Ten - Game Thread

Started by Animal Midwife
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Day 4 Yeet Tally
Clem (5) - fruit 38, beans 25, Spurs 89, apop 38, rae 38
apop (1) - kc 38
Spurs (2) - Clem 39, genny 30
Dubz (1) - samac 90
samac (1) - Dubz 54

10/10
yeet close in ~1 hour
 
Out of curiosity, in the champs games do players usually try to hammer? Or do they like to take the whole day to chat like us?
 
kitzsuna said:
I learned that yall talk fast (expected) lots of new people, a lot of early pretty hard town reads without a ton of substance. But d1 usually flies over my head anyways

Leaning v for fruit for now, somewhat v for you (I think it’s interesting how many people have already seemingly pegged you as v), zenge is pinging me some but this also reminds me of last game so likely v

Neutral sar

I haven’t liked the tone of moon and someone else (who I can’t remember the name of rn lolol) but I need to get to know the new peeps better. Maybe kcalb is pure?

I know I’m forgetting people but I just woke up haha
Click to expand...
Hmmmmm
 
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Black Kat said:
Also didn't like the ktzuna post of they tried to excuse their reads and talk about playing on mobile(??? I also play exclusively on mobile
Click to expand...
Yeah idk this just feels a lil harsh to say to a packmate to me. I have beans on ignore for my reread but I think she was starting to talk about kitz's reads around that time too.

(Apologies if I'm rehashing stuff people already talked about, I'm just processing in my own way)
 
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Day 4 Yeet Tally
Clem (5) - fruit 38, beans 25, Spurs 89, apop 38, rae 38
apop (1) - kc 38
Spurs (2) - Clem 39, genny 30
Dubz (1) - samac 90
samac (1) - Dubz 54

10/10
yeet close in ~40 minutes
 
Independence Day Usa GIF by Broad City


**unyeet spurs***

***yeet clem***

@Animal Midwife @kaydubs
 
Day 4

The jersey hung in the locker room like it always had. Blue once, though time had softened it. White trim curling slightly at the edges. Threads pulled where hands had tugged it over heads in moments of urgency.

And on the back, 10 proudly emblazoned.

It had always seemed like a generous number. Wide. Open. Confident. Ten meant captain to some. Playmaker to others. The one who saw the field differently. The one who turned near-misses into miracles.

For years, the group had treated it that way.
Until they didn’t.

The first whisper came like chalk dust shaken from an eraser. An erasure that was itching to obliterate the delicate scrawls on a board, the strategy drawn out to illustrate the path to victory.

“Funny,” someone murmured, not quite loud enough to claim ownership of the thought, “how often it ends with him.”

A shrug. A lace tightened. No one looked directly at the locker where the 10 rested.
Practice continued. But suspicion is patient.

The second whisper came with statistics - or attempts at them - numbers recited out of context, slices of games trimmed to fit a theory.

“Ten shots,” someone said. “Ten turnovers.”

The symmetry felt ominous. As if the jersey were signing its own confession.
The locker room shifted.

No one accused outright. Not yet. They simply let the number sit heavier in their minds. Let it grow larger than cloth and stitching.

“He always fits the bill,” someone offered, louder this time. “Of course he looks important. Everything runs through him.”

The jersey did not answer. But its presence seemed suddenly loud. The bold 1 standing firm beside the round, open 0. A partnership. A promise of expansion.

What if that promise was illusion?
What if Ten was only standing there, soaking up glory that belonged to the rest?
What if the 0 was a trap, a sinkhole to consume them all?

They began to look at the games differently. Intentionally attempting new approaches to assess the situation.

After days of discussion, murmurs of mistrust became too loud to overcome. Every missed pass traced back to the number. Every loss, somehow, looped around to land at its stitched edges.

Wins became collective,
but losses became personal.


It did not matter that 10 had once been their pride. That crowds had chanted it in unison. That children had scribbled it in marker across homemade signs. Suspicion edits memory.

By the time the meeting happened, the outcome already felt written.

No one wanted to say the word blame.
They used safer ones.

“We need a change,” someone finally declared, voice steady in the way of someone who believes steadiness equals certainty. “We can’t keep building around that number. We need an answer.”

Heads nodded.

The jersey remained on its hook, quiet and waiting.
A hand reached for it.

For a brief moment, the fabric resisted, not physically, but in the way something familiar resists removal. The ghost of past victories clung to it. The echo of cheers hummed faintly in its seams.

Nostalgia is no match for consensus.
But for all its silence, the jersey was going to have the last word.

The hanger scraped against the metal hook.
The number 10 swayed once, twice.
Then, in defiance of the laws of physics, the jersey seemed to fling itself off the hanger, landing in a cardboard box already half-filled with forgotten equipment and outdated playbooks.

The locker looked smaller without it. Strangely blank.

Practice would resume the next day. New drills. New formations. No more 10 on the field, calmly keeping on with a quiet confidence.

In the fleeting moments of stillness, some thought they saw it: the outline of a one beside a zero, the comforting blue cast starkly against white, the space where potential once stretched wide.

But it was too late to rethink. The box had been taken out. And once a number is removed from the roster, it becomes astonishingly easy to pretend it was never essential at all.

Dead is...
1772589454695.png

@Clem J, Sports Jersey, and a
vanilla townie
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Animal Midwife said:
Night 3

Ten.

He did not enter quietly.
He never did.

Ten arrived already mid-echo, as if the world had been waiting for him to begin. His voice carried the weight of conclusion, of doors sealing shut, of rockets preparing to leave the ground whether anyone was ready or not.

“Ten,” he announced, loudly enough that the circle instinctively tightened. Shoulders locked. Hackles went up.

They had been warm there. Humming old tunes about place-holders and potential. About quiet heroes who stand beside you and make you more than you are.

They did not trust him.

Nine.

He stepped forward as he spoke it, subtracting space with every syllable.

“Something doesn’t add up,” he said, though no one else had been doing the math.

Eight.

He unfurled it then. The spreadsheet to end all spreadsheets.

Not a simple table. Not a tidy grid. This was a sprawling, many-tabbed beast of a thing. Columns bleeding into subcolumns. Formulas referencing formulas referencing hidden sheets. Conditional colors flashing meaning only he could interpret.

He gestured at it grandly.

“It’s all here.”

The group squinted at the phantom cells hovering in the air.
Only he seemed fluent.

Seven.

He tapped an invisible box.
“Look at the anomalies.”

They could not see them.
But he could.

Six.

His voice rose.

“Every time Zero stands beside you, the numbers change.”

A murmur rippled through the circle. They remembered the old melody - how Zero multiplied, how he transformed. How standing next to nothing somehow made you ten times stronger.

Five.

“Or maybe,” the countdown boomed, “he manipulates the outcome.”
The word manipulates landed heavily. Like a rock thudding into the pit of the stomach, when reality seems like it isn't. When no one knows who to trust.

Four.

He paced now, shrinking the space between them with each descending number, growing more frantic in his assertions. “I’m just following the data,” he insisted, sweeping an arm across the labyrinthine spreadsheet only he could navigate. “And the data says we are safer without him.”

Safer.

The frost crept in. The chilly gaze of doubters did not dampen his resolve.

Three.

Zero stood very still. He had always been comfortable in stillness. In the quiet before meaning. In the pause that makes expansion possible. But the counting was relentless.

Two.

The voice grew sharper, more triumphant.

“Ask yourselves why he needs to stand next to you to matter.”

One.

The circle had drawn tight. Zero opened his mouth, perhaps to remind them of tens and hundreds and the bright elasticity of possibility.

But it is difficult to argue with a countdown
because a countdown feels inevitable.

The rhythm carries you.
The descent promises resolution.

Zero.

The word struck like a gavel.

“My Hero, Zero should be voted out!” the countdown shouted, louder than all his previous numbers combined. “The formula only stabilizes when the variable is removed!”

The spreadsheet glowed ominously in imagination, dense, authoritative, unquestioned, though not understood.

Votes fell quickly. No one wanted to stand in front of something that sounded so certain. And so they subtracted him.

Zero stepped backward into the blank space from which all numbers begin. He did not rage. He did not plead. He simply receded, as quiet as a placeholder erased.

The countdown exhaled.

Finished.
Complete.

And so soon was he.

The spreadsheet vanished with a flicker.
Silence followed.

Slowly, tentatively, someone began again.

One.
Two.
Three.

The numbers felt thinner now. Smaller somehow. The sums did not stretch as far as they once had. And despite the attempts to channel the countdown, it was clear that, as all do, the countdown had ended.

And inevitability, once performed loudly enough, rarely questioned is the quiet that comes after.

Dead is...
View attachment 415937
@Zenge142, Countdown, and a
town jailkeeper
Click to expand...
Night 3 flavor updated
 
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Animal Midwife said:
Day 4

The jersey hung in the locker room like it always had. Blue once, though time had softened it. White trim curling slightly at the edges. Threads pulled where hands had tugged it over heads in moments of urgency.

And on the back, 10 proudly emblazoned.

It had always seemed like a generous number. Wide. Open. Confident. Ten meant captain to some. Playmaker to others. The one who saw the field differently. The one who turned near-misses into miracles.

For years, the group had treated it that way.
Until they didn’t.

The first whisper came like chalk dust shaken from an eraser. An erasure that was itching to obliterate the delicate scrawls on a board, the strategy drawn out to illustrate the path to victory.

“Funny,” someone murmured, not quite loud enough to claim ownership of the thought, “how often it ends with him.”

A shrug. A lace tightened. No one looked directly at the locker where the 10 rested.
Practice continued. But suspicion is patient.

The second whisper came with statistics - or attempts at them - numbers recited out of context, slices of games trimmed to fit a theory.

“Ten shots,” someone said. “Ten turnovers.”

The symmetry felt ominous. As if the jersey were signing its own confession.
The locker room shifted.

No one accused outright. Not yet. They simply let the number sit heavier in their minds. Let it grow larger than cloth and stitching.

“He always fits the bill,” someone offered, louder this time. “Of course he looks important. Everything runs through him.”

The jersey did not answer. But its presence seemed suddenly loud. The bold 1 standing firm beside the round, open 0. A partnership. A promise of expansion.

What if that promise was illusion?
What if Ten was only standing there, soaking up glory that belonged to the rest?
What if the 0 was a trap, a sinkhole to consume them all?

They began to look at the games differently. Intentionally attempting new approaches to assess the situation.

After days of discussion, murmurs of mistrust became too loud to overcome. Every missed pass traced back to the number. Every loss, somehow, looped around to land at its stitched edges.

Wins became collective,
but losses became personal.


It did not matter that 10 had once been their pride. That crowds had chanted it in unison. That children had scribbled it in marker across homemade signs. Suspicion edits memory.

By the time the meeting happened, the outcome already felt written.

No one wanted to say the word blame.
They used safer ones.

“We need a change,” someone finally declared, voice steady in the way of someone who believes steadiness equals certainty. “We can’t keep building around that number. We need an answer.”

Heads nodded.

The jersey remained on its hook, quiet and waiting.
A hand reached for it.

For a brief moment, the fabric resisted, not physically, but in the way something familiar resists removal. The ghost of past victories clung to it. The echo of cheers hummed faintly in its seams.

Nostalgia is no match for consensus.
But for all its silence, the jersey was going to have the last word.

The hanger scraped against the metal hook.
The number 10 swayed once, twice.
Then, in defiance of the laws of physics, the jersey seemed to fling itself off the hanger, landing in a cardboard box already half-filled with forgotten equipment and outdated playbooks.

The locker looked smaller without it. Strangely blank.

Practice would resume the next day. New drills. New formations. No more 10 on the field, calmly keeping on with a quiet confidence.

In the fleeting moments of stillness, some thought they saw it: the outline of a one beside a zero, the comforting blue cast starkly against white, the space where potential once stretched wide.

But it was too late to rethink. The box had been taken out. And once a number is removed from the roster, it becomes astonishingly easy to pretend it was never essential at all.

Dead is...
View attachment 415939
@Clem J, Sports Jersey, and a
vanilla townie
Click to expand...
Day 4 flavor updated
 
Night 4

Capricornus did not bend. She ascended.

Stone did not intimidate her. Ice did not frighten her. She was horn and marrow and surefooted on impossible footing, a climber of cliffs no one else dared to attempt. Where others slipped, she found purchase. When others hesitated, she chose direction.

And when Hangul rose, she did not waver.

Hangul had been intricate. Elegant. Composed of careful strokes that curved and locked together like architecture. But elegance can be sharpened. Symbols can become signals. Signals can become summons.

The night it happened, the air felt charged, as if language itself were holding its breath.

Hangul stood tall, sprawling across walls and minds, her symmetry mesmerizing and terrible.

Capricornus raised her weapon. There was no flourish. No speech. Just the crack of a single shot that split the sky in two.

Hangul fell.

The sound she made upon impact was not loud, but it was final. Curves collapsed. Structure shattered. Silence expanded into the space it once occupied. There was a soft whisper as the fibers from the brush sang the song of their sorrow.

And Capricornus stood steady at the center of it.

They did not question her, nor doubt her.
They called her hero without hesitation.

Because they had seen what Hangul had become. They had felt her reach, her tightening lattice. They had feared the way she moved through corridors and minds, multiplying meaning into menace.

Capricornus had ended it. Cleanly. Decisively. And they knew - she was their muscle.

They lifted her name high. They spoke of her aim, her resolve, the clarity of her choice. If there was weight in what she had done, she bore it without complaint. She did not seek praise. She accepted it like she accepted gravity, an inevitable force, neither embraced nor resisted.

Peace, or something like it, settled.
But vengeance does not thaw.

Somewhere beyond the cliffs, beyond the sightlines Capricornus had always commanded, someone had been watching.

Quietly. Determination carving lines into their face.
Bound by devotion as fierce as any structure.

The night it happened was windless.

Capricornus stood alone on high ground, as she often did. The stars were sharp above her. The valley below lay quiet, orderly, safe in the wake of her earlier shot.

She did not hear the approach. No one did. The sound that followed was not the clean crack of her own remembered heroism. It was closer. Duller. Personal. It came as no surprise to her.

Capricornus staggered once. The mountain did not move to catch her.

She fell not like Hangul had fallen - no grand collapse, no shattering geometry. Just a body meeting earth that had always felt like ally.

By morning, frost traced her horns.

There was no mystery about motive. No suspicion. No whispers of doubt.

The partner of Hangul did not hide their reason. Vengeance was not complicated. It did not require spreadsheets or votes or murmurings in corners. It required only memory and aim.

They buried Capricornus where she had stood tallest - on the ridge. A hero. The word did not fade with her.

If anything, it hardened.
Because she had shot Hangul dead when others could not.
Because she had climbed when others hesitated.
Because even in death, no one questioned the steadiness of her hand.

And sometimes, when wind cuts across the stone just right, it carries two echoes -
the first, sharp and righteous.
The second, close and retaliatory.

One act that made her a hero.
Another that made her a martyr.

Both ringing against the mountain she never once feared.

Dead is...

1772674478148.png

@_rae_, Capricornus, and a
town even night vigilante

--------------

Two times five had always been simple. That was his charm. He did not sprawl like a long division problem. He did not brood like a prime. He arrived as a clean, balanced, partnership.

2 × 5.
Peanut butter and jelly.
Lock and key.
Salt and pepper.
Left and right.
Two hands, five fingers each.

Ten.

He was the quiet bridge to it. The dependable path. The way small, separate things clasped together and became something whole and round and satisfying.

Ten felt warm. It felt complete.

For years, the group adored him for that. Whenever they needed certainty, they called on 2x5. Whenever they wanted to prove that harmony existed, that pairs could meet and make something greater, they pointed to him. “Look,” they would say, “how easily it works.”

He would smile in his understated way. He never claimed ownership of the result. He simply stood between two and five and let them hold hands. But simplicity can breed suspicion.

It began with murmurs. “Why does it always end at ten?”
A strange question, perhaps. But once asked, it lingered.

Ten was everywhere. Ten steps. Ten chances. Ten seats at the table. Ten fingers tapping nervously against wood.

“He didn't want to vote there,” someone observed. As if hesitation were a crime.
Another voice, softer: “Maybe it wasn't towny obstinance after all.”

The group began to look more closely at the pairs.

Peanut butter and jelly - too sticky, someone said. Too sweet. Too gloopy.
Shoes and socks - constricting. #freethetoes
Sun and moon - never truly together. Destined to dance separately amongst the stars.

They examined twos and fives separately, turning them over in their minds like mismatched puzzle pieces.
What if two did not need five? What if five could find another partner?

Three and seven make ten too.
Six and four.
Eight and two.

Ten, it turned out, was promiscuous. It could be reached in many ways.

And once that thought took root, 2x5 felt less essential.

The suspicion did not roar. It accumulated. Like chalk dust in the air, tally marks on a board.

They began to wonder whether he had been claiming credit for ten all along. Whether he had been standing too comfortably in the space between partnership and product.

“It can’t always be him,” someone muttered. “He’s too convenient,” said another.

2x5 stood as he always had, two on one side, five on the other, hands linked, expression steady. He did not argue. He did not reconfigure himself into something flashier. He remained what he was: the meeting point. Outwardly calm, inwardly turmoiled.

The night he died was unremarkable.

To others' knowledge, no dramatic equation scrawled in red.
No shouted accusation.
... that they could see.

Some swore they'd heard crazed screams during the night, but it could have been the wind.

By morning, he was no longer there. A subtraction. Two stood alone, blinking in the sudden space. Five lingered apart, uncertain.

Ten did not materialize.

Three drifted toward seven.
Four tested six.
Eight reached tentatively for two.

Ten still appeared, of course. Ten is resilient that way. It emerges wherever factors agree to meet.

But it felt different now. Less balanced. Less… familiar.

Peanut butter without jelly is thick and stubborn.
Jelly without peanut butter slides everywhere.
Left without right stumbles.
And two hands without their shared purpose curl inward, unsure what they are meant to hold, cracking their knuckles hoping the sound will bring peace that never comes.

In quiet moments, some of them found themselves missing the ease of 2x5. The clean click of partnership. The comfort of knowing exactly how ten would arrive.

But suspicion, once multiplied, does not easily divide back down.

And 2x5, he remained absent. A simple product undone.
Leaving ten to be assembled by strangers who could reach it,
but never quite the same way again.

Dead is...

1772674459915.png

@GoSpursGo, 2x5, and a
vanilla townie
 
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