Kasimir

Keleran dropped the practice sword on the sand of the training yard. He was done here, he decided. He'd tried to take a break from considering suspects by working over the stances again and practising what he learned, but...but the whole thing was so storming stupid. The enemy wasn't someone he could fight. He wasn't going to outfight Phil Swift, and he wasn't going to fight Shay. Storms, the way Keleran thought about it, Galatar'd been absent for most of the events thus far, and he wouldn't give himself decent odds on beating Galatar in a fight either. Sure, there was all that storming Radiant philosophy crem but Keleran couldn't bring himself to believe it. Volition moved the Blade, the flesh followed—yeah right. All he felt was the burn of tired muscles repeating the same endless patterns of stances and strikes, hoping that repetition seared it into his body's memory. Ellu was playing with spheres. "Look!" she giggled. "Oh, my God," Keleran said, deadpan. "I was gambling with Iolea," Ellu said, eagerly. "She wanted to know a lot about you." "Please tell me you didn't tell her anything." "Of course I did!" Ellu said, indignantly. "Gambling is sacred, Keleran." Keleran wondered if it counted as oathbreaking to murder his spren. "It is, is it?" "It's the place where desires meet," Ellu proclaimed. "Greed, inspiration, desperation... Where people can turn a situation around because they're clever, or because they can't lose. It's like a miniature sculpture of people behaviour." She added, a beat later, "And I thought I'd see what Iolea was up to." "And?" "Fishing," Ellu said, thoughtfully. "So I played everything up. Gambling is sacred, but I'm not stupid." "Do you think Orotha is one of the traitors?" Ellu rolled her eyes. "Keleran," she said, indignantly, "I'm not going to do your work for you! Find the traitors yourself. It's character-building!" "They're going to kill people, you know," Keleran said, grimly. "I know," Ellu said. He stared at the practice sword in the dust. He felt the weight on his shoulders. The need to get this right. The need to be better. Be smarter. Be faster. To get back up on his feet again and to whack the stupid training dummy again, to be more because Keleran the surgeon's son just wasn't good enough. He just didn't have it. He wasn't going to stop anyone from killing more of his squad. Wasn't going to be any kind of hero. Was, in fact, probably going to bleed the rest of his life out at the end of a Shanay-Im spear, the way Callar kept warning him he would if he wasn't better. If he wasn't...anyone but Keleran. If he didn't stop screwing up. He just. Didn't. Have it. But that was it, wasn't it. He thought about it. About how hard he'd been working, just as hard as he had in his studies to take over as a surgeon one day. "Ellu," he said. "I'm a Stoneward, aren't I." "Dunno," said Ellu. "Maybe I'm a confused honorspren. You're pretty slow sometimes, aren't you, Kel?" Keleran rolled his own eyes. "Stonewards fight," he said. And that was the crux of it, the one stupid problem he kept coming back to, like a whitespine worrying at an old bone. The fact that he wasn't enough, for whatever was demanded of him. Hadn't been. Never was. Was still failing. "I told you," Ellu said, at last. "Fighting, Keleran..." her voice trailed off. "It's stupid. You keep thinking of fighting as the stupid thing you do with that murder pole that makes you so unhappy. And I keep telling you but trying to find the words you're ready to hear is..." she shrugged. "You can't make a play someone's not ready for." "Then what is fighting then?" Keleran snapped. But then it clicked, a heartbeat later. Fighting was... Fighting was all of it, wasn't it. Fighting was showing up despite being the worst Stoneward possibly ever recruited to join their ranks. Fighting was struggling with a stupid murder pole, knowing you would be needed, knowing you had to, because someone had to, and you were here, and you weren't going to say no when someone needed you. Fighting was clawing your way out of bed at an absurd hour before dawn despite the fog of exhaustion because you had to, because someone had to try, because if no one did their bit, the traitors would kill all of them. Fighting was looking at your inadequacies, your weaknesses, and saying they didn't matter, because the fact of the matter was, someone had to, and this needed to be done. And so you did it, no matter the cost. "It's all of this," Ellu said, waving a hand, vaguely. "It's..." "Just showing up," Keleran said. "No matter how hopeless. No matter how doomed. It's not giving up." His mouth firmed. "Because no one else will." These Words are accepted, rumbled the thunder. Ellu looked at him, and gave him a firm, tiny nod. Edited to add: If Archer is on the lam, there will be no tie, because Archer will absolutely vote manip it so Ash will die. Just saying. I don't think that's AI barring a specific situation, but it's the anticipated outcome. On the move this morning so I wanted to get the RP done on PC - analysis can be done on the go. TJ's arrival causing me to once again doubt my reads. Archer @Fifth Scholar - Did not mean to edit this in, but the forum merged my post. Going to make it in a separate one again later, regardless.

Keleran moved in Stonestance, scything the practice sword downwards. Arms straightened, knees bent to brace. Callar was always telling him he had to commit, to strike harder, more decisively. Fighting in Stonestance was about momentum; it was about knowing who you were, and what you wanted, and what you were here to do. The mind willed; the body followed, vanguarding the path of resolution. Keleran returned to the base stance, sword held out at an angle before him. He practised the cut again, feeling the resistance of the straw training dummy. Callar'd said he'd had to get used to the way cutting felt like. "Shardblades are different," Madilan'd added. "No resistance." "Less resistance," Callar'd corrected. Keleran hated the sword. He didn't know if he'd hate the Shardblade too. If he ever got there. Some of the others, like Aradon, had wielded the sword like extensions of themselves. Keleran glared at the practice sword, narrow-eyed. It was no extension, but a mere excrescence. He had to learn to fight, though. Had to learn the art and rhythm of war. He felt it, bone-deep. Someone had killed Aradon. Keleran didn't mean to be helpless, if he had to stand between his squad and the traitors within. He almost laughed at himself. Who was he to say that sort of thing? He was a surgeon's son. He hated the sight of blood. He flinched and stepped backwards, everytime he sparred with Shay. Couldn't overcome the reflex to shrink back from blows, not lean into them when defending. "When are you going to take a break?" Ellu yawned. "This is boring." "This matters," Keleran said, flatly. "Yeah? Shay could beat you with one arm tied behind her back, Kel. Phil could do it with his eyes closed." "That's why I have to do it," Keleran said. He had to get better. Nevermind that this wasn't a remotely reasonable timeframe. If he drilled hard enough, maybe some competence would stay with him. "I keep telling you, maybe you need to stop thinking of everything like a fight!" Stonestance. Commitment. The path of the Stoneward. "Maybe," Keleran said, softly. "But this is what must be, Ellu. We don't choose our fights. The traitors came here, and decided on more than defection. They decided on murder. Someone has to say no, here and no further." Ellu said, "Maybe. But maybe a fight is more than just that murder pole you use." "Murder pole?" Keleran hefted the practice sword, but couldn't hide his smile. "It looks like a pole and is meant to teach you to murder people. Isn't it basically what it says on top?" "Ellu..." he said. "Keleran, I'm tired of fighting," Ellu wrinkled her nose. He knew what she meant. They were supposed to be a team. They were just a really bad team. "Yeah," he said. "I am, too." Edited to add: -The title of this thread is one of the few cases with an outright spoiler title and I love it Kon II, i.e. irreales. -I am re-reading Devo with an eye to her past games but I don't feel my brain going anywhere useful right now so trying to tough the mindfog out doesn't feel positive. My current instinct is that since Devo's preferred CW is Mat, it's functionally which of them I find more credible.\ -Illwei isn't really helping here >> -Considering whether I should stop the overthinking and just go: fourth vote looks weird and possibly Evil, apply pressure. This wrt Raven but I'm not intending to consolidate. -Not a fan of TJ's lack of appearance. Feels like we ended up with a soft inactive because he's not showing up but just reset the clock. I struggle to believe E!TJ would play via filter-dodging, so I lean a bit V but regardless, it's just difficult to read the tea leaves and still deprives us of a Village-sided player. -yo @STINK what's yo beef with Ash. -Ash has felt very passive. I'm considering if this means I made the wrong call in <Ash, Devo.> -Probably a bit more cool with V!Wit after relooking C1 but he's just ??? to read. -I...my gut thinks JNV is V. I don't know what I have to say. -I believe Archer's C2 appears more V to me. Partial proactiveness a good look though worries of performativity. No idea wtf to make of his C1 I'm sorry. -I do not want to begin talking about Mat. -Aeo read not shifting substantively, don't feel urge to rethink that bracket.

Apparently the Shard now pings you if a post of yours is linked. It might be possible that Wit got pinged and felt the need to reply? IDK man should we scientific method this Edited to add: I might be a bit more quiet today/tonight - I'm just going to commit to getting a decent chunk of sleep before going back to look at the thread because I'm mildly concerned the tiredness is not helping my analysis >>

You called it openness and honesty, I wasn't really feeling it, but apparently being sleep-deprived and dead tired puts me in an agreeable mental state and lets me mind-meld with C1!you The implications are multiple and horrifying. Edited to add: No, actually I lied, we talked via the Elim doc.

If it's written well, read the front, the back, then everything in the middle to summarise it So, something came up in one of my PMs where someone was claiming something I'm going a bit nuts trying to find Just wanted to comment I saw this: I actually like this a little. It feels very natural and not, IMO, eager-to-please, like Wit doesn't really care about how he's read. I feel this is the point an Elim would've done the random guess thing but also offered the reads rather than have it further pursued. It's entirely possible that reading the cycle under conditions of sleep deprivation isn't healthy for me or read accuracy as well though >> Edited to add: Honestly I dunno how to feel about mind-melding with C1!Mat because I'm feeling his views more than I did yesterday. And then there's the extra layer of 'whaddya mean I need to be trippin' and I vibe with C1!Mat' >>

Hey @Archer how does it feel to be a gigantic walking target Aradon was killed. Murdered, really. No two ways about it. Valorous, for a Lightweaver, Keleran thought, and then was abruptly ashamed of himself for the thought. Maybe this was the problem, expecting Orders to be one way or the other. He hadn't really spoken to Aradon, though Aradon had tried. Radiants, making war on Radiants. The issue of the Singers had divided them all; most of the Orders remained with the Coalition, but there had been Gen-ku, the court-martialled Skybreaker who had remained loyal despite the defection of the Skybreakers. Their subjugation to the judgement of their leader, Keleran supposed. He couldn't find it in himself to feel—to feel anything other than a dark jealousy. Aradon wasn't here now, wasn't dealing with the situation that Callar'd apparently left them to muck around with. Keleran felt woefully inadequate to the task, his perceptions and judgements questionable. This felt like a task for a Skybreaker or a Lightweaver. Perhaps that was why both Gen-ku and Aradon had been removed early. "I liked Spark," said Ellu, solemnly. It was the first time in a long while he hadn't had to deal with her constant stream of lively chatter, and to his surprise, Keleran realised he felt like something was missing. "You did?" "Spark had fun illusions," Ellu replied. "Liked to pretend to be an honorspren and get them all riled up. Stuffy honorspren!" "Oh," Keleran said, faintly. Right, he'd forgotten Ellu was a menace. "And Spark owed me stones!" "Ellu," Keleran asked, carefully. "Are you gambling with every spren now?" Ellu stuck her tongue out. "You mean, am I gambling with every spren who knows how to have some fun? So basically anyone who isn't stuffy like Madilan, who yells at Callar everytime he gambles with me—" A menace, Keleran thought. But as Ellu kept up a stream of chatter, he felt a sense of...of rightness. This, at least, was still set to rights, even if Gen-ku's and Aradon's absences yawned like a missing tooth.

I have no idea? Have put in an ask to Fifth about it. I just got a lot of weird stuff about knots and knaves tbh, but have wondered if this means there's a conclave of Stonewards in this game or something because it's kind of a Lot and IDK what's going on. Freakin' New Guy. You make a new guy play, which you can only really do once, exaggerate your newness, ask questions in thread because obviously you would never ask it in thread if you had a doc. Just use it to coast under the radar because players misassess your threat/play level. QF64 had I think Insanity pull some version of this, maybe not deliberate, and Aman read her as V for being pure while Mat, Stick, Aman, Hael and myself did the circular shooting gallery thing and we were all Village. I am considering, and I think the reason why I hesitate is that some of Wit's questions don't seem very plausible to me, especially if he's specced one game and played the other QF. It feels a bit like he's exaggerating the amount of his confusion. I'm just instinctively wary when players play the new player card I guess. My team asked me to do that on my first SE game here so it's something I pay more attention to. Mark ran a very good FNG that pretty much no one noticed in AG2 until I think El noticed there was a discrepancy in some of his PMs. At the same time, ngl, kind of like Wit's comfort in thread earlier so what do I know. Going around in circles... Thank you - I was considering shifting to Raven to dilute pressure and see if we can force some preferences, but had limited computer availability today. You beat me to it so I'll stay on Devo for now. Not very comfortable with the thread state rn but also don't want it to become a LG96 thing. I don't disagree with it, but I'm not thinking about entailment relations here. I'm just thinking it's less likely for E!Raven to particularly do it in a V!Wit world. It's still possible they could have, but that's partly an E!range judgement call. E!Raven was in a decent position, and forcing an exe of Aman by stacking on at fourth vote's pretty risky/ballsy, even if it creates a false tie to Wit. That seems like a high level of unnecessary noise when Raven was avoiding scrutiny anyway - Mat V!read them, and I think I was the main person being hmm about them. The other issue for me is that Raven's and Wit's attitudes about each other seem to be perfectly symmetrical, which is...odd. (There is IMO a bit of a Raven thing there where I wonder if it's an E!slip.) Hey, I'm on holiday. I've switched my brain off, this is supposed to be my chill, RPful game. Absolutely zero anon messages? Weird. Did I get some from you, I wonder. More general question for everyone: What do we want our attitude to the exe to be today? Can we decide our second exe policy without last minute scrambling, please? @|TJ| Hi bhai. If you're Village, please don't pull an Orlok. We need you here and now more than we need you catching up on the nine pages and never showing up.

Hey sorry have been trying badly to sleep but had weird thought: Has anyone received a drektonne of weird anon messages like a whole explosion of them or is it just me.

I did expect it, yeah, as did Araris, which is why he hoovered me to try to get his Ideal. My not getting actually hit was a surprise to me. Yeah, fair. Basically this game does have a penalty, which is that if you pick wrong, your target now swears an Ideal so failing to kill matters more. I think she's the better fit here. I do think the stability of her vote does also suggest low investment or a clarity that I think basically both of us were lacking in the grand hopping spree, which doesn't seem quite right to me either. I think Devo's main alternative team at this juncture is E!Mat/E!Raven/E!Wit as articulated with Mat and Archer interchangeable but I V!read Mat more so that's not helpful to me. I will say Devo's legendary for only being caught via mech as the last Elim standing as she's more often than not very, very difficult to read. Nope, but I'd rather not focus an exe on him as I don't think he's as good a shot as some other Elim candidates. I am willing to see a V!Wit world even if I question whether he is playing FNG. In a V!Wit world, granted he's lolrandom enough I have concerns, but I absolutely refuse to exe or get a RB a V!player just in case they use abilities in a way that harms the Village, so if he's Village, that's good enough for me. I mean I don't really believe E!you at this point but. I expect a powerpoint in that world! At least a powerpoint!

Theoretically: Aeoryi or Archer (assuming they're V.) If being screwy since my penchant for noise/control kills is known, probably quietly apologise and murder Raven (also if V.) Maybe just shrug and go for Experience to deny the PH. Araris hard no for obvious reasons, you might remember from our E game that Fifth and I sort violated that a bit because practically everyone that game was new or returning so we cried inside and just murdered a returning player early IIRC. What sort of vibes my dude Which order would you go in terms of likelihood? And are you feeling E!Mat on the basis of the rest of his behaviour? It doesn't. But it's the same argument about players metascrewing. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. Some metas are more robustly supported, some are not. Sometimes kill MO gets obscured by another teammate, sometimes it does not. As your second sentence notes, possibility doesn't entail plausibility. A Villager's job is not to ascertain what is possible, but to ascertain what is plausible because if you deal in possibilities, Elims will drown you in them until you paranoia lynch to death because you aren't able to order what's likely and what shouldn't be touched until strictly necessary. She got pretty embroiled in the tie/second exe discussion, having instigated it.

We're looking for how players decide NKs specifically and how they think when selecting targets Like, the E!meta discussion is helpful and I appreciate it but it's a bit orthogonal to what Ash and I were going for here which is just to figure out if this fits anyone's known kill pattern Cheers, I'll check it out when I get up!

I guess I'll put it this way: Devo's not a control Elim. But yeah, the refs you asked for. Just please don't talk about MR59 to me too much, I really hate my E!games and try to scrub them from memory because they're usual godawful experiences since RL likes to curse me during E!games. I think there's also the option of taking a look at LG73 (I think it's Sart's Rithmatist one, something Nebrask.) We're not talking about E!JNV's meta here. We're talking about kill MO. That's different. Yeah but again, we're talking about kill MO here, not general play... I mean, Raven did sheep Archer though, no? They said they agreed with Archer's Exp argument, so went with Aman.

@Matrim's Dice for the record, if you are Evil, which I don't believe at the moment, and you C1ed Araris, I expect a powerpoint slide in the Elim doc on why Araris absolutely had to die C1, thank you Hmm, fair for Mat I think, given some of their interactions. Of course, NKA is the thing where you don't look at the reads since this is just kill likelihoods/MOs first I guess. What's the E!JNV you remember?

Disagree with this assessment. It's a very unusual kill. He usually doesn't get C1ed because he looks suspicious enough to be MLed. It's definitely partially the case that at least three players were giving him vocal V!reads, but even then, it's still a capital C choice in a field of noisier kills, which means it's functionally more likely to be a low info kill. Noise kills aren't really the norm anyway, and they're typically a bit more telling of certain players, e.g. Mat, Archer, or myself. Define secluded? I'm gonna hate this, but off the top of my head, MR59, which includes a side of E!me and E!Archer. If you read AG7, she was Swan there and also Evil but there's a Lot of AG7 content so maybe better not to. Probably Araris's game - LG80 I think? LG74 if you already read it, she was Evil there too. QF66 is the recent short one where she was Evil. MR60 as well.

Why the Devo underline? I would say I think the Devo kill MO connection is stronger, yeah. I do recall two games in which E!JNV's team ganked Araris early but do not believe JNV actively made that call (unsure), and in both of those, you GMed, so yeah that condition ain't working so hot here My take for the Devo perspective I guess (which I admit could be wrong) comes from our team deciding who to kill in MR59, possibly with a side of having read some of Devo's docs around the time of LG91. She goes quiet for kills where possible, and doesn't like to kill newer or returning players too early. In this game, that nixes a lot of the population and conveniently ends us with the Araris region, since Archer's too noisy for that. Well, that you didn't say in LG96 I assume the Mat and the Wit is on the assumption it's a silencing kill? Hmmm. @Archer? Care to spell that out a bit more? At least tonally he's less kayana this cycle, I'll give him that. It definitely did grow very fast, yes. Do you believe an Aman CW was opportunistic or a fear push? And which do you believe is the most probable Elim in that set?

I'm actually referring to JNV's side vote on Archer. Though I'm once again potentially coming around to V!JNV so I really DK Well, for one, I think the cut off is probably half an hour to the last twenty minutes, which was really when the VCs became unstable. Before that, it was still shifting and so worth looking at. And either way, you can probably capture some version of what the player was working with, e.g. it was pretty useful in showing V!Devo in LG90, and in this case, it was pretty clear I was working with the 4/4 version of the EoD VC. Where I think it's more helpful is basically just that I'd rather not domino and blindly flip Wit if I don't have to, and I think that the vote differences do matter in an E!Wit world with regard to Elim tolerance and where his teammates are likely hiding. (I do have a V!Wit world sketch, but that mostly boils down to 'really last minute, Elims dgaf'.) Like is there a case in theory for just flipping Wit and confirming? Sort of because it implies which world we're dealing with. But if vote movement analysis can give us a probable answer, maybe it's good to take it. Again my 2022 takeaway from Aman about not needing to necessarily flip every CW if there is some way of getting a read or a likely bead on where the Elims are in the cluster. Oh, for sure, but then you may as well run NKA to find the third Elim who called the shot, because Araris is a pretty distinctive choice. I was actually referring to JNV camping on Archer - JNV stated a positive read of Aman, camped on Archer, was present for EoD. My take is that JNV not voting defensively or looking in feels a bit odd here because if you have a positive read of Aman and the Archer train isn't going anywhere, why not intervene in this exe? Especially after having done that really long page by page analysis? Edited to add: I responded twice I'm sorry I'm tired

Sure, next time y'all want to exe someone at the last hour, maybe ask me if I know their role first, that way it'll get through the "oh crap how do I stop this disaster" panic (mildly sarcastic joke) My main takeaway from this: checks out, would like to hear Ash's issue, but that's an Ash problem, I currently really want Devo dead (for clarity since that was a longpost and to save Fifth's sanity) so that probably works.

Araris scared them off as he lurks in the thread and judges all of us for letting him die

Thought Aman mentioned he saw you on. Cheers for the correction. Edited to add: Been informed y'all apparently get notifs now for each linked post. My condolences

I've had longer ones.

Sorry, new post. Doublepost is weird but the previous one is so long and unwieldy. I'll try to keep this short, as a new consideration just popped into my head. Trying to work through a view of Wit CW. I want to take a slightly different angle, about the likelihood of train purity, and just look at the voting. Well, that and one more volatility look. I've been going back and forth about Wit, but let's look at the last couple of vote changes: 1. Aeo votes Wit to save Aman - 12 minutes to rollover, or 0948hrs. 2. Ash votes Wit - 11 minutes to rollover, or 0949hrs. This puts Wit in the lead, or among the lead trains, for the next 11 minutes or so. If V!Archer, then the Elims must be assuming Archer would have Soothed someone on Wit, otherwise that's reckless endangerment for no apparent reason, especially given that: A. Devo's and Ash's votes remain stable (counterpoint: they couldn't go anywhere else, and/or Ash was considering whether to withdraw) B. They were hoping Mat would go back on Aman Slight decrease in likelihood that Ash and Wit are teamed: at 0949hrs as well, Wit makes a post about clearing his name. IMO, clear scenario for Ash and Wit to interact, potentially distance, or give Ash a reason to go off Wit. This doesn't happen. Between Devo and Ash, consider Devo more likely potential partner - E!Devo is known to believe moving off would be more sus. 3. Mat votes JNV - 9 minutes to rollover, or 0951hrs. This locks Mat on JNV as a potential source of intervention on Aman. Ash is still comfortable with the Wit vote, as apparently is Devo. 4. Aman self-votes - 5 minutes to rollover, or 0955hrs. This creates a tie, arguably preventing the need for intervention. Though Elims may have suspected/known about Archer's Soothe, depending on your Archer read. 5. Aman moves off onto Raven - 2 minutes to rollover, or 0958hrs. Wit once more in the lead, if not a tie due to vote manip. If E!Ash, keep in mind Ash is writing extensive RP, which suggests a certain degree of comfort with Wit's fate. I'd estimate this would've burned up at least three minutes for Ash, suggesting it was written somewhere between 4. and 5. 6. I belatedly swap from Wit to Aman, almost at the same time - 2 minutes to rollover, 0958hrs. 7. Aman seals the train - 1 minute to rollover, 0959hrs. Thoughts/Theorising: -I'm definitely very risk-averse as an Elim, but it seems to me that in an E!Wit, E!Devo, and E!Ash world, they're extremely cold-blooded about the risk to Wit given high Villager volatility, with Ash even writing RP. Ash I feel in particular was in a decent position to vote Archer if fishing for a CW but declined. This nudges me a bit towards considering V!Wit but not significantly so. -Devo in particular is more likely to feel she shouldn't move if it is more sus to. -Wit's alignment has soft implications for Devo and Ash, with Devo being somewhat more likely than Ash. -Archer being on that team makes it a tad more palatable but uncertain of Devo/Archer/Wit likelihood. -Raven another potential Wit teammate. Ah soddit. Pathwalk I guess. (i) V!Wit: Ex-hypothesi, V!Wit. Marked as such. -Some implications of V!Raven: weird for E!Raven to make the move from Mat to Aman. Guess E!Raven could be a sheeper, but not tactical imperative. -Either Aman train pure; if not pure, Archer more likely Elim on it. (Recall Archer and Raven unlikely teamed.) -JNV's sidetrain vote radiates pure E!dgaf energy, given stated investment in Aman. -Devo's and Ash's disregard for Wit's welfare put them in the likely E!pool: <JNV, Devo, Ash> the pool, with a side of STINK. Hard to make a TJ evaluation given TJ's absence until now. [Edited to add: side of STINK and maybe Archer.] (ii) E!Wit: Ex-hypothesi, E!Wit. Marked as such. -Raven looks more E on this picture, hopping onto Aman to protect Wit. Worth noting there is a two way connection between Raven and Wit - Raven indicates trust of Wit, and Wit favours voting Aman over Raven, which is a tacit shielding preference. -Do not believe it is as likely that both <Devo, Ash> are Evil - at most one is, I think. (Also numerically, can see 2-3 Elims.) More likely Devo than Ash. -JNV's refusal to CW in this world makes it hard to imagine a teaming, but could theoretically see E!JNV refuse to CW on Aman. -STINK's refusal looks a bit good I think. -Main E!pool is: <JNV, Devo/Ash, Raven>. I guess there's a theoretical Archer side but all three teammates or two on Aman is a bit rough here. Edited to add: Current takeaways - I think Devo and JNV look sus in either world, so worth pushing. I can't say I am completely objective in assessing JNV but I sort of feel it's a better fit for Devo's kill MO than JNV's, which is the main concern pushing me here. Thread behaviour-wise, I think JNV looks worse. I am trying to bracket my knowledge of JNV's E!meta as if JNV is Evil, I'll be forcing them to go inactive to prove they are V, which feels rough to do to a player. Raven mostly looks E in an E!Wit world. Two way between Raven and Wit is interesting if they are E/V, so maybe V/V or E/E worlds more likely. Edited to add 2: @Fifth Scholar: Dein Titel führt hier zu extremen Herzschmerzen, wenn man den Konjunktiv II liest

Fair. I think one reason I overlooked it was - it's role madness, and so many roles are pretty cracked. But yeah, mostly just short of mental bandwidth in the middle of all the chaos, and kind of figured Aman would handle it. Probably could take his refusal to claim and preference for death as a V!sign, but it's easier to think when not under time pressure to make a judgement call and to get an exe placement/CW (for secondary) everyone can live with, ignoring negative modifiers like insomnia-caused sleep deprivation. I think no one really expected (I certainly didn't) - even despite the earlier wrangling - just how relevant the secondary exe placing discussion would suddenly become, e.g. CWing on Wit wasn't okay because Aman having an Ideal wasn't okay either. I ask myself that too >> Going to do some preliminary analysis as best as I can. I don't have the time to do the entire thread as I have things due, so I'm going to take Aman's arrival and the first ever VC (!) as a starting point. I think this is fair as things only degenerated into chaos beyond that juncture. I'm sort of going to do this a bit backwards as I'm just dumping raw analysis in the thread instead of my GM PM, so I might make some mistakes as I go along, and then correct them towards the end. Overall Impressions: -Chaotic EoD. General feeling is that unless E!Wit, Elims probably were loathe to significantly touch the EoD, due to high volatility and low investment. Players who were present but generally stable are likely to be E!candidates. Potential for E!players to have stacked an extra opportunistic vote on E!Wit and then lingered to see if they needed to defend Wit. -Intuition that EoD may actually favour V!Wit, if only because of impression of low E!investment, so I'm going to need to re-examine my vote, or the possibilities - I was hopping around, I V!read Aeo for now, and I think I am alright with V!Mat at this juncture. Mat's response to Aman wasn't the best, but neither was mine, and I actually feel better when I see Mat paranoia, especially on Aman, so I think I am cool with this working thought. Some of this will depend on train sizes, e.g. Elims could still be present in an E!Wit world, if train was sufficiently well-established on Aman. -Major 'Not Touching This' energy from Archer and Devo, potentially STINK and Ash, with a side of Mat. Mat's reluctance here feels a bit more NAI given he's had it both as Village and Evil, and I generally like his eh about Aman as I feel V!Mat tends to be more willing to push Aman. Araris fits here as well but Araris flipped Village, so not interested. -Special mention to Wit's talk about clearing himself on C1 - possible new player eccentricities but in general I don't like that language and consider it a linguistic slip that's more likely from an Elim perspective. (cf. LG96, TJ.) Right. Let's go to the VC and start from there. 1. Aman asks for a VC, and inaugurates a case on Archer. I don't fully like it, because some of it seems Archer NAI stuff, but I've also been sus of Archer so I'm willing to be talked into a vote given a case I can run with, and that's the tenor of our discussions in PM and in thread. Just FYI: I use green to mark my credences. I don't really feel I have another credence to mark here. I sort of lean V on JNV so I'd be happy to mark them, but I'm ok leaving them unmarked as well for now. I think this matters here for me especially because based off my credences, there's very high Village voting activity but very little sign of Elim voting activity, suggesting either that the Elims are busy at this juncture or just complacent (no Elim under threat.) I think there's Elim incentive to vote as well in this game, but it also points to a lack of need to engage, which suggests, potentially, no Elim seriously under threat at this juncture. Which is reasonable, given it's a string of one-vote trains at present. 2. Ash responds to Archer and Aman. Aman isn't really sussing Ash, Ash just emerges there. I feel this is a fair question from Ash towards Archer, given how early it was in the cycle to be an inactivity vote. 3. Raven votes Mat, and has Aeoryi as an Elim suspect. Trying to work out what to think about this perspective, given I'm pushing Raven at this juncture. 'No u' is a response from some newer Elims but I don't have a good sense of where Raven might go as I lack a decent baseline. This alters our vote landscape as follows: 4. Araris shifts to voting for Mat. Side-note that a Stick/JNV/Turtle team N1ed Araris before when Araris looked pretty Village. Shadow/Illwei/Archer/JNV also made a fairly early (N2 I believe? - Ash's LG84) Araris shot. Considering the possibility of an E!JNV world? Araris shot could be E!Devo kill meta as well, as Devo takes kill restrictions seriously, see: avoiding hitting the newer players, Ash was returning, and technically I was returning after a break, which narrows down the kill field. She also favours quiet early kills. @Ashbringer - you're my NKA guy. Thoughts? Araris shifts the votes to: Either a V/E landscape (ties it, meaning Elims dgaf), or V/V landscape (double Elim dgaf.) 5. Raven admits to voting Mat on gut, and disliking the number of questions Aeo asked. I kind of want to ask Raven if they assumed Aeo was powerwolfing but kind of recall asking Raven this at a later juncture, so let's move on first. I'll note I don't think the Raven vote is necessarily itself an issue: V!Raven also has a voting incentive here. However, it's also possible E!Raven was trying for a CW candidate, though I don't know if I'd give it much credence - I had moved off Mat, Archer had claimed to V!read Mat so in an E/E world, was not going to self-pres on Mat, and Mat just doesn't feel like a CW candidate here. Unsure. I talk about being tempted to boomerang back to Mat, but that's chronologically after Raven's vote so it's unlikely an issue. Aeo also is not a really great CW candidate given general unwillingness to go on Aeo. Raven and Archer unlikely teamed. (I guess it's possible Raven didn't think through the CW issues, but this requires a grasp of Raven's E!range which I don't have.) 6. Aeo votes Archer. I think it's worth noting pre-emptorily at this juncture that Aeo basically wagonhops a lot. There's a world in which this is E!Aeo flexing, and Aman definitely urged me to consider E!Aeo worlds (which only fueled my suspicions he was trying to FUD me), but in general, my view is that it's a layer of the paranoia kueh lapis I don't want to unnecessarily open unless I have reasons to go there, and going there C1/C2 isn't where I want to be. Sort of the Mat quote I concurred with. I'll also add I think Aeo's wagonhopping, especially without any apparently pressing reason to, feels more like a Villager trying to get things right. This takes Ash out of contention. 7. Aeo isn't sure how to feel about Raven, and feels something is off about Archer. Join the club, Aeo... >> 8. Archer makes a roleclaim with about under three hours to rollover. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It felt way more insane when I had forgotten about Aeo's shifted vote, but leading at three votes, it still feels insane, just less so. In any other player, I'd ask if this was Elim hypersensitivity. With Archer, I think it's still possible, as it radiated some FAFO energy and led to Archer bulldozing a push on Aman which I feel is more typical of E!Archer. Aman was a returning player too, but apparently a consideration that doesn't matter here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In fact this whole damn game is full of 'em, if you include anyone who was on a break, including myself, Ash, Aman, and TJ, which just brings me back to the Devo suspicions, but also the feeling that Archer's CW here doesn't stack up. 9. Aman votes Mat and wants Archer to prove his role / that he isn't killing. I'm not bothering to log this voteshift as it lasted a very short exchange. 10. Archer declines to. In theory this could be treated as a V!Archer sign, but I also feel E!Archer prefers to brazen things out - V!Archer is big about accountability or understanding where suspicions of him come from. (Thinking of LG96 here as it's my more recent v!Archer touchstone. We'll ignore the bit where Wonko and I went into a massive paranoia rampage for a while since I insist I pulled back off Archer in time to slam the vote on Steel.) Archer expresses an Ash/Devo preference at that point, but in a tie, which is meh because again, no flip. Expresses a V!Mat read and fishes for an Aman train. Noting that Archer neglects to point out that the Elim kill doesn't expend an action. Feels like the obvious oversight here. At the same time, IDK, would E!Archer take the bait? Maybe, but doubtful, since someone was going to point it out pretty fast. 11. Aman revotes Archer, since I correct him. Not putting down the vote shift either since it's a net change of zero. 12. Aman shifts to Mat. I'll add here that Aman's views on Archer aren't stable, as he goes back and forth on V!Archer or E!Archer in our PM. Join the club bro... Mat is now lead train. 13. Mat makes a post about how he keeps getting wagoned, Aman's turnaround is weird (wigging Mat out), and he doesn't want to vote Archer. Actually yeah I think this post is very V!Mat. There's something I think E!Mat has a tendency to say here but I kind of also do not want to say this to the thread so the tell can be used for longer than a couple games >> 14. Aeo follows onto Mat. Dissolution of Archer train and sudden Mat pile-on. 15. Aman doesn't feel great about this, and joins me on Raven. New top trains: Raven/Mat. 16. Archer offers Mat an Aman train. Mat takes it. Side-comment I don't feel this is an E!Mat move YES OKAY I GET IT KAS NOW YOU THINK V!MAT but seriously, CWing on Aman is a Choice for E!Mat and one I'm not necessarily sure he goes for now watch E!Mat prove me wrong but look ok I am still on the V!Mat programme and that's just going to be how it is. Theoretically wondering if it's protective of Raven, but I also feel ? about a Raven/Archer connection as Raven's mentioned CWs don't feel like they can really take off to protect Archer and I'd almost expect E!Raven to be more opportunistic in voting back there. 17. Sorry actual thing, Mat taking the train here. Three way voy! 18. Aeo votes Aman. Suddenly the Aman wagon leads. 19. Aeo votes Raven. Raven in lead now. Oh my God there's more pages to go aren't there ._. 20. Wit shows up to vote. Trying to recall where this is with Wit parameters but. Wit picking between Raven or Aman does indicate Wit is going for lead trains, but declines Mat. E/E Wit-Mat? >> Raven and Aman are tied. I think this could be taken to be protective of Raven, so there's an E/E Raven/Wit world as well. Maybe. That team feels like it needs a third leg but we can get to that later. 21. JNV is extremely invested. I don't know if this is normal from V!JNV. I'd say this is watch territory. 22. Aman considers Wit for opportunistic voting. Aman still in lead. 23. Aeo does some reading and unvotes Raven. Again, extreme flexing if E!Aeo IMO. Unlikely. Feels like Villager trying to get things right. 24. This is the Mat quote. I think it's worth pointing out also that Mat has doubts about the train but it matters in light of Mat refusing to accept Aman being in second place. I would argue that it shows, under pressure, some sincerity about his reads. Which game btw? 25. Araris is in RP zen heaven. 26. Aman posts a vc. But I think it's wrong and doesn't match what I have. Referenced here, but not posted in order to avoid confusing people. 27. I go over the entire circle all over again and vote Wit at my wits' end. 28. Aeo goes back to Aman after flipping a coin. 29. Devo votes Wit. Interested if this is a suspicion, a desire to save Archer, or a desire to promote Wit. @Devotary of Spontaneity Wit overtakes Mat. Devo/Mat not teamed? 30. I am tempted to vote Mat to try to keep Wit off the secondary promotion. Aman train doesn't look too fightable at this juncture, so I've been looking at Wit's position and discovering I don't like it. 31. Mat unvotes Aman. This gives us a tie, which Aman was militantly against in our PM, as he felt it would just lead to people repeating C1 on him. 32. Aman swaps to voting for me for promotion reasons and lets Mat know he can vote him. 33. Mat indicates preferring himself or Archer for the Ideal. 34. Aeo suggests Wit as primary train and Aman as secondary. 35. Ash steps in in the middle of a heated argument to reply to Archer. Awkward. @Ashbringer, could you expound on this a bit more, please? 36. Raven shifts from Mat to Aman, saying previous reason for Mat vote was unfounded. Raven also makes a push for Aman and trusts Wit more (?) @Ravenclawjedi42 - Why do you trust Wit? State of the votes: Aman is leading. While Raven believes vote against Mat is unfounded, favours Wit for secondary vote. I don't feel there's a clear incentive because Aman is leading, unless there were fears of a boomerang back to Wit or to Aman, which could explain Raven's intervention. Potential E/E between Raven and Wit? Raven's move has two effects: it puts Aman firmly in the lead, and locks down Wit in second place. (Raven may not necessarily know this, but this is what happens later on in terms of vote movements.) 37. Aeo votes Wit to try to block the Aman train. Is fine with Mat having an Ideal. This has the effect of tying the trains, resulting in a no exe. 38. Exactly a minute later, Ash votes Wit. It's worth noting Ash may not have seen Aeo's shift, meaning Ash might have been working with: While this is arguably a CW to Aman, it also locks Wit in second place. The actual effect though, is that it puts Wit in the lead: These are two very different scenarios, as Ash is willing to endanger Wit in the second, suggesting Wit and Ash not E/E. In the first, Wit and Ash E/E is possible, given Ash continues to be present and could react to votes that push Wit further. 39. Wit asks about how he's expected to clear his name in the first round. Possibly a new player thing, but Wit claims to play mafia IRL. One way or another, noting the potential linguistic slip: Elims think in terms of definites, Villagers are more likely to accept fog-of-war. TJ made a similar slip about insisting he can't prove himself Village, cf. LG96 when he was scanned by Archer. 40. Aeo belatedly realises there is a tie, types, missed Ash's vote, realises that she can still vote Wit. Net zero, not reflecting. Raven/Aeo/Ash not teamed, I think. More so for Aeo and Ash due to the chaos. 41. I get Lion-Dragonfly-Vulture dance PTSD. Also declining promotion for reasons. 42. Mat was going to vote Aman again and ends up being ??? and votes JNV. Possible side of E!Mat refusing the bad train, but unclear. Think the rest is amply V!Mat, but hey this is raw notes. 43. Mat balks at the idea Aman might get the Ideal. Fair IMO and indicates consistency under pressure/chaos. V points for it. 44. Aman doesn't want it and would rather die, and CREATES A MCFREAKIN' TIE Aman bro Ilu but this caused me so much stress and consternation 45. Aman unvotes to Raven. Ah feck you mean I could have saved Aman???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 46. Archer Does Not Want To Touch This. Unclear what Archer's view of the trains is at this juncture. 47. Was written through a few posts and I think I missed the Raven shift because in my head it was an Aman/Wit tie that no one was budging over, FML >> I now no longer get to @ Wyrm because I became a brokiller as well Noting STINK was likely okay with Wit in the lead. Hi, it me, I inadvertently ensured the two outcomes I didn't want: Aman C1ed, and Wit Idealed. Can we please do train negotiations before the eleventh hour next time kthxbai. 48. Aman goes back to Aman 49. Ash still RPing. And that's about it. Takeaways: -IMO decent reasons to endorse V!Mat and V!Aeo. -Devo, Archer, and Ash lurking at EoD with reasonably stable votes. Unsure if Raven had presence as well, similar to Wit. -Aeo/Ash not E/E. -JNV comfortable with Archer vote. JNV was present, but checked out. Feels a bit ??? in light of JNV's stated preferences wrt Aman. Willing to reconsider JNV potentially. -Raven's vote feels defensive of Wit. Potential Raven/Wit E/E - Raven's hop doesn't feel quite right in an E!Raven / V!Wit world as Raven has low investment and also can get @ for sheeping. IMO this means E!Raven entails E!Wit (E!Wit could still be possible in a V!Raven world, I think.) -Ash/Wit E/E less likely but Ash has decent risk tolerance, and was around enough to unvote Wit if necessary. This would ensure Wit in third place. -Similar ? about Devo. -In V!Wit / V!Aman world, STINK's dgaf energy feels weirder. -Given STINK's PM with Aman, STINK's indifference to this exe is also ? Personal Thoughts/Places to Go From Here: Formal pool for me at the moment: <Archer, Ash, JNV, Devo, Raven, Wit, STINK> -STINK's dgaf energy is/was potent,but at the same time, declined to try collecting RP or vote points. Noted about Aman's mention of Elim playstyles, and STINK had no investment in the exe. -Raven's push onto Aman has little strategic reason if Wit isn't also Evil. It's possible it's just how E!Raven plays, and sheeping is well within Raven's range, I think, but this probably means I'd be more inclined to push E!Wit as a hypothesis over E!Raven at this juncture. -Still not a fan of Archer's FAFO counterpush. Archer lurking at EoD indicates low investment but ok with Aman getting an Ideal. Possibly consistent with view on second exe from earlier. (Side-note: E!Archer may not be a fan of shooting me, unclear if he'd go Araris since Mat is an option for him.) -Devo feels like an underlooked suspect: part of the series of movements that locks Wit into second place, and lurking with low investment. Cleared all RP and voting incentives. Araris kill fits squarely within Devo's kill MO. (Side-note: Don't feel Wit and Raven would regard an Araris kill to be as intuitive.) -JNV also feels underlooked, having remained on Archer despite being online and V!reading Aman, checked out of things. Believe the Araris kill is within JNV's kill MO. JNV was online enough to put in all RP incentives but not engaged with the voting despite doing a cycle catch-up. #FeelsBad to suspect JNV because of known engagement E!meta, but think it's something worth monitoring. Possible I am too hesitant to push JNV. -Ash filling out RP entails lurking, which meant Ash could acceptably endanger Wit to try to get the Ideal. A lot hinges on whether Ash saw Aeo's vote or not. Aeo did not see Ash's so either scenario is plausible. -Not a fan of Wit's talk of clearing himself C1. Agree it could be a new player thing, but feel it's something I like to apply pressure to. Feel that Wit's alignment here does partially reflect on the vote movements, so pushing Wit might be worthwile (e.g. possible that E!Devo opportunistically preferred V!Wit get the Ideal as compared to V!Mat.) -Do not feel an Araris kill really makes sense in an E!Raven or E!Wit team but I could just not have enough info to guess. Alright. Did my best at a first go over, I now have to do some work and decompress.

@Matrim's Dice I'm interested in why you say that was relevant though - I was focusing on how strongly I felt Aman was V (is it enough for me to be content with forcing a no-exe, especially given Aman's feelings/projections about the likely outcomes?) and also trying to talk Aman off the seppuku while also acknowledging he wasn't wrong to...in that I think we all know Aman's playhistory makes him sensitive to how people have a higher threshold for belief with regard to him. And I was also asking myself whether I was just doing the same thing again by questioning Aman at that point. I'd think you'd be especially sympathetic to that given you yourself were wondering why you kept getting wagoned and why people just interpret whatever you say about it as more reason for E!Mat. To me, E!Skybreaker was definitely possible, without full sight of the distro. The Skybreaker/role part was less important to me than the V/not-V part.

Ngl dude, I was jumping between PMs trying to talk Aman off committing in-game seppuku and also dealing with the thread on half an hour's sleep, maybe a bit more. It legit did not come to mind, and Aman's ultimatum was more or less "I don't want a repeat of the cycle by going into the next exe as the main wagon as I don't believe anyone will re-eval on me and I'd rather self-vote than lose my abilities." I think I just kind of assumed Aman would claim if he wanted to, as I default don't like outing players, but really I just wasn't thinking as I was trying to work out what the best way forward was that preferably kept Aman alive as I never wanted him C1ed. Edited to add: Spelt phoenetically in Greek. Edited to add 2: Sorry not phoenetics. Meant the letters are spelt out, e.g. the first letter is Psi, and so on.

Analysis after actual nap. For the moment, Wit You're welcome, ilu too Get in here!