Duke

[Brendan]

Duke, we're all sorry to see your game end this way. I hope you're taking care of yourself, and of course life always comes first. Welcome to the Jury.

[Duke]

Sorry to derail the game like this =/ Had a surprise nasty breakup this morning, kept telling myself I'd keep playing this as a distraction if nothing else but... games about relationships aren't good distractions, hah. I couldn't really continue playing.

I probably won't be participating much in the jury forum for a little while at least. But I'm happy I got to play for as long as I did, it's been a fun game.

[Buckley]

Sorry to hear that mate, that sucks. For what it's worth, in the short time we played together you quickly became one of my favourites.

I'm very curious what exactly happened this round to cause a 4-4 tie! But obviously don't feel obligated to stick around here more than you feel you can.

[Duke]

Gustave/Oracle/Suzy/Duke vs Royal/Richie/Madame/Margot.

First 4 are 4vanhoe, continuation of 5vanhoe which was the same alliance + Herman. Someone leaked its existence to either Madame or Royal and the other side solidified hard on the Gustave vote

Madame/Margot/Oracle/Duke was an alliance too, Gustave was initially pushing Margot so they (Madame/Margot) agreed it was fine for us to push Royal provided we were pushing the numbers off'f Margot. So we did, and it ended up going 4-4.
Royal is pretty deeply embedded in Madame's power structure (I think she wants to take him to the end) so I wanted to take him out to prevent that. We were counting on Margot being willing to flip instead of going to rocks, but she wasn't... or at least, Suzy was faltering on our side and they saw weakness and decided not to go for it. Obviously didn't end up mattering as it turned out.

[Duke]

I'm hoping Oracle can go the distance. They've been playing a solid game.

[Young Writer]

Oh dear that does not sound good, Duke. I hope things get better for you.

Personally, Oracle is probably the lowest or second lowest on my personal ballot. There's clearly a heavy personal aspect to it but the vibe I always got from Oracle was that they were just going to try and be everyone's friend and then make moves, which is...not a strategy I'm partial to. To be fair, it might just be that I never saw their true face so any information on the 5vanhoe chat would be wonderful. Though it will take a lot for me to personally overcome them being like "And don't stress. You're my friend. What kind of dick would I be if I voted you out?" and then...doing just that as a play to get at Richie. Which if Oracle didn't actually swap it would change a lot but yeah that's where I am. But if that's true then well, you Duke were more upfront with me that round than Oracle, and that should not have been happening considering how terrible my messaging to you ended up being.

I also feel my criticisms of Oracle can kind of apply to Suzy, but it feels less deliberate on their part and more just being generally conflicted, which I'm not sure if that is better or worse.

Though my general voting is that Richie was my Day 1, and they always tried to do me right, even when it cost them. So if he's at the end he has my vote, anything beyond that...it depends on a lot of context, but the bottom of my list will be hard to change. Even Gustave I could see voting for in the right FTC configuration.

[Buckley]

I'm finding these insights interesting! I'm inclined to trust Royal's judgement on Oracle I think - he seems like

[Buckley]

excuse me my finger did NOT touch the reply button!! it wasn't even close

[Buckley]

But yeah, without much experience with Oracle but based on his PMs with me and public posts, I do get the sense that he's got an impression of himself as a mastermind

[Buckley]

REALLY? what are you doing phone!? (and then I walked away from this for hours)

Not that hyping yourself up as a mastermind is a bad thing necessarily! Oracle will just have a lot to prove at the end if that's what he's doing. It'll go far for me if he can give me an honest evaluation of not only his game, but also just his general approach.

I'm probably biased towards voting Madame here - I think she's great and played a fantastic game while I was around. (I gave her the Fox's Tail idol on my way out - I don't think I've mentioned this yet?) She seems to genuinely care about both the game and the relationships she's making along the way, which goes a long way towards getting my favour!

For how clear it was that Margot was a really strong player and big threat, I'm surprised by how distant I felt from her. She felt like a smart ally to have, but I never really... 'got' her, if that makes sense. I guess I just want to know more about what she's been doing, how she thinks about things. She's probably got the most 'swing' potential to earn or lose my vote based on FTC.

Richie tried really hard with me and I appreciated that. I didn't particularly trust him while I was in the game unfortunately, despite his efforts. I'll want to see more about what he really thinks about the game and how he... I guess, approached and thought about the people playing?

And Gustave and Susie are basically blank slates for me! I'm open to voting them both for sure.

[Duke]

I would probably vote for Madame if she gets there. But I seriously doubt she does; she's perceived as the biggest FTC threat in the game I think...

[Suzy Bishop]

Duke!!! I was really sorry to see you go and I hope you are doing okay. If I had gone through a break up as well, I would have left.
I genuinely really liked talking to you! Even though I wasn't as close to you as Oracle, you still made this game super fun for me!

[Madame D.]

Duke! You were seriously such a delight and you and Royal were the two people I wanted to go to the end with, though probably neither of you would have wanted to go to the end with me and that's okay! Clearly the people at the end now didn't want to go to the end with me either. :P

[Duke]

bark bark woof woof bark woof bark

[Madame D.]

Yes exactly!

[Buckley]

woof bark bark woof bark? :3

[Duke]

barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark