The Thing Mafia [Concluded]

[[MAFIA] Luigi]

IM SORRY I DONT SPEAK SPANISH

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

为什么会产生这种的现象呢？究其根源，我认为为了提高我们的机会，大家应必须努力地一直写出短文，使 Reenk 的工作变得更难。

Vote: Emilio

Hi Reenk!

You might notice that translators are typically notoriously poor

[[MAFIA] Luciano]

IM SORRY I DONT SPEAK SPANISH

Είναι όλα τα ελληνικά μου.

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

Vote: Emilio

I'll give you guys another hint: It's not Emilio Can you save yourselves in time? I really hope not, because I'm really having lots of fun.

I TELL YOU THIS MUCH, HE ASKED FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

[[MAFIA] Bobby]

oh what the... this is fun :D

unvote, vote: Emilio

Emilio 4ever!

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

oh what the... this is fun :D

unvote, vote: Emilio

Emilio 4ever!

Before I escape again, is there anything you want to ask me about pizza? I could complain about tips, or we could discuss the epistemic merit of behavior-based methods of catching scum in mafia games, which lacks the empirical results of Reentuition.

[[MAFIA] Vito]

Your Reenk-impersonating-Pizza-impersonating-Reenk needs work, Pizza.

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

Your Reenk-impersonating-Pizza-impersonating-Reenk needs work, Pizza.

unvote, vote: Vito

I'd like to see you do better.

[TinCow]

Tally:

Emilio: 7 (Nick, Vito, Frank, Silvio, Luciano, Sonny, Bobby)
Vito: 2 (Luigi, Rocco)

Not Voting: 3 (Emilio, Johnny, Vinny)

[TinCow]

Kage and CR rode back into the gardens on War Ostriches. CR surveyed the crowd in a regal fashion, while Kage dismounted, carefully avoiding the various blades and Borg lasers strapped to the creature. The latter then walked up to the assembled group of henchmen.

"So, which one of you is this most horrible Thing?"

Nearly every man present pointed at Emilio.

Kage looked at him cautiously for a moment, then smiled. "Greetings, alien from another star! I am Emperor Kagemusha, Supreme Overlord of the Terran Dominions. That," he gestured to CR, "is my co-Emperor, Rabbit von Crazypants. We welcome you to our most wondrous planet!"

Kage gave Emilio a sweeping bow. Emilio just stared at the wall and grinned.

"Uh, yes..." Kage continued, "we welcome you to Earth, and would like to forge an alliance between our two great peoples. Think of it! With our armies of expendable henchmen and your laser guns and proton accelerator beams, the galaxy will fall before us!"

Emilio picked his nose.

Kage frowned. "You do have laser guns, don't you?" Emilio didn't move. "No? Proton beams? Ion disentanglement devices? Veral Thrust Capacitors?" Emilio licked CR's War Ostrich.

"This is an insult!" scowled Kage. "How dare you come to this planet as the ambassador for your race and refuse to even negotiate with us?! Are you planning on giving your supreme power to another overlord? You are, aren't you!"

Emilio drooled on himself.

"We cannot allow this treason to continue! If we cannot possess your Magma Generators and Phase Shields, no one shall!" He looked at CR, who nodded. "Crumpet, Twinkie... KILL!"

The War Ostriches went wide eyed and jumped on Emilio. There was an orgy of squawks, feathers, blades, and blood. Eventually, CR pulled back on the reigns. "Easy Crumpet. That's enough, Twinkie." The birds cleared away, revealing a grisly scene of dismembered body parts and crushed organs.

CR turned to the henchmen. "Alright, well, nothing left to worry about then. The alien is obviously dead, so get back to work. Remember, tonight is the nuclear missile silo and french bakery. We both expect piping hot croissant for breakfast."

"I wouldn't mind a soft-boiled egg as well," added Kage.

Emilio: 7 (Nick, Vito, Frank, Silvio, Luciano, Sonny, Bobby)
Vito: 2 (Luigi, Rocco)
Not Voting: 3 (Emilio, Johnny, Vinny)

Night 4 will end in:

(Note: The end time for this phase will be 9am EDT instead of the usual 10am EDT, as I will be busy at 10am tomorrow.)

Alive: (11/17)
[MAFIA] Bobby
[MAFIA] Frank
[MAFIA] Johnny
[MAFIA] Luciano
[MAFIA] Luigi
[MAFIA] Nick
[MAFIA] Rocco
[MAFIA] Silvio
[MAFIA] Sonny
[MAFIA] Vinny
[MAFIA] Vito

Killed:
[MAFIA] Bertha (N1)
[MAFIA] Fat Tony (N2)
[MAFIA] Paulie (N3)

Lynched:
[MAFIA] Salvatore (D1)
[MAFIA] Bugsy (D2)
[MAFIA] Emilio (D3)

[[MAFIA] Nick]

I hope history will vindicate me.
Why did Em not speak in defensery?
Oh jeez, maybe last minute transfery?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As for myself, I await your summary judgment. I neither beg nor expect your pardon: It is our doom to suffer the consequences of our acts, regardless of the piety of our intentions.

Some pollution begs not the cloth, but the knife; this I accept and understand.

Sin is sin.

[TinCow]

The bakery oven had been successfully installed, and the henchman was busy connecting it to the fueling system of the ICBM missile silo. He asked his partner to hand him a crescent wrench. While he was tightening a nut, he began to muse. "Kage and CR are very big on dual-use facilities. Is that environmentalism or economics?"

The partner shrugged, "Could just be perversity."

"And what's with these 'lynchings' every day? Of all people, Kage and CR should know that those things don't work to catch enemies, but they make us do it anyway. You know, I'm as grateful as you that they don't just slaughter us all at once to kill the Thing, but they're not exactly the kind of people to care about losing some henchmen. It just..." the henchman shook his head, "...doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

"Perhaps they are trying to educate us."

The henchman dropped his wrench and turned to look at his partner, "Educate us? What is that supposed to mean? This is all some kind of lesson?"

The partner shrugged again, "Well, we all insist on being jokey and creating artificial speech patterns. Such things are inherently unnatural, as all fabrications are, and thus they are even easier for someone to impersonate than normal behavior. I suspect CR and Kage realize this and are giving us a chance to prove our capabilities by rectifying our errors."

The henchman scowled, "well, you're as bad as the rest of us. I haven't seen you trying to do a whole lot of analysis. Who are you to lecture me on the various points of detecting enemies?"

The partner sighed, "I see this will require a bit more of a lesson than I had planned on giving. Very well," he hopped up on the edge of a counter and sat, his legs dangling off. "pay attention and you will learn something. All these Points, I say, are supposed and believed by certain rigorous Exactors of Evidence in Intuition, Men who pretend to believe no further than they can see. That Men, who have been conversant only about clear Points, should with difficulty admit obscure ones might not seem altogether unaccountable. But he who can digest a "Scummy" Entity, a second or third degree of WIFOM, need not, methinks, be squeamish about any Point in Inspiration. There is a natural Presumption that Mens Faculties are made alike. It is on this Supposition that they attempt to argue and convince one another. What, therefore, shall appear evidently impossible and repugnant to one, may be presumed the same to another. But with what appearance of Reason shall any Man presume to say, that Mysteries may not be Objects of Faith, at the same time that he himself admits such obscure Mysteries to be the Object of Science? "

The partner jumped down from the counter and began to pace the aisle. "It must indeed be acknowledged, the modern Behavioralists do not consider these Points as Mysteries, but as clearly conceived and mastered by their comprehensive Minds. They scruple not to say, that by the help of these new Analytics they can penetrate into Infinity it self: That they can even extend their Views beyond Infinity: that their Art comprehends not only Infinite, everything dealing with motivation, but Infinite of Infinite (as they express it) or an Infinity of Infinites. But, notwithstanding all these Assertions and Pretensions, it may be justly questioned whether, as other Men in other Inquiries are often deceived by Words or Terms, so they likewise are not wonderfully deceived and deluded by their own peculiar Signs, Symbols, or Species. Nothing is easier than to devise Expressions or Notations for "scummy" and "WIFOM" of the first, second, third, fourth, and subsequent Orders, proceeding in the same regular form without end or limit. These Expressions indeed are clear and distinct, and the Mind finds no difficulty in conceiving them to be continued beyond any assignable Bounds. But if we remove the Veil and look underneath, if laying aside the Expressions we set ourselves attentively to consider the things themselves, which are supposed to be expressed or marked thereby, we shall discover much Emptiness, Darkness, and Confusion; nay, if I mistake not, direct Impossibilities and Contradictions. Whether this be the case or no, every thinking Reader is intreated to examine and judge for himself."

When he was done preaching, the partner turned to face the henchman. The man was staring at him blankly. "Uh, what? Sorry, I tuned out after you said 'extractors.'"

The partner grew visibly angry. So visibly angry that his jaw seemed to extend, his ears shrank, and his limbs lengthened into claws. "You have chosen..." he sneered, exposing row after row of wickedly sharp teeth, "poorly."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CR was munching on a croissant. It was fresh and its crust was perfectly crisp. "MMMmmmm..."

Kage, busy tucking into his egg, "Mmpphh"ed in agreement.

When the two were done with their breakfast, they turned to the assembled henchmen. "Not bad at all," said Kage. "Any henchman can build a nuclear missile silo, but it takes a talented crew to create a bakery."

"Very versatile," nodded CR. "I was particularly surprised by the fluffy bakiness of the croissants and baguettes. Where is Bobby? Didn't he do some work on the oven with someone else? I'd like to shake his hand."

Everyone looked around, Bobby was nowhere to be found. Kage grew suspicious, "Say... maybe Emilio wasn't the alien after all!" CR raised an eyebrow, "interesting theory, my evil friend." "Indeed," replied Kage. He eyes suddenly widened, "which means we have another chance at meeting the fellow today!" "YOU!" he pointed at the assembled henchmen, "find Mr. Thing for us, so that we can have a most proper conversation with him."

"And make it quick," added CR, "tonight we build the Room With The Giant TV Screen and Waterpark."

Day 4 will end in:


Alive: (10/17)
[MAFIA] Frank
[MAFIA] Johnny
[MAFIA] Luciano
[MAFIA] Luigi
[MAFIA] Nick
[MAFIA] Rocco
[MAFIA] Silvio
[MAFIA] Sonny
[MAFIA] Vinny
[MAFIA] Vito

Killed:
[MAFIA] Bertha (N1)
[MAFIA] Fat Tony (N2)
[MAFIA] Paulie (N3)
[MAFIA] Bobby (N4)

Lynched:
[MAFIA] Salvatore (D1)
[MAFIA] Bugsy (D2)
[MAFIA] Emilio (D3)

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

I will survive! Vote: Johnny

Multiply entities as much as possible as the most complex explanation is usually the right one. Am I still Pizza-as-Reenk-as-Pizza, or have I now become Reenk-as-Pizza-as-Reenk-as-Pizza? Use Reenk's Razor to find out.

[[MAFIA] Frank]

Uhm... Bobby isn't around eh?

Vote: Bobby :P

[[MAFIA] Vito]

I will survive! Vote: Johnny

Multiply entities as much as possible as the most complex explanation is usually the right one. Am I still Pizza-as-Reenk-as-Pizza, or have I now become Reenk-as-Pizza-as-Reenk-as-Pizza? Use Reenk's Razor to find out.

You're still Pizza, Reenk stopped advocating Reenk's Razor a while ago.

[[MAFIA] Luciano]

Uhm... Bobby isn't around eh?

Vote: Bobby :P

Non sai leggere? Si dice che è morto e ancora di votare per lui. Non molto bene di voi.

[No personal attacks, even in foreign languages under anonymous accounts - GH]

[[MAFIA] Frank]

I read that anyway, and it was a joke vote...

[[MAFIA] Frank]

And Unvote; Vote: Nick
For the Emilio wagon.

[[MAFIA] Nick]

Ok.

[[MAFIA] Nick]

Vote:Nick

In so surrendering do I conquer. In so yielding do I seize.

[[MAFIA] Vito]

Okay guys, don't vote for Nick. Nick, this includes you. Reenk may be a lot of things, but he is also a sportsman at heart. Reenk said here that he wasn't going to take over Nick:

I'm The Thing and I'm going to take one small step for a mafioso, one giant step for Mafia, and replace my first victim tonight. It could be any of you (except Nick because I'm not writing poems for any period of time).

...which means that we can basically strike Nick off the list. Reenk's smart enough to win without resorting to outright lying to us (and he knows it too) and a simple misdirection move like this would provide him no enjoyment. Basically, unless Reenk acts completely out-of-character I think we can safely cross Nick off the list and move onto other suspects.

[MAFIA] Frank
[MAFIA] Johnny
[MAFIA] Luciano
[MAFIA] Luigi
[MAFIA] Nick
[MAFIA] Rocco
[MAFIA] Silvio
[MAFIA] Sonny
[MAFIA] Vinny
[MAFIA] Vito

I'm taking myself off the list; believe me if you want to or not. I'm also taking Rocco/Pizza off the list, who I'm about 99% sure isn't Reenk due to posting style.

[MAFIA] Frank
[MAFIA] Johnny
[MAFIA] Luciano
[MAFIA] Luigi
[MAFIA] Silvio
[MAFIA] Sonny
[MAFIA] Vinny

Luciano's been speaking Italian the entire game, and I think Vinny is khaan (unless Emilio was) because neither of them have posted much.

[MAFIA] Frank
[MAFIA] Johnny
[MAFIA] Luigi
[MAFIA] Silvio
[MAFIA] Sonny

Shot in the dark here, but I think it's one of these five.

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Nick]

Fine, very well, I will do what I will.
But Reenk shall still - in the end - get his fill.
As confirmed town, I'm soon up for the kill.

Unvote: Nick; Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Johnny]

vote: Vito
You seem to understand this Reenk fellow well. A little too well. Granted, we have been stuck in this frozen prison of a labor camp for days now. I know I've gotten a little closer with some of my fellow men than I'd ever admit to anyone back home... Regardless, you seem fishy. And you're one of the few people who have yet to start brushing your teeth after I complained about everyone's breath smelling like coffee. *points Toothbrush of Suspicion at Vito*

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Sigh, I make the effort to make sentences that Reenk would have no shot at translating properly by himself and this is what I get.

我不肯接受这不得了的情况。但还是不太迟，所谓 ”亡羊补牢，未为晚也”。

Luciano's been speaking Italian the entire game

And how does this prove anything really? Reenk could simply use an online translator, heck, even google translate translates it into a sentence which makes sense (Indicative of translating English to Italian), he wouldn't be hard pressed to do that.

If you're voting for me, you basically believe that:

1) Reenk went to extremes to translate chinese to try and prove his innocence
2) Reenk has consented to "take the easy way out" and post maybe once a day which is my normal habit
3) Reenk likes to post at 2am/4am just to act innocent.

Essentially if you think that Reenk has taken over me, or that I am Reenk, you would likewise believe that Reenk would be lax in his posting, and conversely put in a heavy commitment to post at ungodly hours at his time, which would be odd.

In any case, I think between Frank and Luciano I'd pick Frank.

Post Preview: Nevermind, I didn't think it was Johnny until he posted. Seems out of place with the reference to the passing attempt at humor in one of Johnny's post. I'm inclined to think that it is very unlikely that such a passing joke would be re-used again, seems more like an attempt to pretend to be the same guy. Just a bad feeling about this guy.

Vote: Johnny

[[MAFIA] Vito]

Johnny: I have been playing Mafia games with Reenk for roughly five years now and have moderated the Gameroom for the past two where it is my job to read every single solitary post made to make sure rules are being followed. Add that with the fact that Reenk is one of the more unique personalities I have ever come across, not just on this forum or on the internet, but most unique, period, and yeah, I'd like to think that I'm able to at least have an idea where to start in trying to pick him out of a crowd.

Sonny: First of all, regarding the Luciano thing, since he's exclusively speaking Italian there is absolutely zero challenge in replicating his posting style. As I mentioned before, I think Reenk is a sportsman and would go for the more challenging route so he can relish in his victory all the more once things are done.

Secondly, I basically randomly picked you out of the five names I had listed as probable suspects. But your rationalizations and defenses are interesting to note. Mainly, your usage of timezones, which puts yourself in Eastern Daylight to two hours to the east of that, which is the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Canada. Actually, now that I think on it you might be Tratorix, but then again timezone obfuscation seems like the sort of thing Reenk would do. I also note that right now it's 1am in Michigan, hardly an ungodly hour.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, everyone, please keep in mind that the above list I made is good for this one round only, as the chances that Reenk makes a doppelganger kill to throw us all off the mark are quite high.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Hmm? The 2am/4am thing was just a rough gauge.

I honestly expected the language to be a pretty darn big sign about who I am.

And I recall posting at 3am EST (I think) before.

Anyway I'm going to be out for 5 hours. Feel free to make a guess on who I am and consider whether I'm Reenk or not.

[[MAFIA] Vito]

Hm, this makes sense. DiY, I presume.

Unvote: Sonny
Vote: Silvio

Another shot in the dark.

[[MAFIA] Nick]

Unvote: Sonny

Nick (1) : Frank
Silvio (1): Vito
Johnny (1): Sonny
Vito (1): Johhny

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Vito hangs immediately before you, suspended by nails through his thighs and forearms, naked save for the Agonic Collar about his throat. He seems scarcely conscious. Dagliash had been a great sentinel once, staring across the wastes of Antarctica toward the Board Index, her turrets manned by the hard-hearted men of Norway. Now she was but a way station of the Org's ruin. Norway was dead, her people extinct, and the great cities of the Frontroom were little more than gutted shells. The guests had fled to TWC, and the remaining Orgah nations —EB and the Backroom—battled for their very lives. Five years had passed since the advent of the Reenk-Roink. The Orgahs could feel him, a looming across the western horizon. A sense of doom.

A harrowing cry cuts through the air. You actually crouch, though you know no harm could befall you, peer in the direction of the sound. You grip the bloodstained timber. On a different brace of scaffolding farther down the fortifications, a Bashrag stoops over a thrashing shadow. Long black hair streams from the fist-sized moles that pock its massive frame. A vestigial face grimaces from each of its great and brutal cheeks. Without warning, it stands—each leg three legs welded together, each arm three arms—and hoists a pale figure over the heights: a man hanging from a nail as long as a spear. For a moment the wretch kicks air like a child drawn from the tub, then the Bashrag thrusts him against the husk of corpses. Wielding an immense hammer, the monstrosity begins battering the nail, searching for unseen mortises. More cries peal across the heights. The Bashrag clacks its teeth in ecstasy.

Immobilized, you watch the Bashrag raise a second nail to the man’s pelvis. The wails become raving shrieks. Then a shadow falls across the townie. “Anguish,” a deep voice says, as close as a whisper in your ear. Intake of breath, sharp and sudden. The incongruent taste of warm Gameroom air …

Then there he is—Reenk—standing over him, staring at Vito where he hangs flushed and alive among gaping mouths and groping limbs.

“Anguish and degradation,” the Thing continues, his voice resonant with inhuman tones. “Who would think, GH, that salvation could be found in these words?”

Reenk stands in the curiously affected manner of horrible Mafia aliens, his hands clasped and pressed into the small of his back. He wears a gown of sheer black damask beneath a corselet of nimil that had been worked into circles of interlocking cranes. Tails of nimil chain follow the gown’s pleats to the ground.

“Salvation …” Vito gasps in GeneralHankerchief's voice. He raises his swollen gaze to the Mafia Prince. “Has it progressed so far, Roink? Do you recall so little?”

A flicker of terror mars the Thing’s perfect features. His pupils become thin as quill strokes. After millennia of practising scummery, the alien bears a Mark that is far, far deeper than that borne by any Andres, Sasaki, or Pizza—like indigo compared with water. Despite his preternatural beauty, despite the porcelain whiteness of his skin, he seems blasted, blackened, and withered, a husk of cinders at once animate and extinct.

“Recall?” Reenk replies with a gesture at once plaintive and majestic. “But I have raised such a wall …” As though to emphasize his declaration, the sun flares across the wall’s length, warming the dead with crimson.

“An obscenity!” Vito spits. The nets flap about the nailed corpses. To his right, near to where the wall curves out of sight, you glimpse a carrion arm waving back and forth, as though warning away unseen ships.

“As are all monuments, all memorials,” Reenk replies, lowering his chin toward his right shoulder—the Mafia gesture of assent. “What are they but prostheses that pronounce our impotence, our debility? I may live forever, but alas, what I have lived is mortal. Your suffering, GH, is my salvation.”

“No, Reenk …” Hearing the strain in the General's voice fills you with an eye-watering ache. “It need not be like this! I’ve read the ancient chronicles. I studied the engravings along the High White Halls before Tosa Inu ordered your image struck. You were great once. You were among those who raised us, who made the Orgahs first among the Tribes of Forumites! You were not this, my Prince! You were never this!”

Again the eerie sideways nod. A single tear scores his cheek. “Which is why, Hankerchief. Which is why …” A cut scars where a caress fades away. In this simple fact lies the tragic and catastrophic truth of the Mafia. Reenk Roink has lived a hundred lifetimes—more! What would it be like, you wonder, to have every redeeming memory—be it a scum buddy's touch or a night kill's horrified squeal—blotted out by the accumulation of anguish, terror, and hate? To understand the soul of a mafioso, the philosopher Lemur had once written, one need only bare the back of an old and arrogant slave. Scars. Scars upon scars. This is what makes them mad. All of them.

“I am an Erratic,” Reenk is saying. “I do that which I hate, I raise my heart to the lash, so that I might remember! Do you understand what this means? You are my children!”

“There must be some other way,” GH gasps. The Thing lowers his bald head, like a son overcome by remorse in the presence of his father. “I am an Erratic …” Tears sheen his cheeks when he looks up. “There is no other way.”

Hankerchief strains against the nails impaling his arms, cries out in pain, “Kill me, then! Kill me and be done with it!”

“But you know, GeneralHanerchief.”

“What? What do I know?”

“The location of the secret detective.”

Vito stares, eyes rounded in horror, teeth clenched in agony. “If I did, you would be the one bound, and I would be your tormentor.”

Reenk backhands him with a ferocity that makes you jump. Droplets of blood sail down the wall’s mangled length.

“I will strip you to your footings,” the Mafioso grates. “Though I love, I will upend your soul’s foundation! I will release you from the delusions of this word ‘Town,’ and draw forth the beast—the soulless beast!—that is the howling Truth of all things … You will tell me!”

The old mod coughs, drooling blood.

“And I, GeneralHankerchief … I will remember!”

You glimpse rows of fused, sharp teeth. Reenk's eyes flare like spears of sunlight. Orange-burning circles appear about each of his fingertips, boiling, seething with fractal edges. You recognize the sorcery immediately: a Mafia variant of the cult conversion ability. With volcanic palms, Reenk clenches GH's brow, serrates both body and soul.

Vito howls in voices not his own.

“Shhhh,” Reenk whispers, clutching the old townie's cheek. He squeezes away tears with his thumb. “Hush, child …”

Vito can only gag and convulse.

“Please,” the Thing says. “Please do not cry …”

In case I die before Vito

[[MAFIA] Rocco]

vote: Vito
You seem to understand this Reenk fellow well. A little too well. Granted, we have been stuck in this frozen prison of a labor camp for days now. I know I've gotten a little closer with some of my fellow men than I'd ever admit to anyone back home... Regardless, you seem fishy. And you're one of the few people who have yet to start brushing your teeth after I complained about everyone's breath smelling like coffee. *points Toothbrush of Suspicion at Vito*

Understanding Reenk is a worthy endeavor, a feat many have attempted; a feat almost all have yet to master. But to pretend to understand Reenk is the height of arrogance. Men with relatively remarkable intellects strive toward this Understanding, struggling in vain to comprehend his Points, achieving little in the process. It is not the meager achievement but the struggle which interests me the most, for life itself is a continual struggle towards Comprehension; to Know, to Understand, and to realize what can and cannot be Known. If Man could begin to fathom the limits of his own Comprehension, then he would truly begin to Understand.

The first and greatest Endeavor is to know thyself. Only a fool would suggest that he grasps the complexities of another when he cannot begin to understand why he does what he does. If Man does not know himself, then he cannot completely trust his judgment on others. To Presume that another is "Scummy" or "Innocent" based on his own judgments is to Presume Man can trust his own judgment; if that premise is flawed, then inexorably what follows is that Man is blinded by his own ignorance of himself. Man accepts as a matter of Faith that his judgment is trustworthy, and through that Faith he may begin to Achieve. But regardless of positive accomplishments (or indeed, negative ones) he cannot full credit himself; he is only a bit player in his own destiny. At the very edges of his consciousness the fog of the Unknown permeates everything. Man believes that he is at the center of the Known and that he is peering out into the Unknown, but in truth, his very being resides within the Unknown, because he does not know himself fully. As such, it is the Unknown which drives him forward, compelled by his Faith in his own limited Knowledge and the illusory concept of Choice, towards his ultimate fate.

This Point forms the root of self-knowledge; knowing that you do not know yourself. Man only begins his journey towards Understanding when his perspective changes, and he does not consider himself at the center of what is Known, and accepts that the greatest factor in his sentience is the Unknown. Then he can begin to consider Moods, biases, flawed logic, and begin to Understand what drives his own Intuition; better grasping the Unknown Factors which dominate his consciousness allow a more self-aware individual to flourish. As such, this individual will be better prepared to understand and to judge the factors in others which drive their own consciousness; their moods, their biases, their very intuition. Each person will have similar Factors and different Factors from another person, but patterns begin to emerge. From those patterns, true behavioral analysis can be attempted. Analytical Men can then perhaps put their energies toward a better and higher purpose. Until such time, however, Man must rely on his flawed intuition, and submit to the chaotic unknown that resides within his own Understanding.

When you were getting closer to these men, did you get to know them on a deeper level? Were their feeble bodies mere sacks of moist flesh for you to inhabit? Or, perhaps, were you experimenting with a new kind of intimacy, diving deep into the mysterious Unknown of your own sexuality?