|
|
Post by Squirtle on Feb 28, 2022 10:23:07 GMT 10
I got around to playing the Robin v Plant Duel and I would have sent them both packing by a good two minutes so confidence is riding high. Should I tell him I nearly halved their times? Should I? Naaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Already got captain wanting to take a hit before Squirtle so happy to play along with poorcuteweaksquirtle can't duel to save own life... until I do. |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Feb 28, 2022 10:38:35 GMT 10
Pyra: We're gonna wait to see if we die before we bother engaging with any of this shit. Oh so noooooooooooow you decide that. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Feb 28, 2022 19:02:42 GMT 10
Wow it feels great when the drama moves beyond you and yours  Or even when you at least think it has There'a real chance captain/Squirtle are in danger here but the mess among the greens and pinks seems too elaborate to be fake, so if things to land badly it's probably last-minute scrambling more then grand conspiracy. And I've ended up confident enough that I haven't done a highbid on attackbag as I thought I'd need to when I went to sleep. Waiting to see results. Then cope with fallout. Then will write/rant here connecting all the dots. Squirtleswear! |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Feb 28, 2022 19:06:39 GMT 10
I don't know about Yoshi. But just so you're not blindsided, I have the green smash ball. I didn't want to be targeted because of it. I'm using it on shield tonight This. Guy. !!!!! Spoileralter isbe starringrole forin squirtlerant. |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 1, 2022 10:49:36 GMT 10
I've been slowly writing a proper update on and off all day, but just got this message and need to memorialise it. Isbe suresign squirtleshtick isbe workingstill asbeen squirtlentended! You do keep me sane, Squirtle, very much so  Strange that I am saying that to a talking turtle What has this competition done to me? Also isbe niceforhaving sometimes messagequote notbe angerfrustrationsarcasm. Justonly genuinewholesomeness. Like Squirtle. Squirtlesqueeeeeeeeee! (Seriously don't think I'd typed squirtlesqueeeeeee in nearly 48 hours. Yikes.) |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 1, 2022 12:27:11 GMT 10
Very much a round of two distinct parts. Night, then morning for Squirtle. It's also a round where I'm definitely not the right person to tell you everything that happened, because a lot was going on outside of my circles. Usually that would bother me more, but Squirtle has a lot of calm acceptance that there's enough mess within Squirtle's circles without looking for more. And Squirtle enjoys the sneakiness of staying innocent while benefiting from the drama in other circles, stirring things rather than picking at details or asking too many questions, which could get Squirtle dragged in.
Night - Blueteamhellagain!
I guess it's safe to say pyramythra didn't appreciate my voting against them. Again. From their perspective I do understand the anger, certainly more than I did last time. I still think they did plenty of harm to the relationship of their own accord, trashing my name and ignoring me forever. Not to mention holding me to a different standard than the captain who also did the same thing. Everything I wrote to them and to Falco in my explanations was the absolute truth down to intending to work with blue down the line if pyramythra survived the duel. I was trying to keep the relationship - such as it was - alive enough to work together in the future (as I'm now starting to do with Falco) but there just didn't seem to be any will on the other side for that, so I'd kind of given up and instead starting rooting for their loss. I still didn't cause their name to be mentioned, that legitimately all happened without my signoff and I did push against it in favour of voting for a pink-green as best I could, without throwing my own position away. The lie was therefore one of omission: I left out that all the blue-building was just one option of many by this stage, and I'd become perfectly content with seeing them go. And even favoured Yoshi to win and encouraged captain to get him his ideal duel. Which is pretty awful of me tbh but in my mind not at all unreasonable. And plenty of other players would have spent the round actively targeting pyramythra right back in the votes, which I never did despite joining my vote to the other yellows when it would not have made a lick of difference.
Anyhow I'm speaking about this here because things blew up. Falco was snarky about it, desperate to make the blues he 'sacrificed' himself for still be a thing even when pyramythra wasn't playing ball. Things weren't helped by his sense of doom which and overtiredness, though if he were a vote target it was never from the yellowteam, to Squirtle's knowledge at the time (though I'm still not sure he believes me on that). And my own overtiredness (it began on what I'd hoped to be my last checking after a whole 1.5 hours of sleep the night before) and sense of doom, which was mercifully assuaged around the same time as pyramythra threw in the towel until/unless their duelwin and return, thanks to plenty of others reassuring me that I hadn't been a serious target in anyone's mind save Pyramythra's - I didn't necessarily believe this, but having people willing to reassure me was indeed reassuring. As through it all I was reasonably confident pyramythra's influence would be ending shortly, and recalling that even the other pinks seemed to like me was enough to try sleeping again (a whole 4ish hours, yay).
And it seemed that other crises had rolled along and overtaken discussion. Yellow group chat was curiously silent, waiting for news of Yoshi's triumph or demise. Kingcruel had full intention of following through on his promise to vote dedede or darkpit following the pyramythra consensus, and while Wario's reaction was always going to be unpredictable, nobody could have predicted....
Day - Greenteamhell! Pinkteamhell! Blueteamyay?
When I awoke a couple of hours before the vote, I saw Yoshi was back and felt relief more than anything else. Then I opened the messages to find a new consensus yellowteam target of darkpit. I'd probably have preferred doing dedede first for having given me less in messages and being less of a threat others would eagerly follow through on targeting once darkpit left, but still this was a good outcome. But how it had come about was absurd - instead of pushing back against a pinkgreen play, Wario had spearheaded it himself. I'm still hazy on the finer details, but greenteam finally had an inner reckoning and kingcruel/wario sided against the other three. Dramatically so. With all the subtlety of, well, Wario, the guy's full campaign occurred in a new groupchat which was the full yellowteam groupchat, minus kazuya, who clearly knew something was up for the silence in the old one (if not all the other things wrong).
I skimmed it at the time but on reread it seems the key point in Wario's reasoning for targeting darkpit over dedede (not to be confused with the incredibly transparent reality that Wario clearly though his relationship with dedede most salvageable) was that bigmeanscarydarkpit probably has the greenteamsmashball. Or maybe doesn't, Wario doesn't know. But maybe probably does have it. You know, except for Wario playing it himself at the end of the round. I mean, you can't even make this up! Captain and I are more than happy to roll with this development, especially with the unconfirmed rumours from Falco that he expects yoshi to cop pinkteam votes again, unless he volunteers to duel himself,enough votes from pink at this stage to end up in the ring himself, where he'll eagerly beat anyone or so he'd like to think.
Tobecontinued. As messages and sheer exhaustion got in the way.
Brief jumpahead though, I've actually had fun being squirtle again tonight for the first time in a little while! Took the message/post above to squirtleheart and redobuled shtick efforts. Many squirtlegifs were sent this night! And hope was rekindled!
|
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 1, 2022 21:32:43 GMT 10
Okay I may need to retract this but I think we may have just crossed the threshold into a manageable number of players for staying on top of messages. Squirtlesqueeeeeeeeee!  Yes, it's darkmode. Bite Squirtle. Also note the lastreply wario is only there because the secondlast message in the groupchat was Squirtle. And the last was wario ignoring everything squirtle said to repeat his own ideas which Squirtle pushed back against. Which deserves no reply. Can possibly also credit Falco deciding to sleep through the round, as the one chat fallen below even kingcruelrip is the blueteam survivors threeway. For which please note Squirtle is still the last reply. Should be able to get more confessional going before ringduel results. |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 1, 2022 22:51:35 GMT 10
Final Ten Round (cont.)And juuuuust incase controlfreak wario hasn't fully overmaifested quiiiite yet, Wario sends himself flying off on a new mission to get enough votes for a split upon 'one of dedededede/kazuya' bywhich he clearly meant definitely kazuya, attempting to recruit Falco and Robin to the anti-cause. In hindsight it may have actually worked if he'd made the play earlier and far far faaaar more subtly, but the greenteamschism seemed to have given Robin a sorely needed confidence boost in the greenpinks actually having their back, which had been in great doubt (supposedly) just hours earlier. And in deference to her actual ally darkpit she went along with the pinkplan (I'm going to keep calling it pink even though it's now kazuaya too and probably no longer falco, just makes it easier to keep it the name of the otherside even as the sides shift) to spare darkpit a certain loss (of either himself or a close ally) and joined the vote for kingcruel, considered an easy win for having picked the complete crapshoot towncensus stage when he had a choice - never mind that he beasted the thing. And apparently darkpit wanted the most crapshooty of those left anyway in the image grid? So lessons not learned. But anyhow, I digress. The other thing flying about was Falco. He ended up joining the splitvote plan in a satisfyingly overdue break from the other pinks. But he'd spent the whole round feeling doomandgloomed so kind of lost momentum when it finally dawned on him that he wasn't going to be duelling. He's explained afterwards all about a possible plan where the green-yellows were to vote Falco as a split in favour of the pinks, who would vote in yoshi while captain/squirtle/yoshi would lost out wherever we voted. I'm not sure how real the possible plan was, as it's more of the magicalidealsuperalliance (this time for darkpit/dedede) mumbojumbo and probably played a part in the greenimplosion. But I'm more than happy to lean into it being a hugethreat bigdeal when it draws Falco back in to Squirtle from his time out in the pinkcold. And while Captain pushed back against Falco even considering a vote for Kazuya, I'm still not as sold on our kazuya/captain/squirtle trio - though given green events it cold very well be the grouping kazuya ends up sticking to and claiming was his primary loyalty all along. So I was honesty about another Falco vote for Yoshi going to waste... which his vote on Kazuya ended up being anyway, but it nudged things in a far better direction for Squirtle so no complaints there. Not a great direction for squirtle: the decision to target kingcruel. I knew it was a possibility and was certainly doing my own part in trying to keep targets off myself and the captain, and wario was safe, and yoshi very good at knowing his strengths for the duels... It was quite the unceremonious ending for kingcruel as he was offline for most of the day and did the duel late. Even though my trust/faith in him was waning since the merge as he wasn't forthcoming with intel about the greenteam plots, schemes and drama I was hearing hints of elsewhere, he was still the one newyellowteamfriend I trusted most to be protecting Squirtle from other's votes, even if/when much of his efforts weren't being reported back - just having him in the greenteamchats could have been the difference between more yoshitargeting and a Squirtleslide down into the ring. I really did want to make the squirtletopthreefriends a self-fulfilling prophecy too, and had fully expected our bond to survive the eventual breakdown of the teams - I just think Wario's extended safety and kingcruel's handtipping of challengeweakness worked against us here. I'm rather upset actually that he was the one picked off by the pinkgreen faction rather than Wario, which I've fully been counting one as both are/were pieces ostensibly on my side which I could never remove myself. Only while in Wario's case I definitely want/need him taken out sooner rather than later, Kingcruel I'd have happily kept for a long while. Guess now I'm caught up to just one round behind  Will take a messaging break, maybe even get to actual IRL work, and say more about the F9 round later today.
|
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 9:39:54 GMT 10
Sqirtlewhoooooooooops took a nap instead which is something I never do (like once a year maybe). Physically this week has been more exhausting than a US ORG, never mind the premerge weeks so... congratulations? Yet I haven't hit the mid-week slump or the Tuesday night curse which rattled me emotionally and strategically these past two weeks. If anything, the merge started off on shaky ground, then kept clearing up for me. And while sure one part of me knows better than to put that into words and press post because surely the crash is overdue, I kind of realised today with a pleasant squirtlesurprise that I'm in a really great position here. So much so that as the numbers dwindle and it's suddenly possible to plot a full path ahead despite the murky overlapping relationships and the nature of the arena format. And surviving another week into a pretty favouralbe endgame doesn't feel so unlikely. I came into the merge knowing and accepting that I'd be out of the loop more than I'd prefer, and was happy to just play Squirtle while the dust stirred and settled around me. Certainly at F10 I was feeling cut out of game's momentum and resenting my lack of agency. But it appears to have paid off massively. Obviously nothing is a given and much can change, but in considering next moves for the current F8 round I realised that I actually have lots of good options here, and that even things like unpredictable duel outcomes shouldn't be fatal (I mean, unless I'm the one losing the duel obviously). And as I held actual, formal power for the first time in using the attack sandbag, the scope of all this finally hit me. Because I've kind of socialgamed my way into trusting most of the remaining players implicitly to work if not 100% with me than at least not actively against me, if given the choice. Yoshi is grateful for all I've done for/with him, particularly with helping set up the best duel stages to 'guarantee' his recent wins. Captain is my ride-or-die through think and thin, sharing almost everything especially in the heat of imminent-vote-drama, and potentially also a more lucrative target than I am. Falco wants to make our blue thing more valuable and worthwhile in hindsight by making more of it now, and I think would be honest with me before/about going against my plans. And I'd happily go to the end with any combination of those three, owning my game and pointing to flaws in theirs. I've somehow spent rounds building up trust and strategic capital with both wario and kazuya, even without necessarily intending to, and until the status quo shifts both should expect it to remain mutually beneficial that we keep working toward the same purposes and keep each other's names off the table for votes. Robin and I are sharing honest sanity and actual secrets even when it includes the knowledge that we're likely stuck on opposing sides, and also I think both working to keep the other safe where possible. And dededede... I think likes me a bit? Still, 6 out of 7 positive relationships is quite amazing at this point. Add to that that I'm probably underrated as a jury threat thanks to everything pyramythra (so long as they don't actually poison a full jury, in which case I'm doomed regardless so I won't really take that possibility into account), definitely underrated as a challenge threat so long as I have some control over the duel selection, and probably have three more high bids in me for the sandbags, including the only smashball left in the game. And most of the duels I was less confident about have been played. And many of the different people I'm working well with have clear feuds which won't be going away any time soon in Wario vs everyone, Falco vs approaching everyone, yoshi vs pink, robin vs yellow. And um..... well I think I should be more overconfident than I'm actually feeling right now? I'm seriously just a few lucky breaks from a smashball in an endgame. Which feels like it should not be possible with this game design. And I know how much work went into the positioning, and where luck played a part both for and against me. but also HOW? This doesn't feel normal. I do very much like it, though  And if the feeling sticks I think it probably merits a new confessional thread tomorrow too! |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 10:23:12 GMT 10
Final 9 Round: AKA Squirtlesuccess begins! The events of the round per squirtlese weren't so interesting? I think people were generally exhausted and kind of happy to settle for potentially subpar things rather than kick up a storm so quickly after the last ones. It didn't help that the F10 vote ended up resetting some lines more firmly that I think I expected to find at the stage in the game, just when the yellow/pink divide was probably ready to be done away with. It's more notable for the results, and whose intentions they matched up with. Hint: mine! And the captain's too, as we basically had the same idea at the same time, which was to encourage Falco to encourage the pinks to vote Yoshi again, while keeping the remaining yellows (now down to four, as I've mentally stuck kazuya in with the pinks for continued ease of labeling) on task to either send darkpit back into the duel, or make it dedede if darkpit lost. And both these things ended up happening. Wario wanted revenge on Robin for thwarting his masterplan (it was fairly clear all round long that kingcruel probably wasn't going to return on the balance of probabilities, even though I held out hope and even convinced myself for a moment that the results were the other way around due to the nametag colouring of the duellists yay blearyeyed morning optimism!), and completely bulldozed over reasonable protestations (which I noted with the chat screenshot above) that it made more sense to finish the job. I presume it was the captain who eventually wore him down, as in the (short) time between my falling asleep and starting back up, Wario was fine with (or at least resigned to) another darkpit vote. I want to say this shows real personal growth, but excuse me for still having my doubts. (And yay now I get to keep a captain paranoia meter too because he's clearly much closer to both kazuya and wario than I am. Makes me less confident I'd be the one spared if/when they can all come for us. Which I'm kind counting on happening, now that I have so many deals that seeing allies cut by others is more appealing than having to backstab most of them myself.) On the have-pinks-vote-Yoshi front, I obviously can't be sure how much of a role Falco's push played, if any. I also can't be sure if my socialising with Robin and/or my trio with Kazuya and the Captain helped prevent the pinks (yes and kazuya) from forming a consensus around voting for myself or the captain. Though I had good reason to be hopeful, given Falco kind of having no option at this point but to presume/hope that blueteam finalthree is a thing, and also being reluctant to vote agianst us. (I'm also not tooooo willing to admit correlation equals causation here so that I might safely presume that the captain and I might be shielded again. But that's for later.) And with wario immune that only left Yoshi. I'd made up my mind to make a bid for the attack sandbag nexttime amidst all the pyramythra drama, and then pushing it off amidst all the greenpink drama. This time around, I didn't want to be overconfident that it would absolutely not be the time that pink targeted myself or the captain. I also knew that even should Yoshi enter the duel as planned, I'd be faaaaar better of if they survived, which the sandbag could help guarantee as he's been very on the money about which duels he can ace - and indeed was exactly one the money there once again. So I placed the bid, and nudged it slightly higher than I might just in case, and for the joy of being able to say I used the yoshi card to help yoshi win the duel. Which turned out to be just enough to beat out Robin... kind of a lucky break more than anything but hey I'll take it and say it makes me seem squirtlesmarter in hindsight! I also want it on the record that I prevoted darkpit and bid for the bag before I went to sleep, long before much of the above was at all confirmed. So that part of the plan at least was entirely my own - I'm yet to really discuss it with anyone, but I'm still of the firm belief that controlling the attack bag is the key to making these side-vs-side wars break in one's favour. It's kind of surprising that this doesn't seem to be the general consensus, and people are falling over one another for the safetybag sill. The duel selection was actually quite fun. The set challenge is one I know I can do fairly well on good days, but get immensely frustrated by even on those good days each time it takes me longer than it ought to spot the easy sets, while I'm so busy searching for the tricky ones, and for whatever can never make my mind look for both at the same time. (And I avoid playing it IRL for this reason; much as I enjoy the concept and had a ball rewriting up the rules for Second Chances.) So when Yoshi listed it and the fourcolourtheorem (which I'd also rather avoid myself, and is one of only two still remaining which I'm rather wary of, the other being avatar scramble) as things he'd prefer - because of course he would - I knew I'd be glad to get rid of either. I restarted up conversation with darkpit a bit before the vote, and negotiated a bit with him too. Eventually I (probably too transparently) led him back to set after he openly told me he'd be banning fourcolourtheorem (which by the way is super difficult to discuss without using and words spelled differently in British/American English), by 'misinterpreting' his request for a timed ending and finish image with just triggers and finish images. But he agreed in the end, though I did make him still ban fourcolourtherem It being the yoshi stage just made it all far more fitting and fun to arrange. Especially when the results came in as predicted: darkpit good but not incredible, yoshi close to perfect. Little wonder I felt on top of the world after seeing all those plans coming into fruition!
|
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 10:23:38 GMT 10
Heh, just realised I accidentally ended with a fruit pun   |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 10:30:10 GMT 10
Oh joy! Now captain is apparently running Kazuya's plan for a wario/falco duel back to dedede before seeing my objections (or agreement, he hasn't been online to see which) and also before kazuya bothers to send it to me too.
A few hours ago I wouldn't have minded sending wario into the duel, as you can see in my posts above. But seeing just how many options are on the table has kind of made me .... (gah I have to say it, don't I) ... accept that it makes sense to keep wario's drama around for a bit longer. So long as we can keep him from doing something warioish (which I can already sense building along his annoyingly persistent connection to and protection of dedede)... which maybe means we should want him now?
Anyway I'm ambivalent there. Not at all ambivalent about wanting to protect Falco. To the point that if this scheme gets greenlit I'd consider deviating from it and splitting votes to ensure Falco stays in the mix for longer. They guy is running out of endgame options and will cling to us all the more firmly if we throw an obvious lifeline. I know I just disparaged the safety sandbag but kazuya being immune here sure is annoying.
|
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 11:08:00 GMT 10
Squirtle: lists out abundance of allies and connections, singles out two players least connect for simple targeting. Even accepts may need to cut second-worst sooner than hoped. Othersmashers: abandon any will to target Squirtle's two worst connections. Yeah so this sounds about right and back to squirtlenormal  Hope ya'll enjoyed the brief megalomania while it lasted! |
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 12:12:01 GMT 10
Should be sleeping but need to tell somebody just how hilarious I'm finding the Yoshi superthreat challengebeast fearmongering. Granted, not everybody else knows for squirtain that he's had his favourite ringduel stages handpicked for him every time, but the significant defeats at the hands of teethplant and falco in his earlier duels are a sure sign the guy isn't close to invincible.
Generally speaking I'm a bit flummoxed by the lack of attention to the variety of stages and the attack bag mechanic. Everyone thinks they know which challenges they'd be great at or suck at, but don't afford the same breadth and variance of skills to one another. Teethplant was kind of frightening because it was scoring well across many different kinds of duels, and knocking opponents (not to mention friendlies testers) out of the water consistently, while unable to show loyalty to any group in-game, so the duels were its defining feature by the end. Yoshi has more wins, but the first place finishes are all three in a very narrow scope of stages relating to maths/logic in fairly new challenge concepts, which most veteran ORGers will be weaker at than they are the normal puzzle/timing staples. And Yoshi has allies wanting to keep him around, working to give him the duels he wants.
|
|
|
|
Post by Squirtle on Mar 2, 2022 19:09:33 GMT 10
Oh yay it's me!
Time to earn my badges I guess. Sunglasses at the ready!
|
|
