Buckley

[Brendan]

We all enjoyed seeing you play, and we're sorry to see your game end this way, but you've got to do what's best for you and your mental wellbeing.

Welcome to the Jury.

[Buckley]

I feel like I had, like, 70% of the activity I would have needed to play a decent UTR game. But falling asleep for two TC deadlines in a row was too much. Thank you for having me, and sorry for being a dud.

Maybe I can make up for it by making the jury quarters cosy and welcoming?

[Buckley]

Ranking of how much I've enjoyed playing with the people at merge, from 'you're amazing' to 'I met you at merge and didn't really talk to you':

Madame D
Duke
Royal
Oracle
Margot
Peter
Richie
Young Writer
Herman
Suzy
Gustave

[Buckley]

Whaaaaaat

[Buckley]

So who do you all want to vote for at the moment? What kind of stuff do you value in choosing a winner?

My vote is quite open especially to the people that I didn't get a chance to speak much with. I'm probably going to favour people who tried to make the game fun in some way. And I value self-awareness and honesty - I'm more likely to vote for someone with a flawed game who can tell me how and why it's flawed, than someone who thinks they played perfectly, or tries to pretend they made no mistakes.

[Buckley]

I'm hearing very little about Gustave. Can anyone tell me what he's been doing and why he's not being talked about much? I appreciated that he followed up with me after not hearing from me for a while, it felt genuine.

[Duke]

Gustave was... interesting. I really doubt I have an idea of everything that's going on with him - especially considering he was targeted here, which I didn't expect at all - but fmpov, he was someone who was very unafraid of pushing hard for exactly what he wanted. Everyone who he liked kind of wanted to use him as a shield, because he'd push whatever vote you were doing hard and hopefully get it through, and if it didn't go through then he'd probably attract enough attention to be sent home himself instead.

Also from my point of view, though... he wasn't particularly careful or tactful with what he did, and he rarely considered other peoples' relationships with one another. More than once he came to me saying 'this is what you're doing' without actually consulting me about whether I wanted that vote or not, and more than once he pitched vote splits that relied on people being onside who blatantly wouldn't be onside (Richie in both Writer rounds, for example) - and he'd go to that person and tell them about the split vote immediately, before consulting anyone else on whether it would be a good idea. A lot of my own (and Oracle's) game revolved around doing damage control and trying to talk him out of doing things.

It's why I'm so surprised he was targeted here though. He's a big player, but he almost feels like a goat regardless? Maybe that's just my view on it though.

[Suzy Bishop]

I liked Gustave a lot but probably not more than any of the people remaining. I guess when I play these games, personal relationships mean everything to me. Of course I saw that my best chances of winning were probably a me/Oracle/Gustave FTC but I couldn’t bear to vote Madame out because I don’t play with empty promises.

I think I way over promised this game though which is why I felt agonized and in the middle flip flopping all around.

To be honest, I’ll be interested to hear what Gustave’s speech will consist of if he makes it to the end, which seems likely here. I felt that my actions against Richie inadvertently saved  Gustave but he would have gone home had Duke not left the game.

I think I viewed that Gustave’s game was on life support for a while. But hey, he managed to talk Richie into voting for me.

He did make a comment about how I had played a nearly perfect game — no votes and having been on the wrong side of the vote only once.

While I was trying to be UTR I was clearly visible. No one had remarked that to me yet though which is why I also wanted to vote Gustave in the round I left.

[Madame D.]

You're pawsome!

I don't have much else to say in here other than, Buckley bow wuf!