Kasimir

Oh yeah entire positive read off Raven came in part from the interaction with Sart and in part from Raven just going straight-up offhandedly claiming Thug like he didn't even think it was important Too pure, that guy.

Tell me about it :D. I was my favourite role, Regular Villager. I'm probably going to find an RP niche that's easier to play and less thread intensive as my wrist injury got significantly worse but I kind of want something to do besides resting.

"Being a regular doesn’t matter as long as you are loyal to Copper's Bend, and I don’t really think you should top anyone's list at this juncture."

"To be clear, is this in your view, generally a defense of Sirta? Because again, I was just hoping to get a committed read from you, and to be able to improve my read of you from it by understanding your mindset," Karis stated. "If you were arguing against accusations of Sirta, and were potentially right about it, the question is whether that defense comes from a good mindset or not. That's the point of asking for the cooking process." Never eat something until you saw how it was cooked, was Karis's general mindset. This was why he made most of his meat pies directly on his push-cart. Edited to add: Scarlet had made a large report. Karis identified one part of it of interest. "In all honesty, this is why I asked Sirta for his reasons. I felt that if they were good ones, then the read of you and him improves. In general, I find that a non-Spiked Sirta tends to make moves that seem inexplicable at times to others. This was one moment in Sirta's reply that made me more seriously consider a non-Spiked Sirta world. This is also one reason why I would not really care to push Sirta any longer. There are others relating to how Sirta handles emotion and the tone of his speech. I can't say hand on heart it's a clear indicator. But that and if a defense of Sirta emerges from a fairly pure place, are reasons to reconsider going for Sirta right here and now. I actually think that if Sirta offers good reasons, I am happy to follow his thinking on you. It's only the first Day, after all. And if not-Spiked, I'll be the first to acknowledge that as crazy as Sirta seems, he has a keen ability to read others. I would be willing to follow that for now."

"There's only so much consistent bad faith construals and opportunistic hypocrisy one will tolerate from others, before it becomes clear it is either actively malicious, or not worth spending one's time on," Karis said, quietly. "As you say, we love Copper's Bend. This also entails that when others are actively ensuring that defending Copper's Bend is unpleasant, stepping back and letting them sink or swim is permissible. In fact, in the case of active hypocrisy, skewering them on their own logic is the best, since they won't accept it is hypocrisy unless they are hoist on their own petard and discover they dislike the cut of that cloth. That as it may be, it was not directed at you - the only reason I asked for a positive case from you was to gain your perspective by making you commit to a more extensive Sirta read, and to see what that case establishes about you. In other words, to help me read you. I obviously have my own Sirta views, and as it stands, I actually think Dasenk is the more fruitful target this time, though I don't care enough to pursue this. There are a few considerations that merit pulling the brakes on any accusations of Sirta at this point in time. Dasenk's contentment with that perch on Revir, despite their insistence a you-or-Sirta push makes sense, and acceptance of Revir's newness indicates a comfort with this situation that I'd probably want to push against. But I've also committed to not caring, sink or swim. You all will do what you want to. I'm simply not going to spend more time pushing against bad faith."

Thank you! I'll update the games sheet

"Sure, why not?" Karis yawned. "Karis, let's go. You all can solve this by yourselves and I'm certainly done with carrying more than my share of the weight around here and willing to be pleasantly surprised by you all solving this. Jahidi teaches us that hope springs eternal with the harvest, even if it's been failing around here lately."

"Oh yes," Karis said. He'd forgotten. A final touch. "Since you all believe that Sirta is innocent, and I'm washing my hands off this, I'll do you the same favour you've been demanding: I'll accuse Wendawa. I'll be interested in what manner of excuses will appear if Wendawa is in fact a Villager. I'll happy to accuse Karis as well. Good luck!"

Karis looked right at Violet. "What I am saying, to be very blunt, is you are either Spiked, or your current attitude is going to cost Copper's Bend. And at this point, I'm half-minded to simply have myself executed so I can sit back and laugh at all of you and watch since you all feel so determined that you are correct and know the path out of this mess. Then it won't be on my hands and since you all are so cock-sure you are remotely good at this, you can handle this without my speaking up, or helping. And if the Spiked overtake us all, oh, oops. I can live with that. Or die with that, I suppose. I'm going to explain this one last time, assuming you aren't misconstruing out of malice. I am going to refuse to further engage for my own sanity, and my own time, because if you aren't going to respect my time, I will respect my own time and go back to selling meat pies. The reason I say you are either Spiked or a fool or actively malicious is that you don't seem to understand how connectives work. Connection analysis proposes that the interaction between two players indicates a potential connection between them. They are conditional, or if-then statements. The whole point of doing connectives now is because you want to have potential connections in your mind by the time things are late. If you believe we are automagically going to find all the Spiked by tomorrow and it'll be over, that's on you. A good Villager's planning has to include more time. If you don't think this one point undermines my entire list, then why do you question the point of the entire list? You can't have it both ways: you can think connection analysis isn't useful, or you can think it is. You can bemoan to me that the day is so apparently short that you are concerned I will doom Sirta (apparently, automagically knowing he is Village despite claiming not to have a specific stance on him), and yet at the same time, it is so apparently long the Spiked can do whatever they want, including distance. Certainly, we can't rule out the fact the Spiked are in fact distancing and leaving Sirta, if he is Spiked, to hang. The point is that's not intuitive Spiked behaviour. You start with the more probable conclusion and when it becomes less likely, for reasons such as having independently good reason to deem someone in a potential pairing with, for example again, Sirta, to be Village. This indicates we should look at the rest of the potential S/S pairings. This then helps us narrow down our suspect pool. Seeking to widen it by immediately assuming that there was no action at all or that we are excluding all relevant possibilities denies the Village the chance to make progress here. It is actively Spiked behaviour, or anti-Village at the very least, to insist we keep all possibilities open because not all outcomes are equipossible. Stating the most likely set of possibilities doesn't indicate that every other possibility is impossible: it just entails we have priorities. So how is it detrimental to sincere defenses of Sirta? In what world do you simply run off a first Day connectives list and immediately flip blindly without taking in new information? In what world do you think that is good investigative practice? If not, why are you so hasty to attribute it to others? In any world where a Village blindly follows any execution order from the first Day, it is a Village that deserves to be overrun by the Deepness and drowned. It's a level of stupidity I can't fathom, beyond rejecting the BEST MEAT PIES THIS SIDE OF THE SELLEN!" Karis drew in a deep breath. He was done. "This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, to be honest. "I don't trust you therefore I tell you about my case against Wendawa which is purely in Tineye messages." Oh Jahidi! The Evil Spiked will know! They will know and save Wendawa! I cannot remotely speak of a case against Wendawa because Wendawa is so very Spiked that a case against Wendawa is itself something that will destroy everyone! Confidential information like personal powers is one things. Views and cases is another. I just cannot even." "Listen, Scarlet," Karis said. "If you can give me a positive case for Sirta being a Villager beyond "this makes no sense" since you legitimately think my doing the most analysis in this Jahidi-forsaken thread makes sense for a Spiked, which pretty much fails your threshold too, I'm willing to listen and to go with it." "But honestly, I'm done here. I cannot keep explaining investigative basics. You all do what you want. I'll unaccuse Sirta since you all believe you have the right answers, so you certainly don't need me on board. I'm going to head back to Kordel and sell meat pies. CLINK's mercy, I don't know what's in the water here."

It's not linked in your doc list. All I see is a group of Google Docs.

Karis made more notes in his ledger, to help him organise his thoughts: In summation, it was time to put thoughts to action: 1. @Sart - "Sirta," Karis said, loudly. "What, exactly, is the basis of your read on Scarlet, to the point you consider them your most trusted Villager? Exactly what, in your view, has Scarlet done to deserve this read? Moreover, if you felt your accusation of Scarlet was mistaken, why not just admit you made a mistake upfront instead of claiming this was to stir engagement? Next, what do you hope to gain from viciously attacking those who are not present? Do you believe this is somehow going to translate into presence despite the weight of history showing this view doesn't work? Finally, there is a robust case, based on these strange flashbacks some of us have been having, that indicates that lack of engagement is a positive indicator that Jorrick is not Spiked. As many times as people have attempted to parlay these into suggestions Jorrick is changing their behaviour, it doesn't and hasn't borne out. I'm interested if you put any weight on these arguments, or remotely consider them factors that would influence your decision, here and now. My accusation of you is not locked in stone, and I am still willing to shift if I can see some indicator you are not Spiked." 2. @Archer - "Wendawa," Karis said next, turning to Wendawa. CLINK! forgive him, but questions came before the baking meat pies this time. "You state after Violet immediately counter-accused you that it was immediate and a good look. What is your reasoning for this stance?" 3. @Violet - "Violet," Karis ticked off the next name. "You insist you have a case on Wendawa but have not presented it. How do you expect any reaction, anything indicative, or, for that matter, any buy-in on a case you won't present? Moreover, if your suspicion is purely based on the fact it was an immediate, early accusation, then why do you not accuse everyone else who made early accusations? For that matter, how do you propose to get around the problem of everyone sitting down together and claiming there isn't enough information to make an accusation and waiting on each other?" He had some consulting of the village Archives to do in order to draw out a baseline of Sirta's behaviour. "A reminder to all," Karis said, with a touch of irony. "If I'm not around for the final stand against the Spiked, keep in mind you should have been doing association analysis. With eight of us in total, being able to rule out pairings to varying degrees will be helpful in solving for the last Spiked. Identifying those unable to give coherent pairings is also crucial. Of course, if there's just one, then we've got a problem. But we always plan for the worst case scenario." Edited to add: Karis added, as a note for himself:

To put this terribly plainly, Karis scribbled it all down: Second, Scarlet argues he would distance better. Is this remotely true? We can argue, if we appeal to past lives, that Scarlet had non-antagonistic interactions extensively with one known in dreams as Shay. But at the same time, Scarlet also bear-hugged the one known in dreams as Orotha. Scarlet's persistent tactics, as noted in correspondence, was to systematically defend Orotha by undermining attacks on Orotha, stating there was insufficient grounds of suspicion on Orotha based on kill MO. This sets an arbitrarily high standard of evidence for Orotha's guilt, even as Scarlet sought to perpetrate attacks on others, such as Death-daughter-Time. This is a persistent strategy of defense. Arguing that Scarlet would only ever defend in the manner he did with Shay is bad faith and a poor argument. Dismissing attacks on him as reaching also demonstrates poor grasp of how he behaves as Spiked. Keep in mind this defense already fails on the first level because it insists you will do the same thing, and if you are known to change up your MO, then just as this attack cannot work, so too can you not help yourself to the defense you haven't behaved in this way before. In conclusion, I would probably argue for a vote on Scarlet depending on how you read Scarlet's not-defense on Sirta, but I actually think it's more a connection defense, if anything, so between them, I'd rather accuse Sirta at this point. He called bull fertiliser. Edited to add: Karis didn't think this needed explicit pointing out as another standard of evidence defense.

Karis didn't find this claim convincing, just because it could be parlayed into a claim of greater distancing. You didn't change your spots. Applying sliding scale of doubt tactics sat in the same comfortable territory, the way the same burglar always took a dump outside Govan's house back in Kordel before stealing his finest homebrew. The way thieves always broke in the same way. Edited to add: By lockpick, by crowbar. You had to make an effort to change your MO. The way he thought about it, styles of defending were less likely to change.

At this current point in time, with just eight of them doing the asking, Karis reckoned that one way or another, if you made some key worst-case assumptions: Assume everyone was just a regular person. None of those weird metal powers, which really unnerved Karis. Jahidi of the Grain was good enough for his pa, and he revered CLINK! the goddess of coin, who rapidly became KRONK!, the same sound made when you batted an aggressive customer over the head with a soup pan when they were being obnoxious. The goddess of coin had two faces, and her worshippers knew this. Jahidi and CLINK! were known factors. These metals...were not. Karis didn't like them. Anyway, they were doomed in four days, or by the fourth night, either way you sliced it. But this was conservative: it didn't reckon about what one did in the case of anyone who could take a hit, or stop the Spiked from killing. And what with certain talk lately about how the Sacred Numbers fell, maybe Wendarr just had a single partner. Karis didn't know, though. He reckoned if there was just one Spiked, the Spiked were probably jacked, as though they ate twenty meat pies in pea soup daily. Way Karis saw it, maybe they had some protection on their side. One of those fancy metal people who pulled sharp stabby things away from nasty night attackers. Maybe one of those people who huffed pewter or whatever they called it, and then could shrug off an actual charge from a legionnaire from the fiery Western Empire. Thugs, he figured they called them. Better sounding name than Lurchers, anyhow. They'd at least one of those Tineyes. Messages were being sent and delivered. Karis reckoned he should work on fliers advertising his meat pies, try to expand his business outreach. The best, most delicious meat pies this side of the Sellen, dunked in wholesome soup to remind you of your grandma. Still, would be too much to expect if they had a Coinshot and a Seeker. Seemed to cut it really tight. If they existed, probably one of them were Spiked. Karis didn't rightly know. Figured this was the sort of thing you said now to hear what others had to think, because no one was doing much other than the suspicion pointy triangle finger, and it was the sort of thing you said and hoped for the best days later when all was revealed and you still had to stand on your feet and fight the Spiked. No matter how everything looked like mudpies all the way down. Edited to add: Karis crossed out the numbers. Figured he shouldn't have taken Arwhin up on the offer of berry wine. Bother. Three steps to being bloody out of business. Made the case for a Lurcher or a Thug more urgent, and Karis figured they'd probably be alright rather than Spiked. Still, he never wanted to make sweeping claims this early. Just offer food for thought.

Karis scrawled down in his ledger. He winced internally, prayed to CLINK the goddess of coins for forgiveness, and then found a fresh page that wasn't full of transactions and accounts to add: Revir wasn't adding to those who were yelling accusations. Karis'd checked his cart all the same, just in case. The headless dead rat was still exactly where it was supposed to be. More importantly, so were his earnings. He wasn't minded to be too harsh on Revir for it. But Revir did bear watching. There was everyone else, of course, who'd blended in. The point wasn't to just yell any name, and see what Arwhin made of it, though for all Karis knew, Arwin enjoyed stabbing people for no particular reason and leaving the knife in. No, the way Karis saw it, the point was to bake all these ingredients into a DELECTABLE meat pie, and sell in CLINK's worship. (Though Karis, it must be said, was religious only in the way a businessman was.)

"Sirta," Karis said, darkly. "I know you. I am watching you. When those such as you turn to Darkness, you seek easy marks. You constantly move your accusations, waiting for someone to show up and speak, and that is sufficient for you. You do not care for Copper's Bend. You care only to look busy. You make accusations but they are the froth of whipped soup rather than the BEST PEA SOUP THIS SIDE OF THE SELLEN! What has Octopus said that is worthy of your retraction here? Nothing." He spat on the grass to the side. "I know a conman when I see one. I watch you, until someone ends me." There were rumours this was exactly how Sirta behaved when his heart knew Evil. Karis did not doubt them. Edited to add: Seriously. What had Sirta done? Octopus had accused Karis. Which Karis thought was plain unfair, speaking of which—"Three clips for the BEST MEAT PIES YOU'VE EVER HAD!" he cried out, and returned to the problem at hand. Minutes after Octopus had accused Karis, Sirta struck. Now, Karis could understand a genuine mistake. Somedays, he mistook meat pies for mince pies, which contained -99% less meat, even though some of his customers, Jahidi have mercy on their souls, seemed to prefer them. And yet: If Octopus had himself accused Karis, and was present, then what, for the love of Jahidi, were Sirta's accusations supposed to mean? There was no reasonable definition by which Octopus was keeping to the shadows. Karis suspected a ploy. Sirta's accusations seemed insincere, meant to keep up the pretence of business. The real question: was Sirta trying to distance from Octopus here? "GET YOUR MEAT PIES HERE! DELECTABLE MEAT PIES, SMOTHERED IN THE THICKEST PEA SOUP TO EVER GRACE YOUR PLATE!"

Something about Sirta's manner unsettled Karis. There were legends of something called the Contribution Crusade. Karis supposed it was how people dealt with the Deepness in other parts. Still, there was something to it. Perhaps he was being jumpy, but for all Sirta talked about acting swiftly and decisively, he also seemed to do so carelessly. He'd thought that was something you could tell, in another, particularly of Sirta's profile. A small tell. A small sign of guilt, if you willed. Was there genuine effort to find the Spiked? Or was Sirta simply looking for an easy mark? Karis knew all about easy marks. "GET YOUR MEAT PIES HERE, DELECTABLE MEAT PIES!" he called out again. Edited to add: To be sure, Violet was swift to counteraccuse Wendawa. It could be a sign of someone unused to the business of skulduggery, someone who'd failed to hold her nerve. Karis figured that wouldn't be uncharacteristic, if Violet were Spiked. Still, Violet could simply just be...raw. Another one he would keep an eye on. Spiked were bad for the business of meat pies. Too much murder ruined people's appetites.

"And you, sir, are hostile to an honest businessman seeking to make his way in the world!" Karis shot back. "MEAT PIES! ONLY THE BEST, MOST DELECTABLE MEAT PIES, DELICIOUS FRIENDS! PAY NO HEED TO THOSE WHO SLANDER THE JUICIEST, FLAKIEST MEAT PIES DROWNED IN A GENEROUS DOLLOP OF PEA SOUP! YOUR TICKET TO THE DAYS BEFORE THE DEEPNESS! MEAT PIES! GET YOURS TODAY, AND AT THESE PRICES? I'M CUTTING ME OWN THROAT!"

"MEAT PIES!" cried Karis. He'd set up the sign in front of his pie cart, figuring that the more the villagers of Copper's Bend argued, the more they might work up an appetite. Anyway, everyone was hungry these days, weren't they? "Get your delectable meat pies here, delicious friends!" "Meat, is it?" Visyes asked. Karis saw that gleam, and knew he'd hooked another one. "Why, of course!" Karis cried out. "Once tasted, never forgotten! The best meat pies you'll ever eat, and at these prices, I might as well cut me own throat!" "Meat pies! Meat pies swimming in pea soup to the point of mushiness! Only the best peas, half-starved but mostly alive, even in these dark days of the Deepness! Why, you might ask, how does an enterprising businessman manage this? Meat pie floaters! Get yours today! Dream of the times before the harvests started to fail, and don't ask too many questions about what's really inside!" "How much is one?" "Just THREE clips!" Karis announced. "Where else can you get genuine, juicy meat pies, at at least guaranteed 1% meat, in these starving times? And remember, it's simply the best peas, locally-sourced from the region!" He could see Visyes decide, slowly. Wheels turning in the blacksmith's head. Finally, Visyes handed the coins over. Karis ladeled out a large heaping spoonful of a knobby green substance, as thick as glue. Peas probably did not look this particular shade of grey-green. Then, unceremoniously, he dumped the meat pie in, face-down. It sank, and then bobbed about limply for a while, before relenquishing all hope and drowning. "Enjoy your delectable meat pie, friend!" Karis declared. "And remember, at these prices—" "This had better not make me sick again," Visyes grumbled. "Or I'm telling Arwhin about you." "Jaidhi herself would not find a single thing displeasing about these meat pies!" Karis protested. He glanced about at the gathered crowd, but noticed some of Copper's Bend hadn't yet seemed to rise with the dawn. Strange, that. Perhaps Sirta was pursuing unaccountable nocturnal activities like bloody murder?

Good luck!

Competing?

Probably expect less from me. May have injured/broken my dominant hand (not sure, seeing a doctor in a bit) and using the keyboard is a pain. Inshallah I'll be able to keep playing/stay out of blatant filter dodging, but...yikes.

Soddit sis let's be multitabling and busy bros Signing up as Kelk, please don't expect RP I've never read Dark One.

Mat sensing Stick's one weakness here and going in for the kill

Put me down as spec for now. Should have plenty of time to decide before this starts.