after checking the spreadsheet, I'll keep my vote for Unknown. Sorry, Spren but I can't do anything for you

Null initially wanted to create a tie so no one died by voting TUN. (I don't understand the TUN vote and retain my question about it - why TUN when the lead trains were clearly TJ and KSauce? How does TUN create a tie? 

Then, how do you go from a "well I guess I can't avoid one death" mindset to "I'll keep my vote on Unknown despite a 3/3 tie meaning both TJ and KSauce die" mindset? This kind of suggests you felt there's something attractive about the TUN vote and yet the OG TUN vote was both unexplained and suggested to be as a result of a desire for a no exe D1. How does this make sense?

For TOW, it's both being in PoE (PoE = process of elimination, but can also be used to refer to the suspect pool) and the fact that I'm trying to understand TOW's shift in position about TJ. During mid-C1, TOW sent a PM to both me and KSauce (simultaneously which is why I ignored it but we later created a 1-on-1 PM) calling us both experienced asking us why we voted TJ. He said he'd gotten suspicious vibes off TJ from a post in which TJ sussed me, but wanted to know why we really voted TJ/if we had the same view. I dropped a reply asking TOW to spell out his vibes but never got an answer.

To me, it felt like a pro-forma "my teammmate is being sussed" kind of PM because if TOW was genuinely interested in solving, and was PMing us because he found TJ weird, where's the follow-up? It's C4 now man. TJ was alive for three cycles. I felt the lede got dropped on C2 and I didn't see any process which would explain to me why TOW would change his mind here.

3 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

That’s my point

But @Kasimir, I’d still like to know why you voted for TOW, especially since you cast that vote before he said anything this turn.

It takes time to drop a post of this length my dude  

12 minutes ago, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

I don't think it would have been worth it. The |TJ| train would probably start again, and they'd lose him no matter what.

Possibly. But TUN and Polly at least were of the view that a tempo loss mattered. And I think who's up for the snipe matters too.

Edited May 24, 2025 by Kasimir
emoji broke

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

6 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

To me, it felt like a pro-forma "my teammmate is being sussed" kind of PM because if TOW was genuinely interested in solving, and was PMing us because he found TJ weird, where's the follow-up?

Honestly, I didn't respond because I felt like you were avoiding the question, and that kind of triggered a "get away now!" reflex. Also, I felt a little bit embarrassed about the multi-player PM.

Edited May 24, 2025 by ThatOneWorldhopper

[Kasimir he/him]

I guess what I'd say is - I can understand tentative stuff like "ok IDK why I feel this way about Player X but I do." I can also understand the urge to reach out to another player to make it make sense, because that's reasonable and on balance, is a good indicator of solving behaviour. But IMO there wasn't a consistency in there that kind of really showed me it was interest in solving TJ, and that made me wonder if instead it was a "hi why are you sussing my teammate" kind of question.

On balance I'd probably find Null a bit more sus, but the cycle is young and voting's a free action, and voting typically tends to be more useful than just asking (depends) because it actively changes the gamestate, whereas just asking does not.

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

I don't know who to vote, so I used a random number again. It got 12. 

Aster I'm sorry, the universe wills you my vote

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

@Kasimir That’s a LOT of words, but curiously, nothing about the soothe or about your read on TUO. Is that coming soon in another long post?

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

I don't know who to vote, so I used a random number again. It got 12. 

Aster I'm sorry, the universe wills you my vote

At some point, this shifts from Village to the world's most brazen wolf  

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

5 minutes ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

I don't know who to vote, so I used a random number again. It got 12. 

Honestly, I'm a little bit suspicious about this random approach, and I feel like it might just be an excuse for bringing up the vote count on village. 

That being said, I also understand not knowing for whom to vote. 

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Also, this is my 100 post! Yay!

[Kasimir he/him]

Edited to add:

1 minute ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir That’s a LOT of words, but curiously, nothing about the soothe or about your read on TUO. Is that coming soon in another long post?

You asked me about TOW. I'm not really sure why you're trying to make insinuations.

15 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

That’s my point

But @Kasimir, I’d still like to know why you voted for TOW, especially since you cast that vote before he said anything this turn.

24 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir why vote @ThatOneWorldhopper?

Also, it seems curious that @ThatOneWorldhopper, who’s only played two games of SE before, would figure out the best way for, the elim team to use the mercy shot than @Kasimir, who, I’d gander, has been here for slightly longer than 2 games.

Also also, @A Jo in the Bush, shouldn’t @YEVAD have four votes, since he didn’t vote for anyone last turn?

40 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Why TOW?

Literally every single post you have made this cycle directed towards me keeps wanting to know why TOW, and now you wanna shift the goalposts and suddenly ask why I've said nothing about the Soothe or my TUO read?

14 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

IMO similar deal for TUO. I think E!TUO would feel compelled to hard-bus if he did bus, but he can have some credit for having the push regardless, with an asterisk. (I say asterisks a lot more here because I'm more concerned here that a game with a high new player % will forget not to hardclear.)

I've literally spelled it out for you in the post. That's why the post exists.

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

1 minute ago, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

Honestly, I'm a little bit suspicious about this random approach, and I feel like it might just be an excuse for bringing up the vote count on village. 

That being said, I also understand not knowing for whom to vote. 

If you told me someone better to vote and gave me reasoning why, I'd be willing to switch. 

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

I… didn’t understand a lot of the jargon. What does bus and hard-bus mean?

Also IMO?

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

21 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

That’s my point

But @Kasimir, I’d still like to know why you voted for TOW, especially since you cast that vote before he said anything this 

29 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir why vote @ThatOneWorldhopper?

I almost feel like he's trying to frame me. Either that, or he's village, and thinks you might be bussing me. 

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

What’s bus?

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

I… didn’t understand a lot of the jargon. What does bus and hard-bus mean?

Also IMO?

IMO = In my opinion.

Bus is when an Elim basically suses and subsequently votes and kills their teammate to look more like a Villager to everyone. (If you just vote and they don't die, it's called distancing. But you can also just distance by sussing them without voting, etc.) Normally in the context of a bus, it happens after the teammate has copped some flak in thread and the team decides the teammate needs to be cut off. In general Elim teams that refuse to bus just die. This was...AG8, more or less. TJ and Striker would know (we were on opposite sides of that debacle.)

Hard-bus I'm using interchangeably with hell-bus, i.e. the idea you rock up to the thread and choose violence on your teammate, potentially exeing them even before the Village really thought they were sus. Everyone is usually wary of bussing, but hardbussing is harder to spot because it's normally so damned counterintuitive and less likely to happen because of where the balance of incentives is.

What I'm saying in a nutshell is:

22 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

IMO similar deal for TUO. I think E!TUO would feel compelled to hard-bus if he did bus, but he can have some credit for having the push regardless, with an asterisk. (I say asterisks a lot more here because I'm more concerned here that a game with a high new player % will forget not to hardclear.)

I think that both Polly and TUO look more Village from voting and aggressively pushing TJ, respectively.

I think the set-up of this game rewards bussing more than a normal game does, which means that the odds of a bus happening are a little higher. Although it would be a hardbus if TUO and TJ were E/E, due to the nature of how TUO pushed TJ, IMO it is always counterintuitive and just a touch obscene not to reward players who do villagery things with village credit. So yes, I would lean Village on both of them.

Because of the set-up, I asterisk the read - that is, make a mental note we can swing back to them if we see indications we are very wrong about who the Elims are. This is called tiered PoE or prioritisation - in general, I'm not the most bothered by accidentally village-reading an Elim who bussed, or a deepwolf/subwoofer (Elim who gained a lot of Village cred and blended in with the players everyone is solidly reading as Village.) By definition, they're usually the last ones we catch anyway. I'd rather clear PoE, get the easier-to-find teammates, and then worry if I need to rethink.

But the asterisks do mark where I would consider the grounding of the read/reasons behind the read to be more fallible.