|
Post by Peter Pettigrew on May 13, 2022 3:58:08 GMT 10
Merge time! You're officially Shippable! ![:dance](https://i.imgur.com/T8uX0Lu.gif) We know that tonight was (possibly) a bit of an information overload, and that you have new Side Buddies to exchange missives with. But if you do get the chance to share your thoughts, we'd love to hear them! And who knows? Writing them out may even help you to make sense of everything... We have a lot of questions, but there's a lot of weekend ahead. Make sure to give yourself a break too! 1. How does it feel to make the Merge!? How would you sum up the week you've just endured, and how excited/proud/concerned are you to about what comes next? 2. How goes your reunion with Diggle? What does it mean to have a PBvO partner make the Merge with you, and a Mutual ID Reveal potentially on the horizon? 3. Which players are you reuniting with from your original Side? Where do you think these prior relationships stand? Can you pick up right from where you left off, or have the intervening days affected any trust you'd built up? 4. Who are you meeting for the first time? Do you have first impressions to share, or do you already know enough about everyone thanks to the Swap, the Switch and the Owl Post? 5. Talk us through that last vote. Were you expecting it to be unanimous, and were you expecting a Switch? How has it changed the landscape for you in the Merge Side? 6. What are your initial thoughts about Paired Immunity? How do you think it will impact the rounds to come, having two people Immune at each Vote? 7. How do you think this Merge Side will shape together as you approach the Vote on Sunday? Which groups do you think will be working together? What would you like to see happen, and is it different from what you expect to see happen?
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 13, 2022 5:40:29 GMT 10
Quoting the questions from episode 8 here so I can get to both them and 9 over the weekend as much as possible. I owe 12 answers, which might mean some of the questions wind up extreem
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 13, 2022 5:43:29 GMT 10
Oh, looks like I accidentally a word there. Should be "extremely short"
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 13, 2022 5:58:58 GMT 10
Mostly fine, and not much? The big thing was convincing Lily/Barty/Wood to not take a shot at HK there, because I am not convinced he dies if we do. He's the last person who would have known Kingsley was dying AND has links to the other side. So if he organized one swap, he could organize another, and I do not want to deal with him angry at me.
Split vote on HK/Igor, with the assumption that if both are immune thanks to a challenge win + idol, I'm likely their lowest priority to kill because Barty's better connected, Wood's partners with Lucius, and Lily's the standout strongest socially on the team.
1) Lily - Lily is an easy favourite and I think if we'd started together we'd be unbreakable, allies wise. Something about her just 'clicks' with me. 2) Wood - Wood's a solid bloke. A bit rougher around the edges, occasionally saying things that I kind of just disagree with? I didn't love his reaction to me suggesting it would be nice if we had a unifying threat to vote for at merge. Fair that it's a bit of a weak idea but saying it's a "Red Flag", like he suddenly thinks I'll jump ship because I shared an offbeat idea? Not great. But otherwise he's a good guy. 3) Kingsley - I don't hate Kingsley, but he's a bit dull, to be sure. I feel bad for him; while the Owl Post and PBvO twists have done a really good job of making interpersonal relationships more complicated while being simple enough to understand, they do have the unfortunate effect of having swaps like the Prophet side: In a typical game this should have been Kingsley's chance to come back from behind. Maybe he could have? But Lily-Barty being tight made that massively more difficult right out of the gate.
I had assumed Igor, Lucius, or HK would be doing it because of how eager they all were to use it earlier when they didn't need to. Wood saving Lucius with it wasn't surprising, but I don't know if I would have predicted it? It is interesting that HK theorized each member of the order had a Death Eater they were supposed to swap with, only for Wood to suggest switching on Black, a play that makes no sense (to me, possible I'm missing things) if you actually understand the rules and dynamics. Wood's saving Black would have meant Black is here and suddenly Lily's position is dicier, because in theory Black/Igor/HK could be a trio, and while I know I'm committed to Lily, they don't know that and therefor should be extremely wary of bringing in another Death Eater. And I don't know how much better Wood fares on the other side? The Order have done a good job of keeping their relationships with each other a little more ambiguous than I feel the Death Eaters have. Wood saving Lucius makes far more sense; Lucius is far more likely to immediately ally with Barty/Lily/myself to kill Igor or HK, and those two will similarly want to kill Lucius too.
I was predicting a merge very soon, although I thought you might be cruel and delay it until you'd actually killed a certain number of players? It really feels like we're at the maximum for how many people can play on one side without demanding too much; I'd speculated the sweet spot is 6-9? Enough people everyone should have room to maneuver, but not so many it's overwhelming. If I imagine a world where neither switch happens, having 10 here is way more reasonable.
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 15, 2022 2:04:33 GMT 10
Oh god, I don't think I'm going to get to these questions, I'm sorry. EXTREMELY quickly
Feels pretty good. First week felt better than the first, I think I trust Lily/Wood/Barty more than all of the other Death Eaters. HK's still really solid too, I'm glad here's still here. Easily one of the funniest members of the cast.
Digg's fun. It's interesting to get to play up with some folks "Oh, I'm definitely attached to him" and then with other folks bluntly say "I don't know who this is and I don't care, sending people garbage Owl Posts made my life measurably worse several times." Actually talking to him is really interesting? His extremely hard evidence that Fleur was tricking him being cut short by there being evidence it was Lily instead is quite funny. I really appreciate his mix of logic and emotional reasoning, even if I don't 100% trust it. As for the Mutual ID reveal, I don't feel like I can't really comment on it without accidentally speculating who it is.
As an aside, because it's the kind of thing I'll forget to mention later; if I could wave a wand to change one thing about the ruleset in this game, it would be that I'm forbidden to speculate about who's who in my confessional. Maybe other folks brain's work differently, but for me? Telling me I can't write about it doesn't mean I don't think about it, I don't have that much control over where my brain goes. It just means I have to be slightly more paranoid about writing stuff in here. 99% of the time it's a non-issue? Like, if this game was 100% closed ID it wouldn't be a problem at all. But having a mutual ID reveal be a reward for the house points system means whenever that system comes up, even writing in here suddenly feels more measured than I feel a confessional should be. I know a few episodes back I said I really disliked when folks are overtly negative on games that were in progress, so I hope it's clear I'm not saying this has severely negatively impacted me? Or in fact impacted me at all. But I feel comfortable that this particular rule isn't going to have a change where we're allowed to discuss it suddenly, nor do I think trying to convince us to not think about it is going to lead into a twist where we get points for guessing IDs correctly or some equivalently odd idea.
Ultimately, I agree 100% with the spirit of the rule. People should not make decisions about other people in this game based on past games. If someone wants that much history weighing their decisions down, they should play open ID. But banning any topic in a 100% private space just feels bad, and of all of the places where a chilling effect on topics could do damage, I feel like the confessional is the worst for it because it is, in theory, optional. At least with other aspects of the rules where there are chilling effects, there are also incentives to counter that.
I felt like my relationship with Lucius and Black were both extremely strained at the end of the manor to begin with, so "picking up where we left off" would be a state of low trust anyways. Nothing in the last two days has changed that.
It's more or less what I expected? Fleur's a socialite, Tonks is solid and gamey. Moody's alright. Digg's a bit of a wild card, but with a good heart. I'd happily work with any of them, assuming we could build enough trust for it. I just don't see how we can? As far as I can tell, Fleur + Tonks is a very solid duo, and this "pairs" idea seems to be functional? So Moody's a very hard sell to work with. Same with Canary. Both don't have enough connections or people willing to go to bat for them, at least with me. And if Fleur/Tonks are as tight as it's been suggested, I don't see why they'd choose to loop me in as a third over any of the other Order folks or HK. I guess we'll see, based on where things land in a few rounds? 8th place is steadily approaching, after all. Dread it, run from it, 8th place will still arrive all the same.
Missed being here for it, and I haven't heard exactly what the numbers were to begin with. At least if it was unanimous, that means we all look like we're on the same page. That's nice. It also means one of us was getting duped. As far as I know it could be HK, but it if it was me, I don't think I'd know that.
Have not had time, other than to notice Lucius went insanely hard on getting immunity this round and Moody just announced the rest of us should give up because he wants to. Sneaky that if we agreed, he'd still win immunity anyways. As an aside, once this round is over I'll be quick to point out to the relevant parties that Lucius was so transparent about getting immunity; if he really trusted us, shouldn't he have been a bit more chill about it? So that'll be fun.
It seems like the overly-huge pairs alliance will probably get together for at least one vote? So that's Yaxley/Digg/Barty/Lily/HK/Tonks/Lucius/Wood. Whether all 8 of them stay together for more than one vote remains to be seen. At 12, we need 7 to have a majority, and I can see how folks would be hesitant to say 'Oh, lets cut pair X and include solo Y' instead to a huge audience. But at 11, the pairs set only needs six. So it seems likely after one vote, the rest of the pairs can shed numbers down to 6 and therefor I suspect the savvier players are already working that out.
It also occurs if they keep Moody AND Fleur on this vote, that Fleur/Tonks/Lily/Digg/Wood/Moody have six as well, and can jettison all of their partners at that point, going Order strong. In theory they could do the same with Canary but given how he was treated in the Papers, he would be too obvious a '6th' person for him to want to go for, and too obvious a flight risk for the others.
Ultimately, I expect Black or Canary to go? But it's still hard to say.
OK now for my own notes. I need to track who's saying what.
Digg: Okay-ish on Black. Working with Moody, but not mentioning it to me. Likes Lily/Wood/Canary? Very wary of Fleur. Also maybe wary of Lily. Does not like Lucius. Would rather kill Black than King. Does not view HK/Tonks as part of the pairs.
Barty: Basically in the same boat as me? He's assuming 4 pairs + Fleur, so he sees RAB/Canary/Moody as the options. But I think he'll go for anything.
Canary: Nothing useful at all.
Tonks: Most directly open about exactly what the Order power structure was, being Tonks/Fleur/Wood/Lily/Digg. I dug up all the old Manor history, thinking it will "help" her understand how to better navigate the complexities our half of the pairs alliance has. Saying the pairs will last 1-2 rounds at most.
Lucius: No hard target yet. He's suggesting lots of subterfuge about spreading around how I'm still wary of him after the Pyrites vote and how Digg's still wary of him after their fight. Either playing dumb or somehow hasn't clued into the fact that both of those statements are true and we're at least 24 hours ahead of him on that plan. Told me Tonks suggested cutting me/Digg out and replacing us with Fleur/Black. Lol. He doesn't seem interested in working with Fleur/Black at all, but he's also made a big deal out of us lying about our relationship with him, so..?
HK: Working with pairs. Knows Lily/Wood/Barty/Me were a quartet in the papers. Wants to hit Moody.
Moody: Most likely the strongest player on the outside of the pairs + Fleur. Working with Digg, maybe Fleur/Tonks?
Black: Working with maybe Digg/Moody? Nothing concrete yet. Tonks suggested replacing me with him to Lucius, so maybe working with Tonks too.
Lily: Not much since the merge. I suspect she's been sketched out by keeping HK.
Wood: Suggesting a trio of him, me, and HK. Loves Fleur, thinks Fleur and Tonks are very close. Thinks Fleur and Canary will outlast Black and Moody, which is quite interesting. Up for pairs for at least one or two rounds.
Fleur: On the outside of the pairs, but most liked outside of that.
So what's the conclusion? This vote is going to have 9 folks arguing over which of the other three they want to kill. It's between Canary, Black, and Moody. I think staying inside these lines is fine for me? And I don't feel particularly well off working with any of them, either. The round or two after will be more interesting, and I need to get ahead of it.
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 15, 2022 12:49:58 GMT 10
Oh joy, I'm at the inevitable point in the game where occasionally people say things to me that makes me think someone's lost their grip on reality. Am I completely wrong here? Or are they?
Dude, unless you explicitly told them to vote you out, that wasn't Fleur softening. That was Tonks giving up because you're a crazy person.
Why would someone kill us now? Like, all of the other six come together because maybe there's a tight trio? You could just as easily say we should unite the rest of the game to overthrow a hypothetical Lily/Tonks/Fleur/Wood quartet that definitely existed and actually ran their side, rather than the trio with two cowardly followers and one batshit person who will throw out all planning on a dime.
Fleur being surprised I'd do Moody when I don't know him at all's a bit of a riot too. "Don't you get a reward for voting together"? Oh boy, the joy of getting a mutual ID reveal that I can in no way use because we're not supposed to worry about IDs. Maybe if the stars align we might get a second Switch/Flick thing in time for it to be worthless.
Welp, Lucius just made an 8 person group chat to try and control the narrative. I'm out of fucks to give.
|
|
|
Post by Peter Pettigrew on May 15, 2022 12:53:54 GMT 10
Oh god, I don't think I'm going to get to these questions, I'm sorry. EXTREMELY quickly
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 15, 2022 12:58:36 GMT 10
I dunno what you're tryin' to say mate but oh god I'm typing like Yaxley by default. I don't know what you're trying to get across here Peter, but I'm going to assume you want me to give my episode 10 thought entirely in emojis. ![:P](http://images.proboards.com/new/tongue.png)
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 15, 2022 13:18:06 GMT 10
Wood straight out admitting to Barty and I here that we'd be 4th and 5th????
I am legit cackling tonight. I should have been to bed an hour ago given how much work I've got to do tomorrow, but I can't stop myself, this is the most fun I've had in weeks.
|
|
|
Post by Lily Potter on Jun 1, 2022 23:17:11 GMT 10
1) Lily - Lily is an easy favourite and I think if we'd started together we'd be unbreakable, allies wise. Something about her just 'clicks' with me.
|
|