SPEAKER_2: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Salt Cravings episode 50.
SPEAKER_2: My name's Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: And my name's Clair.
SPEAKER_1: I almost said my name's Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: It's just two Briannas.
SPEAKER_2: It's just two Brianna.
SPEAKER_2: Well, we'll see.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe that'll be the thing, who knows?
SPEAKER_1: Well, hi, welcome to a podcast where Brianna just talks to herself for an hour.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, so that's what we're doing today for our special 50th episode.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to speak to myself.
SPEAKER_2: No, but we are doing something special for episode 50.
SPEAKER_1: If you look at the length of the episode, actually, what we're going to do is just do one craving for multiple hours.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, no, it's absolutely, as you can tell, just us being like, all right, here's one craving that we're going to just really drag it out, come up with 15 solutions.
SPEAKER_1: Every single solution.
SPEAKER_1: We're really like, I feel like we just burn through too many cravings, so we really have to like ring them out for every solution that we possibly can.
SPEAKER_1: But also I'm lying right now, so maybe you should save this.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I can say the thing.
SPEAKER_2: So we talk about games a lot on this show, especially tabletop games, but games in general.
SPEAKER_2: And so we figured, because at this point with Salt Cravings, we enjoy doing the thing that we do, but we're also very excited to try doing new and interesting things.
SPEAKER_2: And so we figured for episode 50, we might try something a little bit different.
SPEAKER_2: And so today, we are going to play a tabletop game.
SPEAKER_2: And we are specifically playing A Duet of Steel by Adrian Thoen.
SPEAKER_2: I believe that's how that's pronounced.
SPEAKER_2: A Duet of Steel is a role playing game of long-term rivalries for two players.
SPEAKER_2: I'm very excited for this.
SPEAKER_2: But before we get started, we want to know, you know.
SPEAKER_1: I was thinking before we jump into it and whatnot, we should do the ending stuff now because this might not be for everybody.
SPEAKER_1: And I just want to say, like, if this is not your thing, like, do not feel like you have to listen to this episode.
SPEAKER_1: You can, like, we will be back.
SPEAKER_1: We'll be back with more Cravings.
SPEAKER_1: But, like, if listening to an actual play podcast is, like, it's not for everybody.
SPEAKER_1: I just want to be straight up.
SPEAKER_1: We really like it.
SPEAKER_1: So if you want to follow us on social media, you can go to Salt Cravings at Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
SPEAKER_1: You can also, like, send in submissions for next time or the time after or maybe the time after to submissions at saltcravings.com.
SPEAKER_1: Just e-mail that in.
SPEAKER_1: You can give us a rating.
SPEAKER_1: I feel like we haven't said that in a while.
SPEAKER_1: Give us a rating based on how you liked this one episode, maybe.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: That's a good way to rate things.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, based on the weird episode.
SPEAKER_1: Also, like, just, like, this episode's probably going to be a little slower than other episodes in just a mood.
SPEAKER_1: But also, who knows?
SPEAKER_1: Let's see, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like, it's also, it's still us.
SPEAKER_2: It's still us.
SPEAKER_2: It's still going to be him.
SPEAKER_2: It's going to be chaotic.
SPEAKER_2: It's still going to be fun, I think.
SPEAKER_2: Like, I'm not imagining us going deep and super serious on this one.
SPEAKER_2: But yeah, but please let us know, like, if you do listen to this episode, or even if you choose not to, please let us know what you think of this.
SPEAKER_2: Obviously, we like playing games.
SPEAKER_2: We play games together a lot.
SPEAKER_2: And in some ways, this is us trying to get a feel for whether or not people would be interested in more of this as, like, maybe a second pod, or, you know, an occasional special episode or stuff here and there, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, if people are interested in this, we would love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_2: And if you're not interested in this, we would also love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, especially if this just like isn't your thing.
SPEAKER_1: Like, don't feel like you can't speak up.
SPEAKER_1: Like, we are testing the waters and we want responses.
SPEAKER_1: So if you don't speak up, then, you know, count that as I don't know, not voting is a vote in and of itself.
SPEAKER_1: So I guess that works too.
SPEAKER_2: If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
SPEAKER_1: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: As the band Rush says.
SPEAKER_2: Common source of wisdom, the band Rush.
SPEAKER_2: Um, so please let us know.
SPEAKER_2: We would love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_2: Um, without further ado, um...
SPEAKER_1: So, uh, to sort of set up a duet of steel, throughout your life, throughout generations of your family, throughout the various fronts of your war, you have had one great rival.
SPEAKER_1: Again and again, you clash with them.
SPEAKER_1: One walking away, the victor of the battle, but bearing the scars of your war.
SPEAKER_1: A Duet of Steel is a game about rivals who engage each other in charged exchanges over an extended period of time.
SPEAKER_1: Whatever the setting and scope, the focus of a duet of steel is the two duelists, their climactic duels and the aftermath of these confrontations.
SPEAKER_1: The Duet of Steel is a dance of antagonism with the ebb and flow of conflict and recovery.
SPEAKER_1: But it is a duet with the two parties playing off each other.
SPEAKER_1: It takes two to tango.
SPEAKER_1: Let's get ready to play.
SPEAKER_1: Let's do-do-duel.
SPEAKER_1: I have instead made us some spreadsheets to help us do this long distance.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, these are incredible.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you.
SPEAKER_1: We're also going to need a deck of playing cards.
SPEAKER_2: Try this link and we'll see if this...
SPEAKER_2: Oh yes, this will totally work.
SPEAKER_1: Oh hey, I can see your little cursor.
SPEAKER_1: Ah, cool.
SPEAKER_1: Alright, so we've got some playing cards.
SPEAKER_1: We've got our sheets.
SPEAKER_1: So the first step in this game is to establish your setting.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know why it says as a group, but I guess you could theoretically play with more people and just sort of split it up into two teams, which would I guess also kind of be fun.
SPEAKER_1: You could theoretically do rival factions that clash together.
SPEAKER_1: But as a group, discuss the setting and scale you want to play on.
SPEAKER_1: This is your chance to create a broad sketch of your duelists and the stage of place and time that your conflicts are played across.
SPEAKER_1: When describing your duelists and the setting of their conflict, use your favorite media as inspiration for your ideas.
SPEAKER_1: So Brianna, I originally came into this being like, we do a lot, well, I do a lot of space things.
SPEAKER_1: I like space a lot.
SPEAKER_1: I like sci-fi and whatnot.
SPEAKER_1: And I was like, maybe we should move away from space.
SPEAKER_1: Great.
SPEAKER_2: This is excellent.
SPEAKER_1: I'd like to share that I did just finish Cowboy Bebop last night, and it is absolutely one of the worst shows I have ever watched, which I feel like is going to make a lot of people angry.
SPEAKER_1: But also I feel like we could write a better Bebop.
SPEAKER_2: We could.
SPEAKER_2: Do you want to know my alternative pitch?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Was it last night?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, it was last night.
SPEAKER_2: I watched the movie Orlando, which is based on a book by Virginia Woolf.
SPEAKER_1: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Orlando is about this immortal British noble who is born in 1600 and is given immortality powers and basically lives through these various centuries and at one point changes genders and like is just kind of an all around nuisance and problem for everyone around him and later around her.
SPEAKER_2: I guess not an all around nuisance and problem, just has a weird ass life where they just show up every 50 years and they're like, hey, I'm here now.
SPEAKER_2: My pitch is Orlando but it's rivals is like these two immortals over the set or mortal nobles over the centuries.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know.
SPEAKER_2: That's my pitch.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if I'm feeling immortals.
SPEAKER_1: That was my thing is like I actually think I want to play mortals.
SPEAKER_1: I think I want I think I want the time scale of this to be like a lifetime at most.
SPEAKER_1: But my other thing other than just my petty, I could do Cowboy Bebop better was like an Atlantis style setting.
SPEAKER_2: Ooh, I mean, I'm really vibing unsurprisingly these days with like this kind of nobility vibes of like Regency, like Regency or, you know, anywhere from like the 18th century to Jane Austen.
SPEAKER_2: Like that is the vibe.
SPEAKER_1: You fuck with the bourgeoisie.
SPEAKER_2: Aesthetically, yes.
SPEAKER_2: It basically every other way.
SPEAKER_2: No, OK.
SPEAKER_1: This is my one problem is like I don't know anything about that stuff.
SPEAKER_2: And that's OK.
SPEAKER_1: It does kind of limit me a little bit.
SPEAKER_1: I'm happy to like maybe do like an alternate history.
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_2: So what I was going to say, what I was going to say is I'm interested in this Atlantis setting in which Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: I just want to be very clear.
SPEAKER_1: Not Atlanta Atlantis.
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_2: Sorry.
SPEAKER_2: Do I say Atlanta?
SPEAKER_1: I heard Atlanta.
SPEAKER_1: You might have said Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: But I was like, well, let's just go to Atlanta.
SPEAKER_1: You know, let's just play a game in Atlanta.
SPEAKER_2: I know so much about that city.
SPEAKER_1: I definitely know where it is.
SPEAKER_2: I almost am.
SPEAKER_2: I am thinking about this in terms of this kind of Atlantis society that has this.
SPEAKER_2: Basically, in terms of time period, I'm thinking about like big poofy dresses and like gold.
SPEAKER_1: Can I propose an idea?
SPEAKER_1: Can it be like an alternate history where in like, I don't know, the 1600s or the 1500s, Atlantis made itself known?
SPEAKER_1: And I guess like it changes history, right?
SPEAKER_1: And like, we don't have to zoom into that.
SPEAKER_1: But like, where do we want this to take place?
SPEAKER_1: Right?
SPEAKER_1: Like, do we want to be like, I mean, it could be in Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: It could be outside of Atlantis, but like influenced by Atlantis.
SPEAKER_2: I don't need it to be in a real place.
SPEAKER_2: That's fair.
SPEAKER_2: When I say about aesthetically, there's nothing like European aesthetics are really not that different from each other.
SPEAKER_2: I don't need it to be set in a particular area.
SPEAKER_2: I truly don't.
SPEAKER_1: The thing about Atlantis, though, is like it truly doesn't feel like it would have European vibes.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't feel like that would be its thing.
SPEAKER_2: It's true.
SPEAKER_2: It doesn't have to, but Atlantis isn't real.
SPEAKER_2: If it did, it would probably have Greek vibes.
SPEAKER_1: Can we do Greek?
SPEAKER_1: I think you're just going off of Apostolus.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I mean, Apostolus is kind of the vibe.
SPEAKER_1: Apostolus from Friends of the Table, an inspiration for probably us doing this.
SPEAKER_2: Honestly, probably, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I think one of the important things is like our duelists, I don't conceive of them as being good people.
SPEAKER_1: Why, like, maybe mine is, I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: Like, yours doesn't have to be a good person, but like, I don't know who my duelist is yet.
SPEAKER_2: I don't conceive of mine as being a good person.
SPEAKER_2: And the most fun way for me to show that they are not a good person is to make them a member of the nobility.
SPEAKER_1: Great.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, that's, yeah, okay, that's easy.
SPEAKER_2: Because that makes it both me saying kind of straight up, this person is like, takes advantage of people and is like shitty towards other people and also gets to have cool aesthetics.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to be like a queen from some European country and I'm like Atlantis, Atlantisian, Atlantean, Atlantean?
SPEAKER_2: I have a better idea because I, as much as I say, I want to mess around with these aesthetics, I don't want to like actually just play out colonization.
SPEAKER_1: That is like, that is the problem, of course, with being a royal and being a bad person.
SPEAKER_1: That's generally what the goal was.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, but I didn't say I wanted to be European.
SPEAKER_2: What I would suggest, what if there's two Atlantis's?
SPEAKER_1: I love it.
SPEAKER_1: Oh my God.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_1: What if it has nothing to do with the surface world?
SPEAKER_1: What if it's like Atlantis versus the Magma, or like even further down?
SPEAKER_1: Like Atlantis goes further down.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe that's the setting.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we can look more at like the characters in a second, but I think like, what if we're just like, we never touch the surface?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Is this upper Atlantis versus lower Atlantis?
SPEAKER_1: I had conceived of them as completely different places, but you know, like why not just call it like, you know, like North and South places are completely different generally, usually for reasons.
SPEAKER_2: I conceive of it very much as being like once upon a time, this was one group of people.
SPEAKER_2: And over time they slowly became like, well, there's the North and the South.
SPEAKER_2: There's North Atlantis and South Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: The king in the North Atlantis.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: What if it's like, when we think of Atlantis, we always think of like going up, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like building up.
SPEAKER_1: What if they built down, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like you're at the bottom of the ocean, you build tunnels.
SPEAKER_1: And that's how you like get, I guess, around.
SPEAKER_1: You can build other places if you go through tunnels, you don't necessarily have to swim.
SPEAKER_1: Very important questions.
SPEAKER_1: Are they fish people?
SPEAKER_2: God grant me the strength not to just remake Apostilicians.
SPEAKER_1: So I'll play Millie and you'll play Tessaly.
SPEAKER_2: I think I'm pretty clearly playing Cassilier.
SPEAKER_2: What do you think?
SPEAKER_2: They could be mermaids or fish people or I don't know, humans with certain fish features.
SPEAKER_1: I think it'd be cool if they were like part rock, right?
SPEAKER_1: They don't need to breathe.
SPEAKER_1: They could survive underwater, not because they're fish, but because they're rock.
SPEAKER_2: I see.
SPEAKER_2: That's interesting.
SPEAKER_1: I like this.
SPEAKER_1: You know how, I don't know if you've ever looked up tectonic plates where they meet in the ocean.
SPEAKER_1: It's pretty freaking cool if a plate is pulling apart, which usually doesn't happen on a surface because mountains are the result of tectonic plates running into each other.
SPEAKER_1: But tectonic plates pulling apart usually results in magma coming up out of them.
SPEAKER_1: But because it moves so slow that it forms more land.
SPEAKER_1: What if people come out of that?
SPEAKER_2: Nice.
SPEAKER_1: Oh yeah, the next round of births is happening.
SPEAKER_1: We're just rock people that are literally created by tectonic plates being pulled apart.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_2: So we're volcanic rock.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Which like volcanic rock is still porous too.
SPEAKER_1: So it makes it very easy to move around underwater.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's perfect.
SPEAKER_1: It is.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to write down Rock Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: It's my favorite album.
SPEAKER_1: We're in Rock Atlantis.
SPEAKER_1: There are polarized parts of this place.
SPEAKER_2: In many ways, in many ways polarized.
SPEAKER_1: Oh my God.
SPEAKER_1: Who are the duelists?
SPEAKER_2: Who are the duelists?
SPEAKER_1: Who are the duelists?
SPEAKER_1: Are they individual people?
SPEAKER_1: Are they gangs?
SPEAKER_1: Are they societies, armies or entire nations?
SPEAKER_1: Your duelists are who you follow over the course of the game.
SPEAKER_1: This can do a lot to establish the scale of the conflicts and stakes.
SPEAKER_1: The smaller the scale, the more intimate your relationships with the duelists.
SPEAKER_1: I'm getting vibes that you want to be an individual.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I definitely think of it as like, yeah, absolutely, I was vibing with individual.
SPEAKER_1: I have a question, Brianna.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah?
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to be an individual going up against a society?
SPEAKER_2: I'm more interested in us being on the same scale.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, no, I'm happy to be an individual.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's just easier if we are on the same scale.
SPEAKER_1: All right, we can both be a person.
SPEAKER_2: I'm interested in potentially being individuals who might have group affiliations, but I think the focus should be individual.
SPEAKER_1: So we need to talk about our duelists.
SPEAKER_1: And so we have these duelist sheets, and we are going to come up with names, which is very important.
SPEAKER_1: And then we're going to take motivations and flaws, and they can be broad or just one word.
SPEAKER_1: We take between two and five motivations and flaws each.
SPEAKER_1: I thought about my motivations and flaws.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know anything about this character, but so I think one of my motivations is going to be horny.
SPEAKER_1: And I think one of my flaws is going to be horny.
SPEAKER_1: So I'm really making a diverse character here.
SPEAKER_1: But I do have other words that I'm going to think of.
SPEAKER_1: But anyways, so I just needed that to be.
SPEAKER_1: That was probably the most important part of my character.
SPEAKER_1: So you want to be a noble?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_2: I am definitely a noble.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know if this is even like a story of like a person who's afraid to lose their power because like it doesn't even cross her mind.
SPEAKER_2: Of course, she's rich and powerful.
SPEAKER_2: She's always going to be.
SPEAKER_2: Right.
SPEAKER_1: I'm seeing inspiration for this character.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of inspirations.
SPEAKER_2: It's hilarious.
SPEAKER_2: The actual inspiration that I think I'm pulling from the most is, if not Orlando, also Emma 2020, a movie that is so good.
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_2: It's also, I understand also Clementine Keshe, but that is not actually to the degree that you can differentiate Clementine Keshe from Emma.
SPEAKER_2: It's more Emma than Clementine.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_1: Well, I'm familiar with the latter, so I don't know anything about Emma.
SPEAKER_2: She's a shitty, manipulative person who's genuinely actually good at manipulating people, unlike Clem.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, great.
SPEAKER_1: What if it's this?
SPEAKER_1: You have been so good at getting power, and everyone in your life just believes what you say.
SPEAKER_1: But for some reason, I never believed what you said.
SPEAKER_1: You just could never sink your claws into me.
SPEAKER_2: I think the idea that one of my motivations...
SPEAKER_2: I think of a true challenge.
SPEAKER_2: I think a motivation of a true challenge.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, God, that's great.
SPEAKER_2: I think she almost wants to be threatened.
SPEAKER_2: It's not that she's interested.
SPEAKER_2: She doesn't believe that she'll lose her power, but she wants to believe that she could.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, my God.
SPEAKER_1: It's a fucking power fantasy, but a lack of power fantasy?
SPEAKER_2: It's Marie Antoinette playing as a peasant in her second home in the years leading up to the French Revolution.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, my God.
SPEAKER_1: I'm thinking about this and I'm like, so you could never convince me, which means like maybe we had sort of like a rapport at some point.
SPEAKER_1: I'm sort of thinking like, was I in?
SPEAKER_1: Was I in X?
SPEAKER_1: Am I in X Royal?
SPEAKER_1: Like, did I leave because you corrupted whatever I was in?
SPEAKER_1: You were the new up and comer.
SPEAKER_1: And I was like, I was settled.
SPEAKER_1: And maybe.
SPEAKER_1: And you came in and everyone was just like, oh, wow, this person has such great ideas.
SPEAKER_1: And I was like, wait, are we not gonna like consider maybe they're not great ideas?
SPEAKER_1: And everyone was like, of course, they're great ideas.
SPEAKER_1: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_1: Listen to what she's saying.
SPEAKER_1: Like, how can you question that?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, I like that idea a lot.
SPEAKER_1: What if you took my position?
SPEAKER_1: You pushed me out.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that she would like, the interesting thing here to me is the potential of like, she didn't want to push you out.
SPEAKER_2: She wanted to be at your level.
SPEAKER_2: She wanted you to be her rival in the like, in the, you know, the manor and in the king's court or whatever.
SPEAKER_2: But you just went, okay, bye.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I think it's like, I think it's the same where it's like, I didn't expect you to be my rival.
SPEAKER_1: But it started being like the meetings where like, our ideas would always be opposed to each other somehow.
SPEAKER_1: Like, you would bring up an idea and it'd be like, well, I've actually been doing this thing for the past three months.
SPEAKER_1: And I thought I would bring it up.
SPEAKER_1: And they would just happen to be like opposed ideas, like they just would not work with each other.
SPEAKER_1: And like that would just keep happening.
SPEAKER_1: And like, who knows if it's coincidence, who knows if it's not coincidence.
SPEAKER_1: I think eventually, I think eventually it became not coincidence, even if it was originally.
SPEAKER_1: And I think at one point, I was just like, well, fine, I'm not making any leeway here.
SPEAKER_1: I will find an alternate way to get things done.
SPEAKER_2: I think I figured out my first flaw that is kind of related to this.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, what is your flaw?
SPEAKER_2: I chronically overextend.
SPEAKER_2: I just go too far.
SPEAKER_2: Like, and not just the way of like, not in terms of extremism.
SPEAKER_2: I don't think this character has enough of an ideology for that.
SPEAKER_2: I think just she'll like go, it's the Emma thing of like, you know, going too far in the way that you want to manipulate someone or the way that you want to like try and be in control of a situation.
SPEAKER_2: Or in a duel, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_1: Right, yes.
SPEAKER_1: I think one of my motivations is, I don't want to say revenge because I'm never interested in revenge stories.
SPEAKER_1: Except for revenge stories where my father dies, so I try to kill the person who killed my father because my father killed their father.
SPEAKER_2: It's all about dads.
SPEAKER_2: It's just dads all the way down.
SPEAKER_1: The John Green book, dads all the way down.
SPEAKER_1: I think one of my motivations, the thing is I'm so bad at government motivations.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think it has anything to do with government anymore.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think they care about government anymore.
SPEAKER_1: I think the motivation is finding a new home.
SPEAKER_2: I like that.
SPEAKER_2: I think about what else this character would care about.
SPEAKER_2: The other motivation for this character is being adored.
SPEAKER_2: This character wants two things, to be challenged and adored.
SPEAKER_1: So it sounds like this horny motivation of mine is going to help a lot.
SPEAKER_2: It's kind of perfect.
SPEAKER_2: I think the flaw here is, does not have compassion.
SPEAKER_2: Is that too harsh?
SPEAKER_1: Like a little bit.
SPEAKER_2: It's a little harsh.
SPEAKER_1: It does not have compassion towards something, maybe.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like, yeah, I think it's just kind of a general...
SPEAKER_2: What's more interesting is that she's like...
SPEAKER_1: What if the flaw is never backs down or like always doubles down?
SPEAKER_2: That's kind of chronically overextends.
SPEAKER_2: I'm thinking about this in terms of like, does not think about other people unless she has to.
SPEAKER_2: I'm trying to think of what I want to focus this on.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Because this also is stuff that could come up during the duel, you know?
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: It is actively going to come up during the duel.
SPEAKER_2: Actively going to come up during the duel.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like, oh, it's...
SPEAKER_2: Oh, maybe something about collateral damage.
SPEAKER_1: People are best used for collateral damage.
SPEAKER_2: That's, I think, too harsh.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's more like, almost does not notice.
SPEAKER_2: Does not notice collateral damage.
SPEAKER_1: Has, I don't know if there's a better wording for this, but I feel, I guess, oblivious.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe single-minded.
SPEAKER_2: I think single-minded is right, which is singularly focused on one thing.
SPEAKER_2: It gets very invested in one thing.
SPEAKER_1: What are synonyms for focused?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, single-minded is what this thing is.
SPEAKER_2: Having or concentrating on only one aim or purpose.
SPEAKER_2: Conceited.
SPEAKER_2: Is that your flaw?
SPEAKER_1: No, I'm just looking.
SPEAKER_2: Are you describing me?
SPEAKER_2: Because that's all such, that's definitely true.
SPEAKER_1: Ooh, though I am going to take this other word, which is direct.
SPEAKER_1: That is my flaw.
SPEAKER_1: I'm direct.
SPEAKER_1: No, I don't want to make the same character as you.
SPEAKER_2: I think there's a difference.
SPEAKER_2: I'm blunt.
SPEAKER_2: Is it blunt?
SPEAKER_1: Actually, my flaw is compassionate.
SPEAKER_2: Ooh, that's fun.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Something that can be used against me during a duel, for example.
SPEAKER_1: I'm still not sure what I am.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe I...
SPEAKER_1: The thing about government stories or royal or anything like that is, my go-to is, what if we just burn the whole thing down?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I understand.
SPEAKER_2: I get it.
SPEAKER_2: Listen, I get it.
SPEAKER_2: Every time I watch anything to do with royalty or monarchy, or really government even, there's one part of my brain that's like, ooh, cool, and another part of my brain that goes, ah, I want to destroy the whole fucking thing.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want to go too deep into this question, but is the government of our Rock Atlantis hierarchical?
SPEAKER_1: Is it like, is it a monarchy?
SPEAKER_1: Is it a, does it have a leader?
SPEAKER_1: Does it have an elected leader?
SPEAKER_1: Does it have leaders, a council, a table?
SPEAKER_2: A thing that we could totally do here is like, completely separate ourselves from the governance.
SPEAKER_2: I can totally see this character being a noble, but not actually caring at all about the government.
SPEAKER_1: What if it was a book club?
SPEAKER_2: A book club.
SPEAKER_2: Huh.
SPEAKER_1: What if you stole my book club?
SPEAKER_2: Oh my god.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: It should be so, yes.
SPEAKER_2: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_2: Gotta be petty.
SPEAKER_2: Like this is not, this is not our big, like, magnum opus about, like, oh, the government structures of monarchy.
SPEAKER_2: Nah, this is about a book club.
SPEAKER_1: This is about a book club.
SPEAKER_2: This is about, like...
SPEAKER_1: I was, like, planning to bring this book for three months because it, like, there was a big book we were reading.
SPEAKER_1: It took a long time.
SPEAKER_1: I was very excited to bring this book.
SPEAKER_1: And then you came in, you were like, well, what about this one?
SPEAKER_1: And everyone got really excited.
SPEAKER_1: And I was like, oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, we can do that.
SPEAKER_1: And then you just kept coming with more suggestions.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: And I knew you had this book to present.
SPEAKER_2: And I told you about it.
SPEAKER_1: What if you like stole my book idea even?
SPEAKER_1: Like I had a thing and I like shared it with you.
SPEAKER_1: I was like, oh, welcome.
SPEAKER_1: Like I brought you into the book club.
SPEAKER_1: And you were like, oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_1: And then I like shared.
SPEAKER_1: I was like, oh, yeah, I've been really currently.
SPEAKER_1: We're just reading this.
SPEAKER_1: It's going to take us a while.
SPEAKER_1: But like, I'm really excited to share this book.
SPEAKER_1: And you're like, oh, wow.
SPEAKER_1: And then like you just fucking steal it from me and presented us your own idea.
SPEAKER_2: I feel like this character is would just be like, well, I have to find the perfect book to counter this.
SPEAKER_2: This, but people are going to like the pitch more.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, God.
SPEAKER_2: Like would not do the exact book, but would be like, oh, yeah, that sounds interesting.
SPEAKER_2: This one has like that, but it's vampires.
SPEAKER_1: This one has like one more star on the rating system.
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: It has one more rock.
SPEAKER_1: We rate things in rocks.
SPEAKER_2: God, the idea that this is what a book club is so funny to me.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, book club Rock Atlantis.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, it's so perfect.
SPEAKER_2: So mine is an Atlantean noble who pushed your character out of a book club.
SPEAKER_1: Mine is once the leader of a book club.
SPEAKER_1: Now, question mark?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if I stayed at the book club.
SPEAKER_1: I guess I have to have.
SPEAKER_2: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_2: Who says this could have started because of a book club, but it's not still about a book club.
SPEAKER_2: Like, this could be a constantly increasing, like a constantly evolving series of clubs.
SPEAKER_2: And anytime you join a club, I just come and join and try to show you up.
SPEAKER_1: The thing is, like, it's not that I join clubs, it's that I keep making clubs and then, like, I'm too polite to say no to you.
SPEAKER_2: So yeah, there's no way that we can actually...
SPEAKER_1: Oh, that's my flaw.
SPEAKER_1: I'm overly polite, overly polite.
SPEAKER_1: Can't say no.
SPEAKER_2: God, I love it.
SPEAKER_1: Once the leader of a book club keeps making new clubs, keeps making new clubs, and it's like I had a book club, I have film club, like, I even made an anime club, and like your character probably didn't know anything about anime, but like found the like one popular anime, also rock anime, and I love that everything is like, yeah, these are the books that Rock Atlantis reads.
SPEAKER_1: This is the movies that Rock Atlantis watches.
SPEAKER_1: Damn, these movies rock.
SPEAKER_2: These movies rock.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that I can think of here is that like, I have vast resources.
SPEAKER_2: That is one of my, I guess it's not a benefit, but like my motivation, but I like, I think about this.
SPEAKER_1: You're motivated to spend.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: Investment, you're a venture capitalist, and you want to invest in all the clubs that I'm running, which is, oh, I just want to invest in all the, you have such great ideas.
SPEAKER_1: I just want to make sure that they get lifted off the ground, you know, really taken to their, what they really could be.
SPEAKER_2: I think like the motivation, one of the motivations here is kind of, one of the motivations, yes, okay.
SPEAKER_2: Here's the third motivation.
SPEAKER_2: And I think we can, maybe we should cap it three each, but my third motivation is knowing everything, the best.
SPEAKER_1: God, I think I'm going to take the motivation.
SPEAKER_1: Media connoisseur?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, media connoisseur.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know how to spell connoisseur.
SPEAKER_1: Connoisseur, thank you Google.
SPEAKER_1: I don't understand either, thank you phone.
SPEAKER_2: What is my other flaw?
SPEAKER_1: So you follow me club to club.
SPEAKER_1: What if your biggest flaw is like your...
SPEAKER_2: Lack of secure identity.
SPEAKER_1: I was going to be like lack of being subtle.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_1: Like after the fourth club, it's like, okay, but maybe you're not hiding this, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like maybe we're friends, but like we're rivals.
SPEAKER_2: My question then becomes, is that a flaw?
SPEAKER_1: No, well, yes and no.
SPEAKER_1: Like technically, mechanically, a flaw is just something I will use against you in a duel.
SPEAKER_2: How about, let's go with, I'm more interested in the like, the fact that I don't have a personality outside of like trying to...
SPEAKER_1: You can only find a personality in the media that you consume.
SPEAKER_1: You become like hyper fixated on the characters in whatever we are watching, reading.
SPEAKER_2: I don't even think that's the case though.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like, her personality is tied to you in a really significant way.
SPEAKER_1: And like a really un-
SPEAKER_1: like, unhealthy way.
SPEAKER_1: Unhealthy, thank you.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think like lack of secure identity is probably the way to frame this.
SPEAKER_1: What is my...
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so my flaws right now are horny, compassionate and overly polite.
SPEAKER_1: And my motivations are horny, media connoisseur.
SPEAKER_1: And I need one more.
SPEAKER_1: I think my motivation is independence.
SPEAKER_1: Day.
SPEAKER_2: Nice.
SPEAKER_1: I want to make sure that the aliens come.
SPEAKER_2: Nice.
SPEAKER_2: And alright, I'm gonna look at names.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, okay, I've got it.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, yeah, I know what my name is.
SPEAKER_1: What's your name?
SPEAKER_2: My name is, of course, Paul the test pinnacle.
SPEAKER_1: That's great.
SPEAKER_1: You want to know what my name is?
SPEAKER_1: It's just coal.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, no last name.
SPEAKER_1: No, I'm just coal.
SPEAKER_2: Nice.
SPEAKER_1: I think I've made out of coal.
SPEAKER_2: Love it.
SPEAKER_2: I'm definitely like, like I would.
SPEAKER_2: It's at least some sort of volcanic rock.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like we are all made from volcano.
SPEAKER_2: Like my main thought here would have been marble, but we're all made of whatever rock we want.
SPEAKER_1: Like, who knows?
SPEAKER_1: We are an advanced.
SPEAKER_2: What's ryo light?
SPEAKER_2: So might be ryo light.
SPEAKER_2: That might be the thing that I'm thinking here.
SPEAKER_2: It's a cool, like lighter ryo light.
SPEAKER_1: Cole uses they them pronouns.
SPEAKER_2: I'm she her.
SPEAKER_2: Politesis, she her.
SPEAKER_1: Politesis.
SPEAKER_1: You might as well just name your character politics.
SPEAKER_2: Actually, politesis means formal politeness.
SPEAKER_2: My name basically means the pinnacle of politeness.
SPEAKER_1: You want to know what my name means, Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: What's it mean?
SPEAKER_1: It means I'm a fucking rock.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_1: I think we know who our doulas are.
SPEAKER_1: We know where they are.
SPEAKER_2: I guess.
SPEAKER_1: Where do we see them and the time scale?
SPEAKER_1: Is it the various clubs?
SPEAKER_1: Is that the playing field that we're going to be looking at?
SPEAKER_2: Imagine a university, but if a university was a palace, in terms of there are a bunch of rooms in which the different clubs are in.
SPEAKER_2: Everything is just taking place in...
SPEAKER_2: I don't want to just limit us to the rooms.
SPEAKER_2: I think this is like this wing of the palace with rooms that you can book for various clubs.
SPEAKER_1: From students?
SPEAKER_2: We could be.
SPEAKER_2: We totally could be.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe some sort of private tutorship university.
SPEAKER_1: It could be a high school.
SPEAKER_2: God.
SPEAKER_1: It's a boarding school.
SPEAKER_2: It could be a boarding school.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that I want to play a teenager.
SPEAKER_1: Rock teenager?
SPEAKER_1: Different than a human teenager.
SPEAKER_1: Who knows what the education system is, right?
SPEAKER_1: You take it at your own pace.
SPEAKER_1: This education system rocks.
SPEAKER_1: That's not going to be the last time I make that joke, nor is it even the first time.
SPEAKER_2: I can totally imagine this being a university with the energy of a high school.
SPEAKER_1: Thinking about what an education system could be like, right?
SPEAKER_1: What if it's just an open resource center, but clubs are still a thing?
SPEAKER_1: Schools and universities have clubs, but it's sort of like an opener.
SPEAKER_1: I was going to say opener.
SPEAKER_1: It's more open.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that I think about here is because this is almost certainly a school for nobles and is focused on those sorts of people, they have a lot more resources than a regular university.
SPEAKER_2: So of course they have extra rooms.
SPEAKER_1: So it is like the private version of the open to the public.
SPEAKER_1: Like, it takes that concept and then it goes, yes, but what if we made the elite version of this?
SPEAKER_2: AKA universities for most of history.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: So we're making...
SPEAKER_2: This is, yeah.
SPEAKER_1: What if we're making post-university?
SPEAKER_1: Not post-secondary.
SPEAKER_1: We're making post-university.
SPEAKER_1: You just sort of like hang out and get knowledge or like go to clubs, like...
SPEAKER_2: There is something very Greek about this.
SPEAKER_2: This is like, it feels like this is the kind of like environment of kind of...
SPEAKER_1: You just go and lounge and read and learn.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and you're like, it's like philosopher's school.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: Like, that is the vibe here for sure.
SPEAKER_2: It's a post-university philosopher's school, with a wing that you can just book rooms for clubs.
SPEAKER_1: Because why else are we consuming media?
SPEAKER_1: Why else do I keep making these clubs for like different ways to learn things?
SPEAKER_1: Because, you know, what better way is there than to philosophize these different things, right?
SPEAKER_1: We talk about these books.
SPEAKER_2: Are these all media clubs?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I think like if my character is creating them, yes, it is like it is there's a book club.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe there's like five book clubs at this point, right?
SPEAKER_1: But one of them is like Gothic literature book club.
SPEAKER_1: One of them is like whatever the equivalent to queer theory, but for rocks is a book club.
SPEAKER_2: Rocks can be queer.
SPEAKER_1: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: This is my gay rock.
SPEAKER_2: Rocks can be fucking gay, dude.
SPEAKER_1: My rock does not subscribe to the idea of a binary gender system.
SPEAKER_2: I want us to say it doesn't have to exclusively be media clubs because I can totally imagine a way this game goes being like, it's all about media until it is about fencing.
SPEAKER_1: I was literally going to be like, well, maybe just like one week I'm running a fencing club, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like, maybe the clubs don't even last that long, right?
SPEAKER_2: They're just like...
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, no, like I totally, I totally envision this as like, these are like, oh yeah, we come to this club and we get maybe a couple of meetings in before it falls apart because of me.
SPEAKER_1: Going back to like, I guess Touchstones, like a lot of my Touchstones are maybe a little too anime, but like Auron High School Host Club was like something from like long ago that they had a bunch of different clubs.
SPEAKER_1: Literally, they just had a, like, they were a host club, but they did like different club things and they tried out different club things, if I'm remembering it right, but also that's basically what we're doing, except better with rocks and we're going from club to club.
SPEAKER_2: So it's basically Auron, what was it?
SPEAKER_1: Auron High School Host Club.
SPEAKER_2: Auron High School Host Club crossed with Emma in Atlantis with rock people.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, this is great.
SPEAKER_1: This is a good piece of media right here.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, so I think that's the stage.
SPEAKER_1: It's like this palace, this castle, that these different like philosophy adjacent.
SPEAKER_1: It's not even philosophy.
SPEAKER_1: It's just like whatever you can philosophize, which is just to say everything.
SPEAKER_1: Type of club.
SPEAKER_1: It's like, how do you justify making like a throwing paint at a wall club?
SPEAKER_1: Well, we want to see, you know, the effects of the psyche, looking at different shades on different textures of walls and, you know, bullshit like that.
SPEAKER_1: What is the time scale?
SPEAKER_1: We're rocks, so like it could be centuries, but I don't think it is.
SPEAKER_2: No, I think of this time scale as very much being like, time's probably weird here, but maybe months, right?
SPEAKER_2: Maybe a few months.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_1: That feels right.
SPEAKER_2: I think there aren't really seasons here in the same way there are above the water, but if there were seasons, it would be the summer option.
SPEAKER_1: Depending how far down we are, right?
SPEAKER_1: Because technically, oh shit, are we bioluminescent?
SPEAKER_1: This is incredibly unimportant, but are we super deep down, right?
SPEAKER_1: Because at some point, sunlight no longer reaches a certain level of the ocean, but a lot of species become bioluminescent.
SPEAKER_2: I think of, I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: What if just moss grows on us and it glows?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think there's some people who are bioluminescent, and I don't know that everyone is.
SPEAKER_1: You can get the moss installed if you want.
SPEAKER_1: How does a rock get a tattoo?
SPEAKER_1: Well, you get moss on you instead, and it looks like a cool dragon.
SPEAKER_1: What's a dragon?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: It's just a cool, weird land creature.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I don't know that my character would want moss on her, but...
SPEAKER_1: Cole absolutely has moss tattoos.
SPEAKER_2: Nice.
SPEAKER_1: They really like their moss tattoos.
SPEAKER_2: I like that.
SPEAKER_1: They have a flower.
SPEAKER_1: They don't know what a flower is.
SPEAKER_1: They read about what a flower was one time.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think that there is a little bit of light.
SPEAKER_2: I think most light comes from within this kind of society.
SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of bioluminescent stuff and a lot of just like...
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I mean, we probably use it for whatever the Frick street lamps or whatever our lights are.
SPEAKER_1: Basically bioluminescent powered, which is a fun little touch.
SPEAKER_1: Now we pick one special each.
SPEAKER_2: Can we maybe quickly go over how the game itself is played?
SPEAKER_2: I just want to basically lay out what a duel is.
SPEAKER_2: So with duels, it says, Your goal is to make your opponent forfeit the duel or make them pay a high price for their victory.
SPEAKER_2: Players draw up to their maximum hand size.
SPEAKER_2: At the start of the game, this is five cards.
SPEAKER_2: Keep your hands secret.
SPEAKER_2: Dueling is about bluffing and strategy.
SPEAKER_2: Once each player has their hand, draw a card to determine the stakes and spoils for the duel.
SPEAKER_2: I admit, I've skimmed the kind of actual play mechanics.
SPEAKER_1: I read it and I had questions.
SPEAKER_1: I was like, does this seem like it makes sense?
SPEAKER_1: But I feel like to see if it does make sense, we'll have to play a little bit of it first.
SPEAKER_1: So over a period of time, we're going to go through a series of duels and then downtime and back to duels and switching between those two.
SPEAKER_1: Each duel has its own stakes.
SPEAKER_1: At the beginning of a duel, I believe we have a stakes card.
SPEAKER_1: For example, some stakes might be status or renown amongst peers or claim to valuable territory or turf.
SPEAKER_1: The stakes sort of describe how the story is going to go.
SPEAKER_1: Narratively, it gives us a direction.
SPEAKER_1: But then there's spoils, which is a mechanical thing we gain from a duel.
SPEAKER_1: There are two types of tracks.
SPEAKER_1: There's a victory track and a reconciliation track.
SPEAKER_1: Once we go through the six duels, each duel might put a point in reconciliation or one of our individual victory tracks, or we might gain a new special.
SPEAKER_1: And specials are abilities that we have.
SPEAKER_1: We can use our specials against each other as we duel, and specials in turn can become spent.
SPEAKER_1: Right now, we each start off with one special.
SPEAKER_1: There's also reprisals.
SPEAKER_1: Reprisals happen as a result of the outcome of duels, either during play or at the end of a duel.
SPEAKER_1: Reprisals can do anything from permanently remove one of your rival's specials or permanently reduce your rival's maximum hand size by one.
SPEAKER_1: Do we just draw between duels?
SPEAKER_1: Do we draw back up to five?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, the structure is every duel you draw up to your current maximum hand size.
SPEAKER_2: I need to choose a special.
SPEAKER_1: So which one are you taking?
SPEAKER_2: I'm taking Always Prepared.
SPEAKER_2: Start the next duel with one extra card.
SPEAKER_2: After drawing, you may discard up to three cards and draw three replacements.
SPEAKER_1: I was thinking about which one you would take the other day, and I was like, all according to plan feels very much like a move you would take.
SPEAKER_2: That is the move I would take.
SPEAKER_2: The one that Paula Tess takes is basically just trying to like start out with such good odds that you don't have to like think strategically.
SPEAKER_1: Just to read out, all according to plan, the one that I said I thought Brianna would take is when you win a duel and explain how you set up a plan to turn your rivals' motivations against them, play a face card from your hand to replace the suit of the duel's spoils.
SPEAKER_1: You basically control what the spoils of the duel are.
SPEAKER_2: And the most important thing about that is of course the monologue.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, you do have to monologue.
SPEAKER_1: That is important.
SPEAKER_1: I'm gonna take all of according to plan, I think.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_1: So now we move on to playing, I believe.
SPEAKER_1: Now that you have the stage of your conflict and your duel is defined, it's time to start playing.
SPEAKER_1: Play starts with your first duel, then follows the timeline on the conflict sheet, which I guess we will just be going through.
SPEAKER_1: Use details you have established in the conflict sheet and duelist sheets to set the scene for your first duel.
SPEAKER_1: Then it is time to engage your opponent.
SPEAKER_1: We start with duels.
SPEAKER_1: Your goal is to make your opponent forfeit the duel, or make them pay a high price for their victory.
SPEAKER_1: Players draw up to their maximum hand size.
SPEAKER_1: At the beginning of the start of the game, this is five cards.
SPEAKER_1: Keep your hands secret.
SPEAKER_1: Dueling is about bluffing and strategy.
SPEAKER_1: Once each player has their hand, draw a card to determine the stakes and spoils.
SPEAKER_1: So, let's draw some cards into our hands.
SPEAKER_2: If I'm reading mine correctly, my special, do I start this round with six instead of five?
SPEAKER_1: I think if you started with it, then yes.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, you start with six.
SPEAKER_1: Alright, let's put one card here.
SPEAKER_1: So, we start with diamonds.
SPEAKER_1: So, the stakes of the first duel are nine, sorry.
SPEAKER_1: VIP status at a social event or diplomatic negotiation.
SPEAKER_1: It's obviously a social event.
SPEAKER_1: Is it like a party for all the club leaders?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: And it's like who gets to be in charge of organizing the party?
SPEAKER_2: So, this is a committee meeting for organizing the party of club leaders.
SPEAKER_1: Or even not just a committee meeting.
SPEAKER_1: It's like what we are doing to gain, I guess, votes to support us as party planner for this club party, I guess.
SPEAKER_2: This could be about credit.
SPEAKER_2: We could all be at the meeting together, but this is about who people will say put it together.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I see, I see.
SPEAKER_2: Technically, we're all organizers.
SPEAKER_1: This is like the leaders of the clubs coming together to put on an event for all of the clubs.
SPEAKER_1: And you're the leader of various clubs now that I have now left behind, and I am the leader of whatever my newest club is.
SPEAKER_1: So we're both on this leaders of the clubs committee.
SPEAKER_2: And then the spoil, because it's diamonds, is either a point to victory or a point to reconciliation.
SPEAKER_1: Cool.
SPEAKER_1: Players each flip a card from the deck.
SPEAKER_1: The player with the highest card chooses who attacks first.
SPEAKER_1: If it's a tie, draw again until one player has a higher card.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: And?
SPEAKER_1: Ah, so you get to choose who goes first.
SPEAKER_2: This character is definitely one who attacks first.
SPEAKER_1: You don't hesitate.
SPEAKER_2: Is there a specific way in which I describe my attack?
SPEAKER_2: I just say my attack.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: As a defender, I get a choice in how I am defending against your attack.
SPEAKER_1: But you, as the attacker, are just attacking me.
SPEAKER_1: The attacker plays a card face down and describes their attack, what they say, how they strike, what they are aiming for.
SPEAKER_1: How are you attacking me?
SPEAKER_1: Are we in the committee room?
SPEAKER_1: Is it just like a lounge room?
SPEAKER_1: Like it's just one of these rooms in this castle?
SPEAKER_2: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_2: It's one of the rooms in this castle.
SPEAKER_2: Very high ceilings, very like, you know, very pretty chairs.
SPEAKER_1: What's the color like Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: So it's obviously stone.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like the kind of dark volcanic stone, but with like kind of gold accents.
SPEAKER_1: And we still have like the the nice like soft greens and blues of like bioluminescent like lamps, I guess.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, there's an alternative version of this where it's just Emma, but the walls are glowing.
SPEAKER_1: I really need to watch this movie.
SPEAKER_1: Apparently we're just recreating Emma underwater.
SPEAKER_1: The sequel to Emma, Emma Underwater.
SPEAKER_2: I like this.
SPEAKER_2: I liked this movie so much.
SPEAKER_2: This is the problem.
SPEAKER_2: Imagine this this image, but the walls are just glowing.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, that's so good.
SPEAKER_1: What did you Google to find that?
SPEAKER_2: I Googled Emma 2020 set design, and it's habitually chic.
SPEAKER_2: A look at the Emma film location, Feral Place.
SPEAKER_2: It's basically any of the images in Emma where you see the light blue walls with the white trim.
SPEAKER_2: There's like a grandfather clock in this image, but this is kind of the vibe that I've actually decided to go for.
SPEAKER_1: But instead of a blue and a white, it's like a dark black and a gold.
SPEAKER_2: It could be, but I'm almost more interested now in the bioluminescent walls.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I see what you mean.
SPEAKER_1: Instead of just blue, it's like glowing blue walls.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_1: That's great.
SPEAKER_2: And I think we are like assembled in kind of like a circular formation, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's a circle around in the room.
SPEAKER_2: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: Paulites says, well, I am so excited that we are doing this.
SPEAKER_2: I can't wait to host this party.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's going to be a really good time, a great time for us to all get to know each other really well, to recruit new members to the club.
SPEAKER_2: And of course, my father's parlor room, of course, will be the perfect location to host an event like this.
SPEAKER_2: So of course, I will be hosting it.
SPEAKER_2: That's the way that I'm attacking.
SPEAKER_1: You're just assuming you're already hosting it.
SPEAKER_1: Got it.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Great.
SPEAKER_1: So as a defender, I can choose one of the following.
SPEAKER_1: I can choose to block, endure or concede.
SPEAKER_1: And so if I choose to block, I would play a card from my hand face down and describe how I block, evade or nullify the attack.
SPEAKER_1: After that, we would both flip our cards.
SPEAKER_1: The highest value would win.
SPEAKER_1: And the defender wins the tie.
SPEAKER_1: Aces count as one.
SPEAKER_1: That's very important.
SPEAKER_1: Aces are low.
SPEAKER_1: Unless modified by a special.
SPEAKER_1: There's an ability that neither of us have that changes that.
SPEAKER_1: If the attacker wins, which would be you right now, they would eliminate one of my reprisals from my sheet based on the suit of the card that you played.
SPEAKER_1: And if I win, if the defender wins, then my reprisal is not eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: And we would basically just move on to me attacking you.
SPEAKER_1: If I choose to endure, I would not play a card.
SPEAKER_1: And instead, I would describe how I weather the storm of the attack and accept to have one of my reprisals eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: Or my third option is to concede.
SPEAKER_1: The defender yields to the attacker, forfeiting the duel.
SPEAKER_1: And the attacker wins the stakes and spoils, but may suffer a reprisal from the defender.
SPEAKER_1: So mechanically what that looks like is you would resolve the stakes and spoils.
SPEAKER_1: I would, out of my remaining cards from my hand, you would select one of my cards.
SPEAKER_1: And then if the card that you select from my hand is a reprisal that has not been eliminated, then you would suffer that.
SPEAKER_1: The only thing that I would have a question is like, do I get to pick which one or do you get to pick which one?
SPEAKER_1: Because there are two reprisals for every suit.
SPEAKER_1: There's two for hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs.
SPEAKER_1: After that though, the last step of that would be all the cards are discarded and we would continue to the next step.
SPEAKER_1: After a duel comes passing time, which are little scenes.
SPEAKER_1: The last thing, if the duel is not over after either blocking, enduring or conceding, then the play cards are discarded and the defender becomes the attacker and the process starts over.
SPEAKER_1: So we're just basically going to take turns sniping at each other.
SPEAKER_2: And that's the duels.
SPEAKER_1: So you have assumed that you are just going to do this.
SPEAKER_1: Let's just start off.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to block.
SPEAKER_1: So I played my card face down and I'm going to describe how I block or evade or nullify the attack.
SPEAKER_1: And I think Cole is just going to look at you and go, I thought we already had a room planned for this and we haven't decided who's hosting this.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we can just see how this goes and reveal our cards.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you win that one.
SPEAKER_2: So you got a queen, I got a seven for the audience.
SPEAKER_1: So because the defender wins, my reprisal is not eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: So nothing really happens right now.
SPEAKER_2: You know, we should have done before jumping into this has gone over our sheets again.
SPEAKER_1: We can do that now.
SPEAKER_2: My character is Politesse Pinnacle.
SPEAKER_2: She, her pronouns, her motivations are for a true challenge to be adored and to know everything the best.
SPEAKER_2: Her flaws are that she chronically overextends.
SPEAKER_2: She is single minded and she has a lack of secure identity.
SPEAKER_2: And she is an Atlantean noble who pushed Cole out of their book club.
SPEAKER_2: And her special ability is always repaired.
SPEAKER_2: Start the next duel with one extra card.
SPEAKER_2: After drawing, you may discard up to three cards and draw three replacements.
SPEAKER_1: I am playing Cole, they them.
SPEAKER_1: My motivations are horny, media connoisseur and independence.
SPEAKER_1: Look, Brianna, you can't laugh every time it comes up.
SPEAKER_1: You can.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just going to make fun of you.
SPEAKER_1: My flaws are also horny, compassionate and overly polite, aka can't say no.
SPEAKER_1: The description I've put down is once the leader of a book club keeps making new clubs, is made out of coal and has moss tattoos that glow.
SPEAKER_1: So I guess I win.
SPEAKER_1: So like, is it just...
SPEAKER_1: I'm just like, I don't want to step on any toes.
SPEAKER_1: I just think that maybe we should follow what we already had planned.
SPEAKER_1: Just seems like less work, maybe.
SPEAKER_1: And then I guess it's my turn to attack.
SPEAKER_2: I think if she has any responses, it's just like, oh, of course, of course.
SPEAKER_2: What happens to me if I lose this?
SPEAKER_1: If the defender wins on a block, nothing happens to the attacker.
SPEAKER_1: So I am going to attack you.
SPEAKER_2: How are you attacking me?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if Cole, like, aims to be in charge.
SPEAKER_1: I think maybe...
SPEAKER_1: Do you think Cole would, like, win the popular vote if left to their own devices?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, if left to your own devices, like if I didn't interfere?
SPEAKER_1: Yes, that is what I mean.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, I think that that's absolutely true.
SPEAKER_1: Then I think the attack that I'm going to make is...
SPEAKER_1: Well, I'm very excited for this too.
SPEAKER_1: I know we all are.
SPEAKER_1: I think that it's best if we focus our attention on working together, and we'll let the representative body decide who needs to step up this year.
SPEAKER_1: In the meantime, I think we all just really need to pull together and do our best.
SPEAKER_1: And I guess I'll play a card.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think I'm going to block in this case.
SPEAKER_2: I think she says, you know what, Cole, I think that that is a great idea.
SPEAKER_2: And I'm so excited to coordinate the committee.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, I think everyone should totally participate.
SPEAKER_2: And I think it's totally a good idea.
SPEAKER_2: You know what?
SPEAKER_2: Let's start.
SPEAKER_2: I'll start assigning people to things.
SPEAKER_1: You won.
SPEAKER_1: This game is all about bluffing.
SPEAKER_1: So I have played a two and Brianna played an eight.
SPEAKER_2: And I played an eight.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, Brianna won very easily.
SPEAKER_1: So the interesting thing, right, is we only have five cards in it.
SPEAKER_1: Well, you have six.
SPEAKER_1: That's the interesting thing I didn't think about.
SPEAKER_2: That is the interesting thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_1: I didn't think about how powerful that ability was until just now.
SPEAKER_1: Because I can run out of cards before you.
SPEAKER_2: It's true, you super can.
SPEAKER_2: I think I block that specifically in that way.
SPEAKER_2: And I think my attack is what I absolutely do, because I am always prepared, is I produce a clipboard with a list of positions on it.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, good.
SPEAKER_2: And start to circulate it around.
SPEAKER_2: And of course, written as head organizer is already my name.
SPEAKER_2: God, you're so not subtle.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I love this.
SPEAKER_2: What do you want from me?
SPEAKER_1: I just I love it because like playing out, you were like, oh, I'll take charge.
SPEAKER_2: And I was like, oh, no.
SPEAKER_2: What if we work together?
SPEAKER_1: And you were like, oh, yes, let's all work together.
SPEAKER_1: So I made this thing and I put myself in charge.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: I played my card.
SPEAKER_2: How are you going to respond?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I guess just to like demonstrate the mechanics of this game, I'm going to pick Endure.
SPEAKER_1: So I don't play a card.
SPEAKER_1: Instead, I describe how I weather the storm of the attack and accept one of the reprisals to be eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: So you get to eliminate one of my reprisals.
SPEAKER_1: They're all open.
SPEAKER_1: We haven't we haven't done any of them, but it does match the suit of the card you played.
SPEAKER_2: Of course, I did play a king of clubs.
SPEAKER_1: So are you getting rid of your rival may not attack first in the next duel or your rival must show you two of the cards in their hands at the start of the next duel?
SPEAKER_1: Just to be clear, I can't do this to you.
SPEAKER_2: You cannot make me show you two of my cards.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_1: And I think how I'm doing that is I think I'm just smiling as you're passing this out.
SPEAKER_1: And I say, oh, this is very organized.
SPEAKER_1: This is so nice.
SPEAKER_1: I'm glad that you had the time to do this.
SPEAKER_1: I hope it didn't take too long.
SPEAKER_1: I am happy to talk about these positions.
SPEAKER_1: I really think we need to focus on what events should take place.
SPEAKER_1: And I think we can come up with a lot of these ideas together.
SPEAKER_1: I don't mean to make you feel like you've wasted your time.
SPEAKER_1: I just think more heads are better than one, you know?
SPEAKER_1: And so that's my attack.
SPEAKER_1: I am saying we're just going to fucking ignore your thing that you've just passed out.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to endure this one.
SPEAKER_1: I have played the Seven of Diamonds.
SPEAKER_1: So I'm going to eliminate.
SPEAKER_2: Your choices are your rival may not recover any specials before the end of the next duel or permanently remove one of your rivals specials.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to choose you can't permanently remove one of my specials.
SPEAKER_1: So now it is your turn.
SPEAKER_1: I was a little unconvinced at first, but now I see the mechanics of this and I like this.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, this makes sense and is good.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: Now I'm on the attack.
SPEAKER_2: And I think the way that I endure that is just by going, you know what, Cole, you think so smartly about all of these things.
SPEAKER_2: You know, I really appreciate this thought process.
SPEAKER_2: I think in order to, of course, come up with the events, I think I'll just start us out.
SPEAKER_2: And I think the main event should be a dance, of course.
SPEAKER_2: And that can be kind of the main event there.
SPEAKER_2: What are you, how are you responding?
SPEAKER_1: I might pick Concede just to sort of demonstrate the game.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: And also, like, I don't think Cole would be opposed to a dance.
SPEAKER_1: Like, I don't think that's the, I don't think that's the worst thing to lose at.
SPEAKER_1: You would be in charge of the dance.
SPEAKER_1: In fact, like, out of character, I was kind of thinking it was a dance.
SPEAKER_1: So I think I am happy to concede.
SPEAKER_1: So on a concede, the attacker resolves the stakes and spoils.
SPEAKER_1: So I guess tell us how it goes.
SPEAKER_2: How the event goes?
SPEAKER_1: I guess so, right?
SPEAKER_1: Because you get VIP status.
SPEAKER_1: You are in charge of this event, it ends up.
SPEAKER_1: Like, even though you're not officially in charge, because, like, we're all in this together, yada, yada, yada, you ended up putting together the dance.
SPEAKER_2: I think I know exactly how to demonstrate this in the most fun way possible, which is the dance, it goes, it goes extremely well.
SPEAKER_2: And of course, it is in the middle of the dance that I've asked you to dance with me for.
SPEAKER_2: When they, of course, reveal whatever the Atlantean, like, rock equivalent prom queen to be.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, it's the Rockefeller.
SPEAKER_2: The Rockefeller.
SPEAKER_2: And of course, they reveal that I am the Rockefeller while we are dancing.
SPEAKER_1: We're dancing and I guess like my grip tightens just a little, but then I like loosen up.
SPEAKER_1: I'm like, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you.
SPEAKER_2: It's so perfect.
SPEAKER_2: So I'm going to, because this is diamonds as the spoils, I'm going to choose a point to victory for me.
SPEAKER_1: So I hold out my remaining cards, aka I will tell you that I have two cards in my hand left and you would pick one.
SPEAKER_2: I'll choose one.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_2: Fuck.
SPEAKER_1: So it was picked the three of diamonds.
SPEAKER_1: So I get to permanently remove one of your specials, or I can say that you can't recover any specials before the end of the next duel, which I think I'm going to do.
SPEAKER_1: You can't recover your special this round.
SPEAKER_1: So I'm going to mark that as used.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: So my special does not apply this round.
SPEAKER_1: So I think we start the next thing on the timeline, which is a passing time.
SPEAKER_1: Passing time is the preparation and recover between duels.
SPEAKER_1: We each get one of four choices.
SPEAKER_1: And those four choices are to show a vignette of your duelist licking their wounds and recovering any reprisals that may have not been permanently eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: Or, option two, show a vignette of your duelist gathering their resources and recover one spent special, which is what I made you unable to do.
SPEAKER_1: Or, the third option, show your duelist researching or practicing their strategies and discard as many cards as you like and draw the same amount of cards.
SPEAKER_1: Finally, show how your duelist saps their rival's resources and make them discard up to two of their cards.
SPEAKER_1: I have a question.
SPEAKER_1: When do we redraw?
SPEAKER_2: I think we redraw at the beginning of every duel.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_1: I see.
SPEAKER_1: That's why it's up to two cards.
SPEAKER_1: I was a little confused on the final thing about passing time because I thought the final thing about making your opponent discard two of their cards was to make your opponent have less cards at the start of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: It's not.
SPEAKER_1: It's just to force your opponent, if they were hanging on to good cards, to get rid of those cards.
SPEAKER_1: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first in our passing time?
SPEAKER_2: Why don't you go first?
SPEAKER_1: So I think for my passing time, I'm going to show a vignette of my duelists licking their wounds and recover any reprisals that have not been permanently eliminated.
SPEAKER_1: So I'm gonna reset my reprisal of your rival must show you two cards in their hand at the start of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: And I think what this is, I think it's just me having fun at the party.
SPEAKER_1: Like I think you throw a good party and I think I enjoyed myself.
SPEAKER_1: And I think the next day it's like I have, I think it's Quiet Club.
SPEAKER_1: I think this week I'm in charge of Quiet Club where we all just sit in a room and we try to be as quiet as possible.
SPEAKER_1: I've invented libraries.
SPEAKER_2: I love it.
SPEAKER_1: It's very nice and quiet and it's like a good time to just think to myself after a very loud and chaotic party.
SPEAKER_2: I think mine is similar.
SPEAKER_2: I think mine is recovering reprisals.
SPEAKER_2: I can't recover specials.
SPEAKER_2: My kind of wound here is that I can't be prepared this next time.
SPEAKER_2: And so I think what it actually is, is I didn't show up to Quiet Club because I was at home sleeping because I was so hung over.
SPEAKER_2: It's basically just me sleeping for a whole day.
SPEAKER_2: The version of this I'm imagining is you sitting in Quiet Club and all of you like...
SPEAKER_2: And it just cuts to me.
SPEAKER_2: Just face down in my bed.
SPEAKER_2: Like not...
SPEAKER_2: Covers are not on top of me.
SPEAKER_2: It's just me flat on the bed.
SPEAKER_2: And then cuts back to you.
SPEAKER_2: It's that.
SPEAKER_1: It's great.
SPEAKER_1: Following the timeline, the next thing that we do is a duel.
SPEAKER_1: So first thing we do is we draw up to our maximum hand size.
SPEAKER_1: But you have the same hand size as me now.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, the next card is the Ace of...
SPEAKER_2: Clubs?
SPEAKER_1: Spades?
SPEAKER_2: That's clubs.
SPEAKER_1: The stakes of this duel is a petty matter of pride or position.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, we start out with a huge blowout party trying to be in charge of it, and the next one is just...
SPEAKER_2: Time to be petty?
SPEAKER_2: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_1: It's time to be petty.
SPEAKER_1: And the spoils are a new special for your duelist.
SPEAKER_2: Cool.
SPEAKER_2: That's exciting.
SPEAKER_1: So we play a card to decide who goes first.
SPEAKER_2: And?
SPEAKER_2: Ooh, I thought I had it.
SPEAKER_1: You got queen, I got ten.
SPEAKER_2: I get to choose who attacks first.
SPEAKER_1: You get to choose who goes first, yep.
SPEAKER_1: Which is interesting because whoever goes first spends their card first mechanically.
SPEAKER_1: The more I'm playing this, the more I'm actually very enjoying the very simple but nicely laid out mechanics.
SPEAKER_2: I've decided no more dice, only cards for gain.
SPEAKER_2: Why don't you attack first?
SPEAKER_1: Okay, how much time has passed?
SPEAKER_1: Has it been a few weeks?
SPEAKER_1: I would like it to be a few weeks, I think, I will say.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, it could have been a few weeks.
SPEAKER_2: What's the club?
SPEAKER_1: I'm not too sure, but I think within that club, do you think it is...
SPEAKER_1: It's not even about the club.
SPEAKER_1: It literally, whatever the squabble is about, it has nothing to do with what the club is.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I know what it is.
SPEAKER_2: I guess it's not nothing to do with the club, but it could be, instead of the book club thing of, oh, we're deciding who gets to choose the next book, it's interpreting a specific line in a book.
SPEAKER_1: What if it's even pettier?
SPEAKER_1: What if it's just like, who was supposed to bring the food for this meeting?
SPEAKER_1: Because no one brought any food.
SPEAKER_1: And we were both convinced it was the other person.
SPEAKER_2: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: This is the pettiest of petty things.
SPEAKER_1: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: You attack first.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to put a card down.
SPEAKER_1: I think it just starts out as like, I don't mean to disrupt.
SPEAKER_1: It's not even that important.
SPEAKER_1: It could just be a matter of it just slipped your mind, but I was just really looking forward to your Nan's cooking.
SPEAKER_1: I just, I was thinking about it all week and I just, I know like you can't undo what has happened and we can all just move past this.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we can just have more next time.
SPEAKER_2: God, I'm trying to think of the thing, because I know how I want to defend against this.
SPEAKER_2: I'm just trying to think if this is blocking or enduring.
SPEAKER_2: You know what, let's do a block.
SPEAKER_2: Let's do a full on block.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: She says, oh, you know what?
SPEAKER_2: I got confused because you were supposed to bring it last week and you didn't.
SPEAKER_2: So I thought you were going to make up for that by bringing it this week since I had to bring it last week and had to run out and get food.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, that's so good.
SPEAKER_1: All right, let's pick our cards.
SPEAKER_1: So you win.
SPEAKER_1: So you make an attack now.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want that to be the attack or do you want to do a different thing for the attack?
SPEAKER_2: That's the attack.
SPEAKER_2: It's a block and an attack all in one.
SPEAKER_1: All right, what am I doing?
SPEAKER_1: I think I'm enduring.
SPEAKER_1: I think like what you said is true.
SPEAKER_1: I did forget, but I think I go, okay, I did forget that one time and I apologized it.
SPEAKER_1: Everyone said it wasn't a big deal.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know why you're bringing it up again.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that's how I'm enduring.
SPEAKER_1: The six of hearts.
SPEAKER_1: So you can eliminate either your rival may not recover any reprisals before the end of the next duel or one of your rivals reprisals may never be recovered once it is used.
SPEAKER_2: I think I'm going to go with one of your rivals reprisals may never be recovered once it is used.
SPEAKER_1: And so then I guess my next attack is going to be, we all make mistakes, but we all have to own up to them as well.
SPEAKER_1: And we all have to step up each individually.
SPEAKER_1: I know you know that.
SPEAKER_1: And I really think this was your turn to step up this week.
SPEAKER_1: I will play a card.
SPEAKER_2: I am going to try and block it.
SPEAKER_1: That's fair.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, yeah, no.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, if I had made a mistake, I would totally own up to it.
SPEAKER_2: Let me just check the schedule real quick.
SPEAKER_1: Um...
SPEAKER_1: How right is the schedule, Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: 7 over 6.
SPEAKER_2: And I think my attack here is that I've edited the schedule to look like it's not my turn.
SPEAKER_2: And I think specifically the thing that I say is, well, we did edit the schedule, of course, because you didn't bring it last week.
SPEAKER_2: We did just switch our weeks around, as you can see by the schedule here.
SPEAKER_1: I'm gonna block, and I'm just saying, can you hand that over here?
SPEAKER_1: Can I take a look at that?
SPEAKER_2: Alright, and...
SPEAKER_1: Oh!
SPEAKER_2: Ty goes to defender.
SPEAKER_1: And I am defending, so I win.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I guess what's your attack?
SPEAKER_1: So you changed this, right?
SPEAKER_1: That's what you said?
SPEAKER_1: You faked this?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, I faked it.
SPEAKER_1: Then I think my attack is this...
SPEAKER_1: Wait, let me check...
SPEAKER_1: And I think I pull out my schedule, and it is the unedited version.
SPEAKER_1: And that is my attack, is I am pulling my unedited version out, and I'm comparing them before showing everybody else.
SPEAKER_2: I think I have to endure this.
SPEAKER_2: I think the attack here is simply to point to the date on my schedule and your schedule, and say, as you can see, mine is the updated version.
SPEAKER_2: You change the date, and then you go, oh, mine is newer.
SPEAKER_2: How are you responding?
SPEAKER_1: I'm enduring.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's like, oh, I see.
SPEAKER_1: I suppose that could be wrong.
SPEAKER_2: And my card is the Nine of Spades.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to eliminate permanently reduced your rival's maximum hand size by one.
SPEAKER_1: So I think my attack is this.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I think I asked someone for theirs.
SPEAKER_1: I think I asked another person.
SPEAKER_1: I was like, oh, does anyone else have one of these?
SPEAKER_1: And someone else pulls out.
SPEAKER_1: And that is my attack is we are verifying ours against the third parties.
SPEAKER_2: She concedes on this point.
SPEAKER_2: I think she just like puts her schedule away and says like, you know what, Cole?
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to take your word for it.
SPEAKER_1: I'm really looking forward to your Nan's roasted.
SPEAKER_1: What is a rock food?
SPEAKER_1: Your Nan's roasted coals?
SPEAKER_2: No, your Nan's roasted ash.
SPEAKER_2: No, ash.
SPEAKER_1: It's ash.
SPEAKER_2: Sorry, Ash.
SPEAKER_1: I'm really looking forward to your Nan's ash.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to take a new special.
SPEAKER_1: I think the special that I'm picking is Vicious Reversal.
SPEAKER_1: When you exploit one of your rivals flaws and use an ace to block an attack, you successfully block and make an unblockable attack on your opponent's reprisals that matches the suit of your ace.
SPEAKER_1: So basically, this is the skill that turns an ace from low to high.
SPEAKER_2: So my reprisals, I have pretty much all of them open except for I can't remove one of your specials permanently.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, don't I have to choose one of the cards in your hands?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, so then how does it work when I don't have cards?
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I guess you don't.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, if I had known beforehand, I think that would have helped, but I also didn't think about it.
SPEAKER_2: I also don't know that my character would have thought about it.
SPEAKER_2: I think because it says may suffer a reprisal.
SPEAKER_2: So I think, yeah, I don't think you suffer a reprisal.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I guess it was just food.
SPEAKER_2: But you won the spoil of being petty.
SPEAKER_1: It's very important.
SPEAKER_1: So now the next thing is interesting because we have two passing time actions instead of one before our next duel.
SPEAKER_2: Oh.
SPEAKER_1: Do you know which one you want to do?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, I know both of them because we're out of cards.
SPEAKER_1: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: It's recovering reprisals and recovering specials.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_2: And I know the scenes because licking my wounds is definitely me bringing my nan's ash to the next meeting.
SPEAKER_2: And just, like, just graciously handing it out.
SPEAKER_1: Did you bring whatever the equivalent of, like, embroidered hand?
SPEAKER_1: Like, if you're handing out tarts, you hand the tarts out on, like, embroidered, like, cloth and you hand them to people.
SPEAKER_1: Like, whatever the equivalent of, like, handing out ash is on that.
SPEAKER_1: Like, a little cup.
SPEAKER_2: A little cup that is engraved, of course, with everyone's individual names, of course.
SPEAKER_2: They can keep their glasses.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I'm also going to be licking my wounds.
SPEAKER_1: I think this is, like, turning off edit mode on the schedule for other people.
SPEAKER_1: So people can't just, like, forge things anymore.
SPEAKER_1: And, like, and maybe it's, like, a conversation with one of the other members of a club.
SPEAKER_1: And also just, like, I guess, enjoying my ash that you've brought.
SPEAKER_1: It's real good.
SPEAKER_1: I've put the cup up in my, I don't know if we have rooms, but wherever my room is, it just sits in my room now.
SPEAKER_2: My recovering special, Show a Vignette of Your Duelists Gathering Their Resources and Recover One Spent Special.
SPEAKER_2: This is me at a desk with a ton of papers, and I'm just forging every single type of paper I could possibly need.
SPEAKER_2: Printed out papers of the schedule saying anything, of clubs saying anything, of just any piece of paper I could need.
SPEAKER_1: One of them is just blank club, where you've just left it blank, so like whatever the next club I make is, you just fill it in.
SPEAKER_2: Basically.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to force you to discard up to two cards.
SPEAKER_2: I don't have any cards.
SPEAKER_1: Zero, that's up to two.
SPEAKER_2: How did you try to sabotage me and how did it not work?
SPEAKER_1: I'm trying to like sap your resources.
SPEAKER_2: Is this like you watching for me to make further edits to anything on the document?
SPEAKER_2: And you're like keeping it open to watch and see if I make any edits so you can edit them right back.
SPEAKER_2: But I've printed everything else.
SPEAKER_1: That sounds good.
SPEAKER_2: So let's draw up to five cards.
SPEAKER_2: And also I'm drawing, of course, six cards.
SPEAKER_1: Of course, of course.
SPEAKER_1: And don't forget that after drawing, you may discard three and replace three up to three, just to be clear.
SPEAKER_1: All right, you have six cards.
SPEAKER_1: I have five cards.
SPEAKER_1: Now it is time to reveal a card.
SPEAKER_1: It is the Four of Hearts, which means the conflict is about a moral or rhetorical victory.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, and the price of winning is a point to reconciliation.
SPEAKER_1: Interesting.
SPEAKER_1: Is this just us deciding if we put the point to reconciliation?
SPEAKER_2: The winner.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, the winner puts a point in reconciliation, unless you have a thing that lets you change the spoils if you win.
SPEAKER_1: And I don't believe either of us do.
SPEAKER_2: That's not true.
SPEAKER_2: You get to do that.
SPEAKER_2: That is your ability.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, yeah, that's literally my ability, all according to plan.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so now we each draw a card from the deck to see who decides to go first.
SPEAKER_1: You win.
SPEAKER_1: So I got a nine.
SPEAKER_1: Nine over an ace.
SPEAKER_1: I think I'm gonna go first.
SPEAKER_2: So where what it what club is this?
SPEAKER_1: This is a moral or rhetorical victory.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's a debate.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's a literal debate.
SPEAKER_1: Debate me.
SPEAKER_1: I think we're debating.
SPEAKER_1: I don't even think it matters what we're debating.
SPEAKER_1: There is a debate going on and it's whoever like maybe it's not even who wins the debate.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe something goes wrong at the debate.
SPEAKER_1: And it's like something goes wrong and it's the victor is the one.
SPEAKER_2: I don't see why it can't just be the debate.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_1: It can just be the debate.
SPEAKER_1: It's just the debate.
SPEAKER_2: Because it doesn't matter who wins the debate.
SPEAKER_1: It truly doesn't.
SPEAKER_2: That's how debates work.
SPEAKER_1: And like, what is the debate even, right?
SPEAKER_1: It's just us on like a little podiums in front of like three other people who just happen to be signing up for this moment.
SPEAKER_1: For this month's club.
SPEAKER_1: Also, I think like more time has passed, right?
SPEAKER_1: This is like a few months later.
SPEAKER_2: I'm Googling good debate topics.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, is this like a moral philosophy problem?
SPEAKER_1: Of course it's a moral philosophy problem.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, so then it's, is it the trolley problem?
SPEAKER_2: Can we do the trolley problem?
SPEAKER_2: Of course we can do the trolley problem.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, we can do the trolley problem.
SPEAKER_1: Which side are you on?
SPEAKER_1: Do you pull the lever or not?
SPEAKER_2: Do your, do your attack.
SPEAKER_2: You can define what side I'm on, because I will literally just take the side you won't, because I don't have a secure identity.
SPEAKER_2: I don't believe in things.
SPEAKER_2: I'm just a fucking contrarian.
SPEAKER_1: I think because I'm compassionate, I think that's my flaw.
SPEAKER_1: I am on the side of like take action.
SPEAKER_1: Inaction is still action, so at least do what you can to save who you can.
SPEAKER_1: And so I think I don't want to actually debate the molly problem, the trolley problem with you, Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: So I think like, I think this is like the scene of like we're on break.
SPEAKER_1: I don't even know what this break looks like when there's like five people in the room.
SPEAKER_1: But I think it's just like a five minute break and everyone's like gone outside because it's not that interesting of a debate.
SPEAKER_2: It's literally just the trolley problem.
SPEAKER_1: And it's just us in the room.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm like, I really think there are more important moral discussions that we could be using our time to really tackle and help those come to the hard conclusions that we need to help them come to.
SPEAKER_1: I just don't think this was the best thing to pick this week.
SPEAKER_1: And I guess my attack is saying that you pick the trolley problem and that it's a stupid idea.
SPEAKER_2: Great.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to block that.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think my block is saying, oh, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_2: I didn't realize you didn't care about murder.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, let's flip our cards.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it goes to you.
SPEAKER_2: We both went for eights and I and defenders win on tides.
SPEAKER_1: So you win.
SPEAKER_1: I can't believe you didn't care about murder.
SPEAKER_2: What is your tag, Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: You know, the trolley problem is representative of something quite a bit bigger.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, consider if it's not, you know, some people on an underwater trolley, but it's instead, you know, the choice between killing a gunman and not killing the gunman, you know, that's basically the same as the trolley problem.
SPEAKER_2: Brianna, no, that is not the same as the trolley problem.
SPEAKER_1: I'm blocking by the way.
SPEAKER_1: I'm using my ability.
SPEAKER_1: So I played an ace and I'm using my new ability.
SPEAKER_1: I just took vicious reversal.
SPEAKER_1: When you exploit one of your rivals flaws and use an ace to block an attack, you successfully block the attack and make an unblockable attack on an opponent's reprisal that suits the match of the ace.
SPEAKER_1: So what flaw am I exploiting?
SPEAKER_1: Single minded.
SPEAKER_1: Can I say that the single minded is you're just trying to be a contrarian and you literally don't know?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, that is exactly the thing.
SPEAKER_1: That's not the trolley problem at all, even remotely.
SPEAKER_1: So I think my attack is going to be like, it really seems like you don't actually know what the trolley problem is.
SPEAKER_1: Why did you sign up for this?
SPEAKER_1: It seems like maybe this isn't the right club for you this time.
SPEAKER_2: She's going to block here.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I mean, she's like, no, of course this is the right club for me.
SPEAKER_2: I'm all about the spirit of the debate.
SPEAKER_2: Like, debate club isn't about what you actually believe.
SPEAKER_2: It's about the power and importance of debate, which, by the way, Brianna's note is true about debate club.
SPEAKER_1: It's why I hate debate club.
SPEAKER_2: All right, and?
SPEAKER_2: I think my attack is perhaps if you care so significantly about issues as opposed to the spirit of debate, perhaps you should have started some sort of social justice club instead.
SPEAKER_1: You know, I think I'm going to concede.
SPEAKER_1: And I think that's like, all right.
SPEAKER_1: I think that is like, huh, that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe what that looks like before you tell me how you resolve your stakes and spoils is like, everyone comes back in after the break.
SPEAKER_1: Cole's just like, you know, while everyone is out, Paula T's convinced me, you know, she's right.
SPEAKER_1: And debates over.
SPEAKER_2: Excellent.
SPEAKER_1: So what do you do with that victory?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, so first of all, I put a point into reconciliation.
SPEAKER_2: I think there's something here.
SPEAKER_2: That really interests Paula T's in the way that like, you told me to start a club and then I did it.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, because I think the thing here is Paula T's, I guess, kind of assumed that you were also like her, and you were just doing this to be to be a shit.
SPEAKER_2: Instead, she's like, oh, like she has for the first time the thought in her head, this could be a friendly rivalry.
SPEAKER_2: I could be what she thinks is I could be both adored and challenged by this person.
SPEAKER_2: That's how she conceives of it in terms of a point into reconciliation.
SPEAKER_2: I think I think in terms of the moral or rhetorical victory in this case, it's just her being like, as you can see, this clearly shows that the trolley problem is my solution is the right one.
SPEAKER_1: The best thing to do is to do nothing.
SPEAKER_2: That's her opinion.
SPEAKER_2: Technically, you won by doing nothing.
SPEAKER_2: So you literally showed your side.
SPEAKER_2: I won on several levels.
SPEAKER_1: So now we need to resolve the Stake and Spoils, which you did.
SPEAKER_1: And then from the Defender, I will tell you that I have two cards.
SPEAKER_1: So you get to pick one or two randomly.
SPEAKER_1: And that will be a reprisal that is done to you from me.
SPEAKER_2: As always, I'm number one.
SPEAKER_1: Great.
SPEAKER_1: I am going to pick your rival must show you two of the cards in their hand at the start of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: You get to pick them, but I'm going to know two of your cards.
SPEAKER_1: Let's do time passes.
SPEAKER_1: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_1: Or I can go first if you would like.
SPEAKER_2: Do you have a good ending?
SPEAKER_2: Because I could come up with a good ending.
SPEAKER_1: So I think I'll go first.
SPEAKER_1: I think for mine, how many cards do you have still?
SPEAKER_2: Two.
SPEAKER_1: Discard them.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's sapping your rivals resources.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's like I make SJW Club and I am fucking calling it SJW Club.
SPEAKER_1: And the debate, we literally never even finished a debate.
SPEAKER_1: No one shows up to debate club anymore.
SPEAKER_1: You're the only member of debate club for like whatever the week is.
SPEAKER_1: And I think it's just like an awkward.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's just like you're really excited.
SPEAKER_1: You just won the debate and it's like you show up to the next debate and no one's there.
SPEAKER_1: It's just you for the whole hour.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: And you see like across the hall, SJW Club and everyone who was supposed to go to debate club went to SJW Club.
SPEAKER_2: This is excellent because I think I am going to recover my special, which means I'm going to show a vignette of my duet list gathering their resources.
SPEAKER_2: The way that I'm showing this is that out of my bag, I pull a bunch of papers, and I think it's just me holding the papers up, and crossing out debate topics, and writing beliefs, and walking into the social justice club.
SPEAKER_1: I thought you were going to have a moment where it's like, and I throw them in the garbage, and it's character development, but like, nope.
SPEAKER_2: No, it was never character development.
SPEAKER_1: It's the Scooby Doo meme of like, let's see what's under the mask, but it's character development, and then you rip off the mask, and it's like more pettiness.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, basically.
SPEAKER_1: So I think we're going to take a break here.
SPEAKER_1: From our perspective, I think we'll come back to this, but overall, this is going to be edited together into one episode.
SPEAKER_1: So we'll be back.
SPEAKER_1: We're back now.
SPEAKER_1: We took a week break.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for waiting 10 seconds.
SPEAKER_1: So we left off on a passing time, which means the next thing that we're going to do is a duel.
SPEAKER_1: I do remember the structure of a duel, and it starts off with us drawing up to five, unless you use your ability.
SPEAKER_1: But I believe you've used it up, correct?
SPEAKER_2: No, I just replenished it.
SPEAKER_1: You did just replenish it.
SPEAKER_1: So are you going to use it?
SPEAKER_2: Yep.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_1: So you're going to draw up to six.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: And now I get to decide if I want to discard some of my cards.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not going to discard any of my cards.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, OK.
SPEAKER_1: I'm scared.
SPEAKER_2: That's that's the downside of that ability is that you get information about my hand based on how many I discard.
SPEAKER_2: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_1: Let's flip this card.
SPEAKER_1: So it is the 10 of clubs.
SPEAKER_1: The prize is a new special.
SPEAKER_1: A lingering wound or insult.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I have an idea.
SPEAKER_1: Can this be?
SPEAKER_1: What if a lingering wound or insult like the lingering wound is the fact that you keep very obviously coming to these clubs that I start, even though at this point, even even to me, it feels like it should be obvious that I don't want you in these clubs at this point.
SPEAKER_1: What if it's a confrontation about that?
SPEAKER_1: And like, that's the stakes is like, opening up this wound, like directly, because I don't think my character has brought this up.
SPEAKER_1: What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_2: I like this idea.
SPEAKER_2: I think there's something interesting here about like walking into being like, hello, and you being like, I think in terms of how we frame this, we should decide who's the attacker.
SPEAKER_2: That's an eight.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I get to decide who's the attacker first.
SPEAKER_2: You should attack first.
SPEAKER_1: Is this like months later?
SPEAKER_1: Do you think again, it's like, or do you think this is like immediately after?
SPEAKER_2: I think it's got to be SJW Club.
SPEAKER_1: This is a politically charged club by definition.
SPEAKER_1: So what if we just like have opposing ideals to the point where like, this is just not something that like Cole, that I can like, deal with anymore.
SPEAKER_1: I think like one day we've made it through our club meeting.
SPEAKER_1: And I think it was just exceptionally rough that day.
SPEAKER_1: Paula Tess, can I see you after class?
SPEAKER_1: I just, I want to talk about something.
SPEAKER_1: And I think I ask you to stay after class.
SPEAKER_1: This isn't my move.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just curious if you would stay after class.
SPEAKER_1: Not class, sorry.
SPEAKER_2: I guess I say, can you stay afterwards?
SPEAKER_1: I'm your teacher now.
SPEAKER_1: I've been promoted in these past few seconds, and I'm a teacher of this open-body learning facility.
SPEAKER_1: And I just ask you, can I talk to you afterwards?
SPEAKER_2: Absolutely, of course, Cole.
SPEAKER_1: The bell rings or the moss flashes or whatever to signal the end of the period of time that we have together.
SPEAKER_1: And I think everyone is filtering out.
SPEAKER_1: And Cole's gathering their things up extra slowly just to make sure that everybody leaves and is very nervous and shaking a little bit.
SPEAKER_1: And I think it comes up to you, I have to ask, would it be okay if you stop coming to the clubs that I make?
SPEAKER_1: Please.
SPEAKER_1: I think this is my attack, where it's like I am confronting you directly, telling you, do not do the thing you are doing.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think unsurprisingly, she's going to block that.
SPEAKER_1: So you played a ten, I played a jack, which means I win, which means...
SPEAKER_2: The attacker wins, they eliminate a reprisal from the defender's sheet that matches the suit of the attacker's card.
SPEAKER_2: So you get to eliminate one of my hearts.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to eliminate, your rival may not recover any reprisals before the end of the next duel.
SPEAKER_2: I think the kind of way in which you get me here is like, you kind of cast me off guard, where I'm like...
SPEAKER_2: I'm like, oh, I wasn't aware it was a problem.
SPEAKER_2: Cole, I'm happy to do as you wish, but I perhaps I had misunderstood.
SPEAKER_2: I thought we were friends.
SPEAKER_2: And is it not a reasonable thing for a friend to wish to spend time with another friend?
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to block this.
SPEAKER_1: Why are we friends?
SPEAKER_2: I used the jack, you used the three, and so I get to eliminate one of your reprisals.
SPEAKER_2: I am going to eliminate permanently reduce your rivals' maximum hand size by one.
SPEAKER_2: What's the response here?
SPEAKER_1: I think it's just Cole being shocked.
SPEAKER_1: Why do you not have friends?
SPEAKER_1: Do you know what friends are?
SPEAKER_1: Friends don't lurk in each other's clubs and make snide comments at them.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to endure because she doesn't have a good response to this.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to eliminate reduce your rivals' current hand size by one until the end of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: How do you respond?
SPEAKER_1: Cole's being very direct right now.
SPEAKER_2: I think she's like, well, I mean, I have friends, of course.
SPEAKER_2: I feel that, you know, she's sort of like, and she's like, well, Cole, if you don't like me, you can just say so.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know why you've kept this going for so long.
SPEAKER_2: I started to think that maybe there was something here, but I suppose there isn't.
SPEAKER_1: I think I'm going to endure this time, and that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, am I not saying that?
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to eliminate.
SPEAKER_2: Your rival must show you two of the cards in their hand at the start of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: Look, if you want to be friends, then you can at least try to act friendly.
SPEAKER_1: You don't have to be such a...
SPEAKER_1: nuisance.
SPEAKER_1: I'm sorry, I don't mean...
SPEAKER_1: I don't mean in a bad way.
SPEAKER_2: I'm blocking this?
SPEAKER_1: That's fair.
SPEAKER_2: I played the Queen of Hearts, you played the Eight of Clubs, so I win this one.
SPEAKER_2: Cole, let's be honest with ourselves for a moment.
SPEAKER_2: Are we not both people who need some sort of competition, who need some sort of adversary to truly be our best?
SPEAKER_2: To me, what I've been trying to do is to push you to be your best, and I think I've been doing a fantastic job.
SPEAKER_1: I'm enduring.
SPEAKER_2: I'm blocking one of your rival's reprisals may never be recovered once it is used, I'm blocking that one.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want any of those things, what?
SPEAKER_1: That's crazy.
SPEAKER_1: That's a crazy person thing to think.
SPEAKER_1: Like, I don't...
SPEAKER_1: You haven't been pushing me to be my best self.
SPEAKER_1: You've been judging everything I do.
SPEAKER_1: You've been there every time to just make sure that I can't have fun anymore.
SPEAKER_1: I've been starting these clubs to try and have a good time, and every time I look, you steal it from me.
SPEAKER_2: It's just like her kind of stammering, like unsure of what to say, and it's like, I clearly misunderstood.
SPEAKER_2: What's your card?
SPEAKER_1: King of Hearts.
SPEAKER_1: You only have one hearts left, which is one of your rival's reprisals may never be recovered once it is used.
SPEAKER_2: My kind of final attack is...
SPEAKER_2: Cole, you're the only person I've ever met who actually challenges me.
SPEAKER_2: It is not based on what you want that I'm doing this.
SPEAKER_2: It is based on what we both need.
SPEAKER_2: I believe, Cole, that the most productive our relationship could be is like this, is what I've been doing.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to endure, but also I'm out of cards.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to eliminate one of your reprisals.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I only have one spades left, which is reduce your rival's current hand size by one until the end of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: Are you out of cards too?
SPEAKER_2: I'm also out of cards.
SPEAKER_1: So if we're both out of cards...
SPEAKER_2: If we're both out of cards, flip a card from the deck, and then depending on the suit, that's how this ends.
SPEAKER_1: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, these are rough.
SPEAKER_1: I just want to respond quickly before we do this.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want to play in your fantasy game anymore.
SPEAKER_2: Let's flip this card.
SPEAKER_2: That's a clubs.
SPEAKER_2: We both lose a passing time scene.
SPEAKER_1: Cole just bursts out crying and runs out of the room.
SPEAKER_2: And I think we like see Paula Tess's face as she's like just jaw open, like confused.
SPEAKER_2: She thought this was fun.
SPEAKER_2: This is fun to her.
SPEAKER_1: Why isn't this fun to other people?
SPEAKER_2: And so, yeah, so we both lose a passing time scene as I think like, I think on my end, what that is, is it's just her kind of like not knowing how to, what to do.
SPEAKER_2: But like for Paula Tess, what this looks like is her wandering the halls.
SPEAKER_2: Just sort of like, oh God, like, what am I doing?
SPEAKER_2: What's my purpose?
SPEAKER_1: I don't think there's a club for a few weeks.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's, I think it is just cool.
SPEAKER_1: Like we haven't said that there's classes, but I think it's cool just like, like not doing anything.
SPEAKER_1: I think just like, cause they're scared.
SPEAKER_1: Like that was a, that was a confrontation.
SPEAKER_1: That was like an actual confrontation.
SPEAKER_1: And if I show my face, then like I, I was awful.
SPEAKER_1: I was so mean.
SPEAKER_2: I have an idea for what'll be, what'll be kind of the next conflict.
SPEAKER_1: We do have one more passing time.
SPEAKER_2: We do, we get one.
SPEAKER_2: I think I'm going to recover my reprisals, not my special.
SPEAKER_1: And so you're licking your wounds and recovering.
SPEAKER_1: What is, what is that like?
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like, I think in like the week, it's one therapy session.
SPEAKER_2: Because like one therapy session is enough for her to be like, oh, I had this fight and I'm sad and I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_2: But it's not long enough for her to get into the like underlying issues of why she's doing this.
SPEAKER_1: Does she like be like, oh, my friend and I had a fight and they said something mean to me and I don't really know what to say about it.
SPEAKER_1: Like, what is the framing of this?
SPEAKER_2: I think the framing is like, I thought that we were friends, but I guess they didn't think we were friends.
SPEAKER_2: And I don't know how to, where to go from here.
SPEAKER_1: And the advice is probably like, well, have you tried talking to them?
SPEAKER_2: Yes, basically.
SPEAKER_1: So I think I'm also, I'm going to knock back four reprisals back to what they were before.
SPEAKER_1: And so I'm also licking my wounds.
SPEAKER_1: It's funny because I was also going to be like, oh, it's a therapy session.
SPEAKER_2: But what if it's the same therapist?
SPEAKER_2: God, that's so good.
SPEAKER_1: It's the one school therapist.
SPEAKER_1: And again, it's not like a school.
SPEAKER_1: It's like a private learning institution, but like it probably is still has like the one therapist for the like potentially hundreds, if not thousands of individuals.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, basically.
SPEAKER_1: But I think it's just like one therapy session of like Cole just talking and not really stopping, because do the floodgates ever just burst open for you and you like finally have the words to like say what you've been wanting to say for potentially months at this point.
SPEAKER_1: And you have to tell everybody, but it just so happens that the first person you actually tell is a therapist.
SPEAKER_1: That happens basically for an hour.
SPEAKER_1: I love the idea of it's like politests like coming out the door and like in the same shot, like 10 seconds pass and then Cole walks in the door and it's literally the next client.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_2: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to draw a card and see how it works with your idea?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I would love to.
SPEAKER_1: So the Nine of Diamonds.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, we're back.
SPEAKER_1: We've gotten a nine before.
SPEAKER_1: We started with a nine.
SPEAKER_1: VIP status at a social event or diplomatic negotiation.
SPEAKER_1: Does this work with what you had envisioned?
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we can workshop it.
SPEAKER_1: What was your vision?
SPEAKER_2: My original vision was that she kind of shows up at Cole's door.
SPEAKER_1: Can I suggest what if Cole is having a party with their real friends?
SPEAKER_2: Oh, that's rough.
SPEAKER_1: The conflict is to get access to this party.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, that sucks.
SPEAKER_2: That makes me feel so bad.
SPEAKER_2: It might be right.
SPEAKER_2: I want to give my character some agency.
SPEAKER_2: I want her to make a move because so much of her shit is reacting.
SPEAKER_2: Right?
SPEAKER_2: This is like this entire game has been Cole setting things up and then her reacting to them.
SPEAKER_2: And I want her to set something up so that Cole has to react.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_2: Right?
SPEAKER_2: That feels fitting, honestly, after this.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_2: I have one.
SPEAKER_2: I think one of the traditions at this school is like a tournament of sorts, like a dueling tournament.
SPEAKER_2: It's kind of expected that you will participate in.
SPEAKER_1: Like everybody?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, like in the school or at least certain groups of people.
SPEAKER_2: And I think there's just a day where she knocks on Cole's door, and they open it and she passes them a saber or whatever, and it's like, come on, we're going to practice.
SPEAKER_1: Can it be like, it's not that time, it's like Cole has to decide and Cole ultimately does decide to go?
SPEAKER_1: Like, if it's like, Paul Utes coming by, leaving a really ornate gift, and the long gift is, I'm assuming, like, the...
SPEAKER_2: Like a fencing, yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, a fencing lance or sword.
SPEAKER_1: But it's like a beautiful box on my doorstep, you're not even there, and there's just a note, like, noon tomorrow, here's the location.
SPEAKER_2: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: And it's just like, Cole has to decide whether or not to go.
SPEAKER_1: And I think at first, it's like, Cole's like, no, fuck this, like, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_1: Like, has just an hour of a meltdown, and is like, I will never show my face ever again.
SPEAKER_1: And then it's like three hours of like, well, do I go?
SPEAKER_1: Like, maybe I should.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe this will finally put an end to everything.
SPEAKER_1: Like, I show up and like, where are you?
SPEAKER_1: Like, where is this place you've invited Cole to?
SPEAKER_2: It's a practice room.
SPEAKER_2: I can't decide whether it's a common practice room or it's like something that her family has.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think Cole would go to a private location.
SPEAKER_1: That feels like, like scary.
SPEAKER_2: So yeah, it's like a common practice room that is there kind of for this purpose, and she's booked it.
SPEAKER_1: Do you have things like set up?
SPEAKER_1: Like, is there some grand thing that you've done with this room as Cole walks in and sees anything?
SPEAKER_1: No, it's just you?
SPEAKER_2: It's just me and a sword and like...
SPEAKER_2: Like, because I...
SPEAKER_2: Like, the reason that I'm framing this way is like, my thing that I've decided not to renew is always prepared.
SPEAKER_2: I am not prepared for this.
SPEAKER_2: I've just like...
SPEAKER_2: I've just like been like, well, come on.
SPEAKER_2: It's basically her in just this big empty room where there's, I assume, bleachers of some kind for people to watch and maybe there's one or two people there.
SPEAKER_2: But she's just been practicing and just sort of looks up when you walk in.
SPEAKER_1: You know, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_1: The spoils of this are a point to victory or a point to reconciliation.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that feels fitting.
SPEAKER_2: I also think this is like specifically a, you know, with with the VIP aspect of this, it's like this is in a way kind of a a smaller representation of how this tournament is going to go.
SPEAKER_2: Right.
SPEAKER_2: Like, all right, the very least, it's like the sense of like how things would go when we face off for real.
SPEAKER_2: And the VIP status is who ultimately comes out on top.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I see.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_1: Let's see who goes first.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, aces are low.
SPEAKER_1: I get to decide who goes first.
SPEAKER_1: I think Cole just like shakes their head and like walks into the room and is like, I don't know why I'm doing this.
SPEAKER_1: And like, I guess we don't have like armor because it's just we're rock.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_1: Like, it's fine and just like walks up to like the starting position is just like, well, come on.
SPEAKER_1: I think you can go first.
SPEAKER_2: OK, she starts out with, all right, let's get into position.
SPEAKER_2: And I think there is the duel happening as she speaks.
SPEAKER_2: Cole, I was thinking perhaps we can find a better arrangement.
SPEAKER_2: I think the attack is her just assuming like, well, we have to we have to figure out some way to do this.
SPEAKER_2: Keep doing this thing.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to endure.
SPEAKER_1: And I think what that looks like is literally enduring as they flinch at that.
SPEAKER_1: And like you get a point in on them and and we reset.
SPEAKER_1: There's no I'm not making arrangements.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just I'm just playing your game.
SPEAKER_1: And what are you marking?
SPEAKER_2: One of your rivals reprisals may never be recovered once it is used.
SPEAKER_1: So we've reset.
SPEAKER_1: And I think Cole makes like a jump, a jumping lunge at the I don't know how fencing works, a jumping lunge at the beginning, which is totally legal in this.
SPEAKER_1: And just like after this match, I don't ever want to see you again.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, she's going to try and block that.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I still win.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I was not expecting I played a two.
SPEAKER_1: I was like, I'm just going to throw this away.
SPEAKER_1: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_1: And just quickly, I'm just going to say I'm going to I'm going to remark, permanently remove one of your rival specials.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_2: I think she tries to mount like this unsuccessful defense is like rapidly trying to hit your blows away.
SPEAKER_2: She's like, but Cole, we're we have a connection.
SPEAKER_2: We we can't we we're not it can't.
SPEAKER_2: And then you like get a hit in and we reset.
SPEAKER_2: And she says, like, what can I do?
SPEAKER_2: What what could I do to to to keep this going?
SPEAKER_2: Cole, I we need this.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to endure again.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to get rid of the permanently reduce your rivals maximum hand size by one.
SPEAKER_1: I think Cole just goes, you clearly need this.
SPEAKER_1: I need space.
SPEAKER_1: I think the attack, I think what they say is what you need is friends.
SPEAKER_1: What you need is someone who will talk to you.
SPEAKER_1: All you ever want to do is talk.
SPEAKER_1: You need to listen, please.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to endure.
SPEAKER_2: And the endurance here is her just saying, okay, Cole, I'm listening.
SPEAKER_2: And then her attack is, is like again, a flurry of kind of sword blows and is like, yes, I'm listening.
SPEAKER_1: And then keeps talking.
SPEAKER_2: And then says, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: And then says, tell me the truth, Cole, about what this could mean to you.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to endure, but you never listen to me.
SPEAKER_1: So I don't know why it's different.
SPEAKER_1: And I don't know why telling you the truth would make a difference because you only listen to yourself or you only listen to what you want to hear.
SPEAKER_1: You never actually think outside of your own mind.
SPEAKER_1: You need to get out of your brain.
SPEAKER_1: You need a friend.
SPEAKER_1: And that's not going to be me.
SPEAKER_1: That was my endure and my attack.
SPEAKER_1: So go ahead and mark.
SPEAKER_2: Mark your other spade.
SPEAKER_2: Reduce your rival's current hand size by one until the end of the next duel.
SPEAKER_2: The response is a concede.
SPEAKER_2: She concedes.
SPEAKER_1: Really?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: She says, she even say anything?
SPEAKER_2: I think she just goes, I, you could...
SPEAKER_2: She's like in the middle of deflecting and then she just stops and she says, but I, you, I...
SPEAKER_2: And she drops the sword to the ground and just runs out of the room.
SPEAKER_1: A fun and lighthearted comedy story.
SPEAKER_1: So on a concede, I take the spoils, which, God, I guess, what is winning?
SPEAKER_2: I like the idea that it's just like, you gotta buy.
SPEAKER_2: We were scheduled to fight at some point in the tournament, and I just didn't show up.
SPEAKER_2: Oh.
SPEAKER_1: I think there's almost like a, like, oh, yeah, like, she'll come and I can apologize and, like, I could say sorry for all the mean shit I said.
SPEAKER_1: And the announcer is like, oh, we got 10 minutes until it's, like, called.
SPEAKER_1: And Cole starts to get, like, anxious, like, oh, God, is everything okay?
SPEAKER_1: Like, did something happen to her?
SPEAKER_1: And then, like, the match gets called, and I think Cole's still just waiting for, like, a while.
SPEAKER_1: I'm gonna put a point in reconciliation.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if that feels right.
SPEAKER_2: It feels, it feels potentially fitting.
SPEAKER_2: Like, it's up to you, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's your call.
SPEAKER_1: Should Cole feel bad?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know, but I think Cole feels bad, and, like, thinks this is, you know, their fault for what they said.
SPEAKER_1: And, I mean, I just want to be very clear that, like, you know, in real life, this is just someone standing up for themselves and then setting a boundary, but it can often be very hard to set a boundary when you haven't done it in, like, either a long time or ever.
SPEAKER_1: And it can often feel gross.
SPEAKER_1: So I think Cole just hasn't done this before.
SPEAKER_2: On kind of my side, like, my character is shitty, is, like, shitty and is being manipulative because she doesn't have a better coping mechanism for the things that she's feeling.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, she's in her head a lot.
SPEAKER_2: She's in her head a lot and was, like, she's projected onto Cole that Cole is, like, going to save her from the boring life that she has.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, the boring life of being a rich, like, philosopher.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, it's nonsense.
SPEAKER_2: Which, like, to be clear, Cole is also a rich philosopher.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_1: Um, what does the passing time look like?
SPEAKER_2: I know what mine is.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, wait, no, first I have to use a reprisal on you.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, right, I forgot how the game works.
SPEAKER_2: I have to flip a card, right?
SPEAKER_2: I flip a card and then...
SPEAKER_1: No, I choose a card from your hand.
SPEAKER_2: I have one card.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, then it's that card.
SPEAKER_2: That's the four of spades.
SPEAKER_1: Spades, so what are you using on me?
SPEAKER_1: Do you have either of your spades?
SPEAKER_1: You do.
SPEAKER_2: I reduce your rival's current hand size by one until the end of the next duel.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, which is the last duel, so I get four cards next duel.
SPEAKER_2: Great.
SPEAKER_1: Which should be interesting.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and I'm recovering my special, is what I'll be doing.
SPEAKER_2: So show a vignette of your duelists gathering their resources and recover one spent special.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, mine here is, I think it's like her, you know, in her room, just like very like broken up about things and is like sad and stuff.
SPEAKER_2: And then she like is like, you know what?
SPEAKER_2: I don't I don't need this.
SPEAKER_2: I don't need them.
SPEAKER_2: I'll I'll make my own club.
SPEAKER_2: I'll make my own club and I and I will need I'll find another person.
SPEAKER_2: I'll find someone better.
SPEAKER_2: Someone who deserves this rivalry.
SPEAKER_1: And you have truly been challenged yet.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: I wasn't beaten.
SPEAKER_1: No, I'm going to show my do list researching or practicing their strategies and discard as many cards as I like and draw the same amount of cards.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I think the strategy is just like, I need to know what my next club is.
SPEAKER_1: Like, I think, you know, I've let this distraction go on long enough.
SPEAKER_1: I assume this is the last I'm going to see of Paula Tess.
SPEAKER_1: I haven't seen her in like a week at this point.
SPEAKER_1: Not even since that duel, probably.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe it's more than a week.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe it's a few weeks.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe it's a month.
SPEAKER_1: But I think, like, just unbothered, I am given a foothold to sort of regain myself and organize.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm going to discard two cards and draw two more.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, all right.
SPEAKER_2: And then we can figure out what this last duel is going to be about.
SPEAKER_1: First, we draw cards into our hand.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to be using my specials, so I'm going to grab six.
SPEAKER_1: Great.
SPEAKER_1: I have four cards this time.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you're not well set up for this one.
SPEAKER_2: Now let's figure out what the spoils in the, you know, the the thing.
SPEAKER_2: This six of diamonds.
SPEAKER_1: An injury or compromise of one's well-being.
SPEAKER_1: This is the final duel.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want this to be like a life or death situation.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that's what this is.
SPEAKER_2: No, no, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_1: What if we accidentally made the same type of club and like a few months later, like we both make it to Nationals or something?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, fuck it.
SPEAKER_2: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: I love this.
SPEAKER_1: What if we both made a Glee club?
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that it should be.
SPEAKER_2: Does it have to be a Glee club?
SPEAKER_2: I feel like we can do.
SPEAKER_1: No, it doesn't have to be.
SPEAKER_2: This is like, this is the ultimate showdown, you know?
SPEAKER_1: Look, Glee made Glee club look like the ultimate showdown.
SPEAKER_2: It's not quite, but go off.
SPEAKER_2: I'm almost more interested in it being like a kind of...
SPEAKER_1: Poetry club?
SPEAKER_2: No, I just am questioning whether this needs to be like this big kind of going to nationals thing.
SPEAKER_2: I want this to be really personal, because at this point this has gotten really personal.
SPEAKER_1: What if the stage is nationals, but it's like this is like behind the curtain, or afterwards, or beforehand, or like the night out.
SPEAKER_1: It's just like we don't know where we are, like we're in strange land, or we are fish out of water, or rocks out of water.
SPEAKER_1: I also like the idea of Atlantis nationals.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's very funny.
SPEAKER_2: I think this has to be a situation in which like, we are forced to interact, because I don't know that we would interact otherwise.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: All.
SPEAKER_1: All the teams are put up in one location, and there's one dining hall, and it just so happens that we, the seats are assigned maybe, and also, is Paula Tess by herself?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, I don't think Cole's alone.
SPEAKER_2: You know breakfast at a hotel?
SPEAKER_1: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_1: Like, like, sad breakfasts are like good, like, are there melons and honeydew?
SPEAKER_1: Or is it like four types of cereal?
SPEAKER_2: There's good shit.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's like, everyone is kind of there, right?
SPEAKER_2: And Cole is like sitting down and eating at this table with like two friends.
SPEAKER_2: And there's like one open spot and Paula Tess comes in and it's the only open spot left.
SPEAKER_2: She sort of looks around and is like, like, okay, we should decide what club this is.
SPEAKER_2: I think Poetry Club is interesting.
SPEAKER_1: I think that's fine.
SPEAKER_1: I like, I love the idea of like, does Paula Tess like try and see if someone's gonna leave, but is like awkward, now awkwardly standing there for like over a minute.
SPEAKER_1: And it's just like, nobody leaves and just like, she's hungry.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and I think she like kind of sheepishly comes over and it's like, can I sit here?
SPEAKER_1: Cole looks around the room, I guess.
SPEAKER_2: I think she just kind of starts eating.
SPEAKER_2: Let's decide who's gonna attack first here.
SPEAKER_2: That's a queen.
SPEAKER_2: All right, you get to decide.
SPEAKER_1: If you want to go first, Cole just goes back to laughing with their friends, maybe?
SPEAKER_1: Like just pretends you're not there.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think she attacks first, and I think her attack is so written any good new poetry recently.
SPEAKER_1: The like, laughter cuts off, I guess, and they just like look at you and they're like, yep.
SPEAKER_2: Is this enduring?
SPEAKER_1: Oh, it's enduring.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it's enduring 100%.
SPEAKER_2: I'm just gonna, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_2: I'll eliminate that you may not attack first in the next duel.
SPEAKER_2: There is no next duel.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, this is the last one.
SPEAKER_2: What's your attack?
SPEAKER_1: Oh, God, I have to attack.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, you're still an active participant, regardless of whether or not, like, I know.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just like, I don't want to be like, Cole's polite.
SPEAKER_1: Cole's also compassionate.
SPEAKER_1: That is another flaw of mine.
SPEAKER_1: And I think after this awkward, like, silence of like, yep, doesn't know what to say for a second.
SPEAKER_1: And then it's like, it's cool that you started your own club.
SPEAKER_1: I didn't think you'd do that.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if that's actually an attack, but I don't know if it feels like an attack.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, play a card.
SPEAKER_1: Let me play a card.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to block it.
SPEAKER_2: And the way that I'm blocking it is I am saying, yeah, well, I guess there's some things you didn't know about me, Cole.
SPEAKER_1: So you block that successfully?
SPEAKER_2: And then I think my attack is, it's her.
SPEAKER_2: She's still this way.
SPEAKER_2: She says, like, she says, really excited to get on that stage and show who's really the best at this.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to endure.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's just like, it's Cole just being like, oh, yeah, I'm actually rooting for Granite.
SPEAKER_1: I really like his words he's going to share this year.
SPEAKER_1: I'm excited for everybody's, but yeah, I think he's going to take it.
SPEAKER_1: You're trying to imply it's like you versus me again.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm like, oh, yeah, it's this other person.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_2: I checked your rival must show you two of the cards in their hand at the start of the next tool.
SPEAKER_2: That is what I okay.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you're attacked now.
SPEAKER_1: It's like awkward for a second.
SPEAKER_1: And then Cole like makes like shifts their eyes to their friends.
SPEAKER_1: You're like across the table from me, I'm assuming, because it's four people at a table.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: And I think Cole's eyes like shift back and forth.
SPEAKER_1: And then like, looks a little nervous and it's like, do you want to go shopping with us before the tournament?
SPEAKER_1: This is a genuine moment.
SPEAKER_1: And I don't know if that's like expected.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I can't tell if this is block or endure.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to say the thing.
SPEAKER_2: And then I want you to help me figure this out with what this is.
SPEAKER_2: Because the in-character thing for her to say is, I appreciate what you're doing, Cole, but you don't have to.
SPEAKER_2: I get it.
SPEAKER_1: It sounds like endure.
SPEAKER_2: It does.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think she's enduring.
SPEAKER_1: I am going to mark one of your rivals reprisals.
SPEAKER_1: It's going to be recovered once it's used.
SPEAKER_1: Again, not much matters at this point.
SPEAKER_2: What matters is the story.
SPEAKER_2: And in the interest of the story and kind of her next attack, I think what she says is, I hope you find what you need when you go shopping.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I'm enduring.
SPEAKER_1: I know what I'm going to say.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, it's, I mean, the shopping isn't really about what we find.
SPEAKER_1: It's just, you know, we like spending time together.
SPEAKER_1: And I heard this city has some fun, fun stores.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just excited to, you know, hang out with my friends.
SPEAKER_1: Thought, I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if this sounds rude.
SPEAKER_1: I just don't know if you've gotten to just hang out with friends before.
SPEAKER_1: That's why I asked.
SPEAKER_2: I'll just eliminate your other heart.
SPEAKER_2: Doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, so what are you doing?
SPEAKER_2: God, she just says like, I never wanted your pity and I sure don't want it now.
SPEAKER_1: Is this you blocking?
SPEAKER_2: This is me blocking.
SPEAKER_1: Unfortunately, I am using, my ace is high, I'm using my ability, vicious reversal.
SPEAKER_1: I guess narratively how this is a vicious reversal is like, I'm just trying to do what you wanted.
SPEAKER_1: I thought you wanted to interact.
SPEAKER_1: I thought you wanted to be friends.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just trying and it seems like, it just seems like there's no winning.
SPEAKER_1: I can't get you to leave.
SPEAKER_1: I can't get you to come with us.
SPEAKER_1: What do you want?
SPEAKER_1: Who are you?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know anything about you other than you're tenacious and you don't give up, except when it's easy, I guess.
SPEAKER_2: So my attack, I think she says, Cole, I am who I've always been and I want what I've always wanted.
SPEAKER_2: I want to be pushed to be better.
SPEAKER_2: I want to, I want to connect with someone who's on my level.
SPEAKER_2: I want to, I want to feel challenged.
SPEAKER_2: I'm so tired of these people who don't, don't ever seem to want to have this fight.
SPEAKER_2: And I thought you would want this fight because you are brilliant and you are kind and you are all of these good things.
SPEAKER_2: And I thought I could match that.
SPEAKER_2: And I thought you could do that for me.
SPEAKER_2: And God damn it, Cole, I just want to feel something.
SPEAKER_2: I just want to feel alive.
SPEAKER_1: Think I'm blocking.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_1: Blocking, but it fails.
SPEAKER_1: But I think it's like, I already tried.
SPEAKER_1: I'm clearly not good enough.
SPEAKER_1: I'm out of cards.
SPEAKER_1: So as an attacker.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, well then both of us.
SPEAKER_1: So it's the same thing as before.
SPEAKER_1: This is the last card of the game.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, we have to draw our final card.
SPEAKER_1: Now with in mind that the stakes of this duel are an injury or compromise to one's well-being.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to draw the final card?
SPEAKER_2: I'd love to.
SPEAKER_1: And let's go.
SPEAKER_2: That's a club.
SPEAKER_2: Double KO.
SPEAKER_2: You both lose a passing time scene.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, there's no passing time scene, but I think it ends bad, right?
SPEAKER_2: I don't know.
SPEAKER_2: I think there's like, let's consider where we've ended.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, so like, double KO.
SPEAKER_1: We both take the losing end of the stakes is like an injury or compromise to one's well-being.
SPEAKER_2: Reconciliation is the victor here.
SPEAKER_2: And I wonder if this is like, I almost wonder, and I'll suggest this, and you can decide if you think this fits.
SPEAKER_2: Is this just them being like, we need to talk this through.
SPEAKER_2: And if there's a thing that we lose here, it's the like, I don't know, I don't want to speak for Cole, but for my character, it's like very much like I would happily miss this competition to talk about this actively and actually work through this and see where things are going to end up for us.
SPEAKER_1: Is the like injury to well-being like an emotional injury?
SPEAKER_1: Like this, like it is a reconciliation where it's like the friendship fucking sucks for a while.
SPEAKER_2: Or it's just even just really hard stuff to talk about, to say like...
SPEAKER_1: To be like, you hurt me.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, or to enter for, you know, for my character, I know that there's the sense of like, like...
SPEAKER_1: It sounds like you're hurting too.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, absolutely, right?
SPEAKER_1: And you have to recognize that.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, like, of course, it's us, and so we're gonna go the like, transformative justice route.
SPEAKER_2: But like, this feels like a potential solution here in which it's like, we have to reframe our whole relationship, and that's gonna be hard for these two characters, who this entire game has been, regardless of whatever our rivalry stands for, this has been kind of one sided, in which I'm kind of the attacker, and you are like, just sort of taking it.
SPEAKER_2: And there's like, this sense here, where like, there's a reason that your flaws are compassionate and overly polite, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, you have to say shit for real, and you have to know that it's gonna hurt, and you still have to say it.
SPEAKER_2: And I have to say shit, and like, get hurt, and recognize that what I've done is project onto you.
SPEAKER_2: And I think that like, the reconciliation to me means, we don't just call the whole thing off and go our separate ways and like, nurse this hurt.
SPEAKER_2: We like, talk through the hurt.
SPEAKER_2: But the fact that there is still this loss on both sides here shows that like, it still hurts.
SPEAKER_2: It still forces us to reckon with hard questions and like, reckon with ourselves and who we are and our flaws.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, and I think maybe just to paint this a bit, it's like, you know, like, Cole just like, I don't know if we have lips, bites their like, lips and just is like, tells their friends to like, they'll catch up with them.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we see like, scenes of like, the competition is happening and they're like, two empty seats.
SPEAKER_1: And like, we are cutting back and forth between like, wonderful poems and just this like, hallway.
SPEAKER_1: It's just like, shitty lighting and it's just like, both of, both Cole and Paula Tess just like, different like, talking positions, just back and forth and I think Granit does win.
SPEAKER_1: I think, you know, Granit's poetry is great and he wins and there's this like, wonderful like, happy juxtaposition of like, everyone's cheering and then it's like, we switch back and both of them crying but they're hugging.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, if you are cool with this, I feel like our good kind of final image here is maybe a new club that they've started together.
SPEAKER_2: Friendship club, it's friendship club.
SPEAKER_2: Is it a kind of club about transformative justice and like, this kind of notion of mediation?
SPEAKER_2: To me, that feels like it could.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think Cole is emotionally capable of doing that for other people, but sure.
SPEAKER_2: You know what?
SPEAKER_2: Friendship club works, then.
SPEAKER_2: I think the idea of a friendship club is.
SPEAKER_1: They'll get to transformative justice club in five to 10 years.
SPEAKER_1: I think for now, it's like a shitty banner that just says friendship club.
SPEAKER_1: And I think that's where transformative justice club starts.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's the only club that lasts that long.
SPEAKER_1: I think every other club died at most a month.
SPEAKER_1: Usually, it was a few days maybe.
SPEAKER_1: But I think this one just like does survive.
SPEAKER_1: And I think like it goes through changes.
SPEAKER_1: And at first, it's friendship club.
SPEAKER_1: But yeah, I think like, you know, they share their story.
SPEAKER_1: They do reconcile.
SPEAKER_1: I have a question.
SPEAKER_1: Does Paula Tess feel like she needs a challenge anymore?
SPEAKER_1: Or does she find the challenge?
SPEAKER_2: For her, it's a recognition that there are healthy ways to be competitive, right?
SPEAKER_2: That like, competition can be consensual and fun.
SPEAKER_2: That it doesn't have to be like this.
SPEAKER_2: That like, she could get really into some sort of competitive thing or some sort of like, things she can do on her own.
SPEAKER_2: There are other avenues here.
SPEAKER_2: And I don't, I think the thing for her is she no longer looks for a challenge in her kind of personal relationships when that other person doesn't want that.
SPEAKER_2: Where does Cole end up?
SPEAKER_1: I think Cole learns from this.
SPEAKER_1: It's a very important lesson that like, you can't have boundaries unless you talk about your boundaries.
SPEAKER_1: We see like someone else who they say like no to.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's just as simple as like, someone is like, can I join this club?
SPEAKER_1: And it's like someone being like a dick.
SPEAKER_1: And it's like, well, I have every right to join this club.
SPEAKER_1: And I think they just like look over at Paula Tess and then just like looks back and it's like, no.
SPEAKER_1: Or it's not like, no, it's like, you're gonna have to speak to someone else for this.
SPEAKER_1: This isn't my position actually.
SPEAKER_1: It's hers and like gestures to Paula Tess.
SPEAKER_2: And Paula Tess says, get the fuck out of here.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, Cole laughs and yeah, Friendship Club survives.
SPEAKER_1: That's A Duet of Steel brought to you by Friendship Club every Tuesday at 6 PM.
SPEAKER_2: Actually, every Monday at 12 PM, you know, when we released our episodes, those Friendship Club.
SPEAKER_2: That was really good.
SPEAKER_2: Thank you to Adrian Thoen who made this game.
SPEAKER_2: And thanks to y'all for listening.
SPEAKER_2: This was a lot of fun and I'm really, really glad that we got to do this.
SPEAKER_2: This might not have been the gaffaws and chuckles of a normal Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_2: But I hope you left this feeling like you got something out of this.
SPEAKER_2: And if you did, please let us know.
SPEAKER_2: And if you didn't, also let us know.
SPEAKER_2: Again, like we said upfront, we would love to hear feedback.