Newbie 2108 - Postgame

[IdleMuse]

Hello everyone! Nice time to star a game imo, quite a slow period before New year.

[IdleMuse]

I spent ages looking for a nice avatar profile pic but I think that might just out me

(as a nerd)

[IdleMuse]

Oh no, razor sharp logic. VOTE: Elements for outwitting me

[IdleMuse]

@IdleMuse
What do you think of Pravowski's declaration to sheep me?

Well I had to look up what sheeping was, for one thing ;P all the lingo is slowly coming back to me...

But overall it seems like a baa'd idea. Your analysis, while long, was quite.. Woolly. I'm not convinced

[IdleMuse]

@Charles510
<<< How's this look?

@Elements
Because I don't think a joke analysis post warrants sheeping you... Not that I think they were particularly serious about doing so. A bunch of your points apply to me, too, after all, I also posted with 'Hello everyone'.

[IdleMuse]

Do you think my joke analysis post is more scum motivated or town motivated or neither or both?

Neither? It's just... RVS-motivated?

UNVOTE: unvote fwiw

[quote="In post 7
This ISO feels lacking in bite. Obviously could just be because nothing has happened but there is a vote move here that feels chummy... almost too chummy. VOTE: Idlemuse

Can you elaborate on this?

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: idlemuse because I like your name

You haven't moved your vote at all since RVS. Do you scumread idle? If not, who would you change your vote to?

While it started as RVS it has progressed to a proper vote because of Meg's comments about the iso being friendly. Which is a stark contrast to yours and why I'm towning you atm.

I don't even understand the logic you're using re. ISO, and I think flippantly passing off an explanation (even if it was directed at Meg not you) with a screenshot with the word ELABORATION pasted on top is singularly unhelpful.

[IdleMuse]

I don't think there was anything wrong with putting me at e-2, if there was a quickhammer then it'd be rosy for us, at least one scum would basically have outed themselves. E-2 is not the same as a a hammer, esp. D1.

My reads right now:
Cactus and Aureal town
Elements scum, aggressive early play to build a leader position, esp. with focus on throwaway talk of sheeping which is obvs much more desirable for scum than town.
Everyone else neutral

VOTE: Elements

[IdleMuse]

Do you dislike it because criticises you? I read your aggression as scummy but cactus' not because I felt your questions came out of the gate too quickly during RVS, like you were eager to use your knowledge to get the game started. I appreciate it was primarily directed at me, so call me out if you think I'm biased or tunnel-visioning but so far that's the strongest read I have given not a lot has occurred so far. Re. Aureal, I got the impression of general proactive questioning, same as cactus, again not a strong read but who has a strong read right now?

Post-preview : I think it's a bit odd to criticise someone for posting some basic reads. Like I say here, they aren't strong reads, just inclinations. I haven't 'made up some things about you', I'm suggesting a motivation for your posts. I don't read the same tone into anyone else's questions.

I'm especially not keen on how I asked for elaboration on a point, and you posted... A screenshot of the post with the word elaboration over the top. So quick to dismiss my question?

Post-Post-preview : I'm interested what posts from cactus you think are notably aggressive, of nothing else than because I am curious if I reading tone differently to you.

[IdleMuse]

On the basis that if you ARE town, the scum are sitting back and rubbing their hands, I'm interested if other people could weigh in.

[IdleMuse]

On the basis that if you ARE town, the scum are sitting back and rubbing their hands, I'm interested if other people could weigh in.

This is quite a drastic pov for a game that's just recently dropped out of RVS

Finally back at a computer so I don't have to post from mobile, which makes quoting hard.

UNVOTE: Elements

But overall it seems like a baa'd idea. Your analysis, while long, was quite.. Woolly. I'm not convinced

What makes it a bad idea?

Do you think my joke analysis post is more scum motivated or town motivated or neither or both?

Reading back, my impression of aggression was based on this early on exchange, where you're pressing me over a RVS joke I made in response to your initial joke post. I do understand your point, though, that getting the game started is generally pro-town. By contrast, I felt cactus was more picking up on what I considered legit questions - so maybe 'aggressive' was the wrong word, but I don't know a one-word word for 'putting pressure on in ways that feel constructed rather than flowing naturally from the situation'. I'm going to unvote you because it's picking at splinters really given there is now a few more pages of content.

[IdleMuse]

On the basis that if you ARE town, the scum are sitting back and rubbing their hands, I'm interested if other people could weigh in.

This is quite a drastic pov for a game that's just recently dropped out of RVS

What do you mean by a 'drastic POV' here? is this vocab I don't know, in context?

[IdleMuse]

What are you thoughts on Charles, Idle?

Well they haven't posted since:

Sorry, I just finished Christmas with my family. Going back to read up.

It's not that long a thread, obviously this is a time of year where it's hard to get away sometimes but imo they realistically they've posted twice so far, once (with a few posts in a row) to do some RVS, and then once for this, so like, not a great look?

[IdleMuse]

That that point of view is quite a jump given the gamestate

There aren't any toxic 1v1s clogging up the thread or cyclical conversations leading nowhere.
Those are the sort of things I think scum would just sit back and spectate. Atm I think we're discussing game relevant things that progress the game.

Okay, point taken. It would progress the game if other people were in involved too, which was all I was asking. Of the three other people to post since then, only Meg had a comment on it, neither Aureal nor Pavowski did, which are data points.

[IdleMuse]

Idle, what about Aureal speaks town to you?

It's been just over 8 hours since he said he'd been with family for Christmas and was about to get into things. Seems like we could give him a little time to do that, no? Either he follows through with that, or he continues to hide away in which case, in your opinion, it'd be useless to pressure, wouldn't it? How much time do you think it should take him to say more?

I should clarify that I consider lots of things pressure, one being "lots of votes on me, I need to save myself here" pressure (that would be the e-2 pressure I wasn't a fan of) and another being "let's ask this slot some questions and see what shakes loose", y'know, like you're doing to me

They can co-exist obviously but are not the same thing

E-2 at this early stage really shouldn't feel like pressure, should it? Most everything was still RSV so who would put the last two votes on without discussion?

At any rate Charles' "absence" from the thread is materially different from Weuler's at this point and conflating the two would be a mistake

Howso? Both have given a RSV and that's it for content, save for Charles promising to be back with more soon.

Aaaaaand that's it for me tonight, boys and girls

Aureal feels towny to me here

Not gonna crawl into your pocket or anything tho

For one thing I wouldn't fit, for another there's already an axlotl in there and I have intimacy issues

Ahh, trying to get me to back off you, eh?

Specifically the early bit of the last quote felt like reasonably good-faith arguments to me at the time I posted those reads. And I agree with her that E-2 isn't really 'pressure' on day1.

[IdleMuse]

Charles has engaged with the thread, even in the hand-waving way of "I'll get back to it", which indirectly acknowledges the absence, while Weuler has done no such thing. I kinda feel silly explaining this

I really don't get this point. Charles has posted nothing of value in the thread, Weuler has. Even though I don't like Weuler's points particularly (focus on Aureal felt kind out of nowhere in #140), you can't claim that they haven't engaged with the thread, that's simply not true.

[IdleMuse]

Now I'm confused. You wrote the text I quoted in #181, Weuler hasn't posted since then. I get that since the original post #132 they hadn't, but, the situation as it stands is different. What's your thoughts on Weuler and Charles right now?

[IdleMuse]

Of the three other people to post since then, only Meg had a comment on it, neither Aureal nor Pavowski did, which are data points.

Comment on what exactly?

Post #164/5

[IdleMuse]

Anyway, Idle: care to explain why you've voted then unvoted Elements twice now? You're not even voting FOR someone, you're just not voting anyone.

First was RVS, removed when the game started properly.

Second was when I did my first set of leans and found her 'lead the town' attitude to be slightly more likely scum than anyone else at that time. She pointed out that she hadn't been any more pointed in her questioning than other people really, which was a fair comment, I unvoted pending further thoughts, given I hadn't been particularly paying attention to other people at that time.

I don't think Aureals self vote was meaningful information at all, just RVS. Maybe there's some deep psychology there but I don't see it.

VOTE: Weuler - between Weuler and Charles, I can buy that Charles is snowed under with family or something. Weuler is just MIA a lot and I don't like what they have posted. Not specifically the E-1 thing, I can see that happening naturally in a situation where you post but then remember to vote count and realise. But rather, I didn't really like their initial focus on Aureal (I think it's one thing to drop a question to someone, a bit different to ask what you think of someone else), and nothing since then has made me go ah, very pro-town point.

Would have voted Charles otherwise, he has to start playing really. Especially now cursed slot has arrived.

I find Brickwalls intro analysis to be reassuring.

[IdleMuse]

Fwiw I don't think the Weuler Aureal interaction leans me Aureal either way, I can see valid scum motives for that question irrelevant of Aureals alignment.

[IdleMuse]

@Idle Did your read on Elements change? What do you think about Aureal's post-by-post analysis of you?

Yes, I reread the thread and realised I had misjudged their tone, and was placing undue weight on comments directed at me. Aureal's read of me as nervous was on the nose in terms of being nervous, but it's just, town nervous, it's been a while. It has been a long time since I played (and FWIW it was on MtgSalvation, which maybe had a slightly different meta? Although not in any way I've really noticed so far.) Specifically re. my 143 I said 'I don't think there was anything wrong with putting me at e-2, if there was a quickhammer then it'd be rosy for us, at least one scum would basically have outed themselves. E-2 is not the same as a a hammer, esp. D1.' - It doesn't mean I wasn't feeling antsy about it.

Post-preview: I wrote this in response to #290 and didn't click post and like two new pages of content got posted since then, so, happy new year in my TZ, and I'll catch up before turning in.

[IdleMuse]

I appreciate the effort which has gone into post 294 but unfortunately i'm not a fan of post 294 (always wanted to know how to use the [post] brackets so thank you Element. Giving it a try).

Hear me out, I think the time and effort gone into making this post gives me town vibes for Element. I think it is a lot of work and effort for scum to go to. Don't get me wrong, nothing conclusive about this read but merely it is sending good signs.

I, however, think the logic is massively flawed and thus on that basis it is nothing more than a conversation starter. The insights in the spoilers is where I think the true value of this post is. The numbers in the graph are of little value, imho.

I only say that because I am in scum team 11, one of the three front runners. I know I am not scum so I know the logic is flawed. Thus, how can I then trust read 25 and 22, if I know read 11 is wrong. Simply doesn't make sense.

My other remark would be why the need to hunt scum in pairs. I know it is a team game but each team dynamic will be different, and thus looking for a unique team pairing is super unrealistic. The game is hard enough looking for individual scum, why are we complicating it by hunting for pairs. I think focusing in on individual posts and nuances to find one scum. Once we have located the first, we can analysis the link between that slot and the remaining players. This is a more sensible, methodical can logical approach to hunting scum pairs.

I find this whole post off-base. In the abstract, 'expending effort' on a table and some inconclusive thoughts isn't alignment-indicative to me. I don't buy that it's a 'massively flawed' approach, like, it's just a systematic approach to one thing that we are doing generally anyway, attempting to discern hidden relationships between players, behaviour that comes from hidden knowledge rather than thread content. The fact that they disagree with the logic for pair 11 (because it includes them) doesn't preclude them from agreeing with 25 and 22 as they claim. The justification for the reads on those pairings was different. "Why the need to scum hunt in pairs?" - why not? Why shoot down an approach that might yield results? No-one is stopping them from focussing on individual players. We don't need to collectively decide on one method and discard all others. I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that it's busywork on Elements' part but that's not what Brickwall said, they in fact applauded the effort.

[IdleMuse]

**snip...**

VOTE: Weuler - between Weuler and Charles, I can buy that Charles is snowed under with family or something. Weuler is just MIA a lot and I don't like what they have posted. Not specifically the E-1 thing, I can see that happening naturally in a situation where you post but then remember to vote count and realise. But rather, I didn't really like their initial focus on Aureal (I think it's one thing to drop a question to someone, a bit different to ask what you think of someone else), and nothing since then has made me go ah, very pro-town point.

Would have voted Charles otherwise, he has to start playing really. Especially now cursed slot has arrived.

I find Brickwalls intro analysis to be reassuring.

It comes across as very opportunistic for me and almost appears like "buddying up" by Idle. Aureal asks a straight up question applying some pressure on Idle, Idle sees it as an opportunity to switch their vote to Weuler, who funnily enough happens to also be on the receiving end of Aureal's questions.

Do you think I should have left my vote off? Aureal pointed out that I wasn't voting anyone, and I had a scum lean on someone by this point, so I voted. My actual thoughts on Weuler weren't the same as Aureals, I disagree with her points around the vote stuff on #262 and #264 (and I said as much in #267).

[IdleMuse]

Please don't vote for me! I haven't really done anything yet and I apologize. Things have been pretty hectic here.

I'm still waiting for Nicolosse

Charles510-watch reporting, approaching 24 hours with no further contact.

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Brickwalllll

Happy to vote Charles too if they don't post anything contentful today (a Sunday).

[IdleMuse]

UK Train wifi is terrible. I will be back home later but while I have at least a tenuous connection now:

Brick's response under pressure doesn't fill me with confidence. They are doubling down on the weird take that if ANY of Elements analysis is wrong, all of it must be. I don't know if I can do a better job of explaining why this isn't correct than the next person. Mafia isn't an equation. It's not maths. One read can be right and the other wrong even if they are derived from the exact same information with the exact same reasoning. Yes, that isn't very helpful, but, that's why we don't rely on only one persons' analysis.

[IdleMuse]

Yeah, this is like, a total waste of time making much ado of nothing. If you all wanna vote Brick, can you please explain why you think being bizarre is scummy? I see absolutely no value to scum in doing what Brick is doing; the only thing it's doing is causing confusion that draws pressure onto them. Not exactly a great tactic for scum.

And hey, Weuler and I both agree on this being a waste of time, so if you think Brick is scum, you know at least one town is telling you that this is a waste of time.

If going brickwall-stubborn on bizarre points is a town tell that rolls the wagon off them then it's a great scum strategy. Do I think Brick is executing that strategy? No, I think it's more likely they are newbie nervous scum. I think town are more likely to take account of other people's input and at least debate the point.

[IdleMuse]

UNVOTE: BrickwallVOTE: Charles as I said I would if no content was forthcoming yesterday. Do not take this to mean my scum read on Brick is lessening (as per my post above ^), I will happily swap my vote back to Brickwall if other people are keener on pushing that wagon today than Charles. Brick/Charles as a scum pairing makes sense insofar as it's basically a null interaction.

[IdleMuse]

I mean, come on. Neither Pav nor Meg has engaged in discussion of it either, despite expressing some intent to look at it later. Why upset people by flat out saying you don't want to, when you can just ignore?

Pedit: "Rolls the wagon off them"? The wagon is only there

because

of the supposed strategy.

To be clear, I do not consider them scummy because of their stubbornness (I think that descends into WIFOM), I think that just speaks to inexperience (particularly 364, I empathise a lot with that 'well screw it if I can't persuade you' attitude). What I think is scummy is the original claim ('if one read is wrong, all must be wrong'), which seems like a flaw in reasoning that doesn't come from a town mindset.

Whcih is to say, the 'strategy' of being stubborn isn't what put the wagon on them. But I will reiterate, I don't think this is actually a strategy they are using, it was merely an observation that if being stubborn does stall the wagon, it would have been a good one from that perspective.

[IdleMuse]

Hold on, since I'm still not asleep even though I really should be, it just now hit me that the "not directly linked to alignment" stuff Meg was saying about my foray into the Brick/Elements dispute makes it sound rather like Meg already knows we're all town.

Interested to hear this case, I had a bit of a null read on Meg.

[IdleMuse]

I make that E-1

[IdleMuse]

I make that E-2 again

[IdleMuse]

Oh no. This could go on all day!

[IdleMuse]

I'm happy with my vote resting on Charles atm. Yes, it's a busy time of year, but, not even suggesting _when_ they'll be able to post something, beyond 'soon', multiple times throughout the week doesn't seem in good faith. I would have expected a 'Sorry, I will be able to sit down and contribute now/tonight/tomorrow' or something a bit more concrete than yet another 'soon'. I see the point that others have made that eliminating them doesn't give us much info (any info really) if they flip VT, but, on the flipside, if that is the case, we also don't lose a whole lot, a non-participating town member isn't drastically helpful to us except in a purely mathematical sense. On the other hand, skating through D1 without giving up any gameplay content whatsoever feels pretty advantageous for them if they are scum.

[IdleMuse]

Brickwall's dismissal of Elements' read is scummy, it feels like he just wants to push his own agenda.

But again, what is that agenda supposed to be? We're talking about Brick not wanting to bother giving a read on two specific possible scum-pairings, are we not? So far as I can tell this is the line that kicked off the firestorm:

I only say that because I am in scum team 11, one of the three front runners. I know I am not scum so I know the logic is flawed. Thus, how can I then trust read 25 and 22, if I know read 11 is wrong. Simply doesn't make sense.

How does it benefit scum to just refuse to talk about pairings that they know are wrong? It's easy enough to ignore, or handwave with a comment about them seeming off-base; or if they feel bold enough, try to use it to push a bad wagon. Brick took the hard path and just went 'nah, I don't operate that way'. Only possible use for this sort of thing I can see for scum is if they maybe felt they were being TOO townread and didn't want people to question why they weren't getting nightkilled later so tried to stir up a little drama but not enough to get voted out?? But that's a super-weak reason.

I think this is a reasonable point, although my take on that was more that a legit town should not dismiss 25 and 22 on the basis of being part of 11 (as Brick did), rather than, what would a scum be getting out of this.

It does occur that Meg is on both pairs 22 and 25 and so you could read that as a defence of them. Maybe a bit overt if so. Does Meg/Brick make sense as a scum pair?

407 could be read as tutoring
408 puts Brick close to the middle, which would make sense for scum pair
421 contains a reply to Meg, but no read on them, no discussion of their alignment, where it does for Aureal, Weuler, Cactus, and Pav
434 contains mild defence of Brick

and reading back prior to then they barely interact or mention each other at all, literally just a vague read in Brick's initial 253 and Meg's acknowledgment of Brick's existence in 284.

[IdleMuse]

407 could be read as tutoring

Just as a point of interest. I'm assuming you mean "tutoring" like "coaching", ie, suggesting what another player ought to do. If Meg/Brick is the pair, why is Meg "tutoring" in the main thread -- don't you think that'd be better done in the PT?

That is exactly what I mean yes, although I will say I've never played in a game before where the scum had daytalk, so I guess that does change these sort of reads, although in this case it doesn't really change my mind a whole lot; I still think that's a suspicious pairing. The tone is still kinda 'corrective' more than anything else, even if it's not overt coaching (which, as you say, would happen in daytalk). It's also the same point that had been made by others before Meg in slightly different forms, so, kinda 'free' in terms of not highlighting anything new, which is what I'd want to do if I was trying to distance from a scumbuddy, climb on a bit of a wagon without really contributing to it.

[IdleMuse]

I'm happy with my vote resting on Charles atm. Yes, it's a busy time of year, but, not even suggesting _when_ they'll be able to post something, beyond 'soon', multiple times throughout the week doesn't seem in good faith. I would have expected a 'Sorry, I will be able to sit down and contribute now/tonight/tomorrow' or something a bit more concrete than yet another 'soon'. I see the point that others have made that eliminating them doesn't give us much info (any info really) if they flip VT, but, on the flipside, if that is the case, we also don't lose a whole lot, a non-participating town member isn't drastically helpful to us except in a purely mathematical sense. On the other hand, skating through D1 without giving up any gameplay content whatsoever feels pretty advantageous for them if they are scum.

I pulled my vote from Charles because I don't think the rest of the lobby has the appetite for it today (but I will vote there if I turn out to be wrong). If not Charles, who would you vote next?

Possibly related (but possibly not), what are your thoughts on Aureal, especially given their recent post that focuses you (and me) a bit (457)

As I said before, I am equally happy to vote Brickwalll, that hasn't changed. In fact I think ghosting after getting a bit of pressure is probably slightly scum-leaning too, so if anything I'm even happier with my read there.

After that, I guess Meg is my strongest scum read, for the pairing logic above, but I would much rather eliminate Brickwalll than them, because that whole case is solely built on their interactions, rather than Meg's other content, which I don't have a strong opinion on one way or the other.

Aureal I have a slight town read on. She makes good points. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but, not because I feel they come from a biased position, just differences of opinion. Why, what's your thoughts on her?

[IdleMuse]

@Pav Who's your strongest scum read right now? Since you're not voting anyone.

[IdleMuse]

I predict Charles will come in with some vague reads, enough to skate by game rule policy, with the intention of then not having to post again before night.

[IdleMuse]

Who's

your

top scum, Idle? You're voting Charles for inactivity.

I said like three posts above, Brickwalll. Even putting aside the bit we disagree over (reaction to elements list, which I think is probably descending a bit into WIFOM - you don't see why a scum would act that way, i don't see why a town would act that way, overall I guess NAI. Is that actually reverse-wifom??), I've not found their other stuff engaging either. They tried to shift attention onto Pav with a big case that I found very unconvincing (349). (Yes, I agree that the 'playerlist' bit is just misunderstanding, but the rest of the criticisms don't feel legit to me, and they haven't really pursued any of their leads there, just backed off right away). They described cactus as a 'wrecking ball' swinging back and forth (421), which is basically the opposite of my opinion of cactus's play. I don't buy the 'when I flip town my arguments will take on a whole new meaning!' - opinions can still be incorrect even you are proven town... Then they went AWOL for a bit.

Charles510 is being replaced for inactivity. The deadline will freeze at 48 hours if I have not found a replacement before then.

Oh, so I was curious and went digging into Charles a bit more. If you're voting Charles because you think the lurking means scum, please peek at Newbie 2106. Charles does not understand this game. This behavior is NAI.

Yeah I see this. The fact they were coming back in regularly-enough to avoid replacement was suspicious to me, seemed like there was intent there, but looking at that game (and the obvious fact they did get replaced) that is no longer the case.

UNVOTE: Charles. VOTE: Brickwalll

[IdleMuse]

Maybe it's just a timezone thing now everyone's holidays are up but it's been super slow the last couple of days. I know we're still waiting on BlueBloodedToffee to post (which I antcipate in the next few hours since they are UK-based and said they would after work today), but in the meantime we shouldn't be clamming up.

@Weuler, you've posted not much other than Charles-lurk-discussion recently, do you have any further thoughts since 271 on your neutral reads, specifically cactus, pav, and meg, I think. I assume you still scumread me since afaik you're still voting me, do you still scumread elements?

@Elements, can you elaborate on your suspicions of meg?

[IdleMuse]

This post comes out of nowhere and I really don't like it. Someone said it was blown out of proportion and that's exactly what it felt like, such a weird thing to say. Implying early that it's TvT to gain town reads?

If it helps, I can explain my mindset at that point a bit? In games way back, I used to get (correctly) accused of tunnel-visioning and getting into 1v1s a lot. I was feeling under pressure from 151, 158, 161 to defend myself (new game after ten years nerves), and after 164 I felt like I was kinda tunnelling on Elements, so I was asking people to weigh in to see a different viewpoint on it. It certainly never used to be that unusual to ask 'what does everyone else think?', particularly early in a game when we'd seen relatively little from some people.

Post-preview:

And Idle, I asked because you were voting Charles yet expressing suspicion of Brick. I don't like that disconnect. We're running low on time to mess around with useless votes.

I had said several times I was equally happy to vote either of them; I just left my vote on the largest wagon of the two at any given point.

[IdleMuse]

It was the fact that you implied it was TvT so early on.

I'm not sure I understand. I was saying "If I'm wrong on this, and elements is town, then the scum are happy because it's a lot (at the time) of thread and post content that's not including them". I was second-guessing my own read.

[IdleMuse]

It's LAMIST, I don't think I am explaining myself very well for what it's worth.

You and Elements had barely been exchanging, it wasn't like you had been going back and forth for 10 pages or whatever, it was a discussion that was in it's infancy. However, you felt the need to suggest that if Elements is town then scum would be rubbing their hands with glee and these two townies going at each other.

It felt premature and looked like you wanted to plant the seed of how town you are and how happy scum would be so people should look elsewhere.

Okay, thanks for the explanation, I at least understand the point now. I'll just say that in that whole initial interaction with elements I came across nervy and jumpy and it's just down to not having played for ages, having a first real bit of pressure/confrontation.

[IdleMuse]

From Brick's entry into the game, I don't think they're scum so we probably shouldn't vote there.

Do you mean 253 specifically, or just their early posts in general? I ask because Meg really complimented this as well (in 510) and I don't really buy it. It's just a lot of non-commital statements? Like, not scummy, for sure, but not drastically towny either?

@elements No worries, I mean, it's a barrier you need to break through to play mafia, right, you have to be able to deal with being asked questions without immediately getting stuck in the mindset that the questioner is scum.

[IdleMuse]

Okey dokey.

While I'm on the subject though, I think it's amusing that brick's strongest town-reads in 253, cactus and pav, are the two people they have subsequently criticised most (in 349 and 421). Not sure that's indicative of anything though directly though, just an observation of inconsistency I will pocket for later.

[IdleMuse]

Certainly in this case I don't see that inconsistency as being inherently scummy, early reads of mostly-RVS content are very easily overriden by actual content reads. It's the content of their later posts that I don't buy as town.

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Meg

I haven't changed my mind on brick but that wagon is going nowhere today I don't think. Meg has done nothing but defend themself or brick since 408.

[IdleMuse]

Their stronger scum read is you, obviously.

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Megs

This is E-1 again.

I do not believe it is, elements unvoted.

Nothing brickwalll has said overnight reads as honest to me. Cactus is one of my strongest pro-town reads. Still keen on a brickwall or meg elimination, I think brick would give us more information at this point.

VOTE: Brickwalll

THAT is E-1.

[IdleMuse]

they are now essentially voting me because they think cactus is town and cactus surely can’t be wrong

When did I say that? I'm not voting you because I think cactus is town, I'm voting you because I think you're scum.

I think it is quite funny that your scum list is 1) meg, who I suspect is your scumbuddy you want to distance given you're close to being eliminated, followed by 2) three of the four people voting for you (not cactus, who you still read as town despite claiming they're acting in bad faith!).

Not convinced.

[IdleMuse]

I think that's E-2 still

[IdleMuse]

Weuler, do you have an updated reads list?

This one is old and a lot of uncommitted views. We now have an additional 400 posts so can you please provided an updated read list?

You literally quoted their updated read list further down in your post...

[IdleMuse]

Also, no other comments on that post Idle? You are very good at skirting around things. Look present without doing much.

@idle, what do you say to my comment that you can have a pro-town read on cactus but cactus can be wrong? Thoughts please?

I'm deliberately ignoring many of your points because I think they are self-evidently poor reasoning and don't need me to highlight it any further. You can dig your own grave without me giving away any more information to help the scum with their night actions.

[IdleMuse]

@Brick Why do you think cactus' play is newbie? Quite to the contrary, I think they have some quite nuanced points that you have either misinterpreted or ignored.

Post-preview: @Elements my read on weuler is -actually- newbie town; indecisive, mostly. I don't see 578 coming from a scum mindset, it's a theory from nowhere that shows that they were thinking about the game and trying to puzzle it out, even if the logic itself is weak. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a strong read, but that's how I see it right now.

[IdleMuse]

I'd love to see it.

I'll claim if I hit E-1 Beyond this point.

VOTE: MegAzumarill

[IdleMuse]

I agree cop would be an unlikely fakeclaim if we're in column B - there's a 2/3rds chance there's a friendly neighbour in that setup and anyone who the FN targets will know that we're in column B too (assuming I understand how FN works correctly..), and thus know the cop claim is fake, as well as the other town PRs. In this setup every town PR except doc knows if that claim is fake or not - making that fake claim in column 2 just increases the number of people that 100% know the claim is fake (unless they manage to NK the FN, presumably by pure chance?).

Following that logic, the 'best' column to fake cop in is probably C? If it's Row 1 or 2 then only one town knows 100% if it's a fake claim, two in row 3.

I don't know if this means very much tbh. Some players may not have even seen the claim yet, been a while since BBT and cactus posted.

Post-preview: I agree masons should cc.

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Elements, not waiting for cactus to potentially cc seems incredibly suspicious to me.

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Elements, not waiting for cactus to potentially cc seems incredibly suspicious to me.

I wanted to vote before going to bed and cactus wasn't going to be online before then.
The fact that Meg is dead completely undermines this point. The only reason to stop someone from ccing would be to protect the fake claim. The claim was real so the only reason for a cc would be to get a 1v1 where at worst both get voted out.

Kinda WIFOM, if elements was scum she would have known she could make that argument today to defend the hammer.

Also, there is another reason to hammer - to make sure an elimination did happen (on someone that scumElements knew was town), rather than risk the potential of the deadline elapsing without an elimination (in this regard I believe the bit about wanting to vote before going to bed ).

[IdleMuse]

All caught up on D2.

My thoughts remain similar to yesterday. Idle number 1 read at the moment. How quickly Idle switched to Meg once she said she would claim at E-1. It was like she was hunting for it. Also, her support of cactus without willing to engage in conversation directly with me was just weird.

My read was that meg and you were scum, and since it looked unlikely that there were enough people to eliminate you, I switched to meg. I was also hoping for more content from meg, rather than just sitting back and not doing much, and that post they made at that point was not the contentful examination of the current wagons and cases that I was hoping for. So I swapped my vote.

Re. my vote on Elements today, I think she answered the points about her voting behaviour at the end of D1 well enough, like, I had no scum read on elements at all in D1 so it was literally just that hammer action and I think the defense she has made makes enough sense now that I'd consider it neutral.

UNVOTE: unvote elements

[IdleMuse]

My read on Brick has changed in the cold light of D2. I don't agree that analysing the interactions between pairs is redundant, but, I also don't think, after reflection, that the cactus-brick or me-brick interactions came from a scum POV.

Who I do want to look at more is BBT. I'm gonna discount everything from the charles era, I don't think anything about troll-lurking is alignment-indicative one way or the other. But, since BBT arrived they jumped on the weuler wagon pretty quickly with little discourse (696, 701), now pushing cactus based on some equally non-informative judgement.

- 789 doesn't really sell me, if you think the push on brick was bad, explain it a little more, if you think there are things they said that don't make sense, quote them, 'obsessed with my slot' is hella exaggeration.
- 802 sure, sometimes wagons are all town, but I read Weuler as town and I felt it built and concluded pretty quickly? I think it's more likely _both_ scum were on it than none and 802 is intended to shift the dialogue away from that.
- 811 I mean you literally admit it's bad reasoning right there in the post. I do town-read cactus' aggression there because my thinking was mostly along the same lines re. brick at that point.

More damning to me is that I thought Weuler was a pretty easy newbie town-read, I don't easily buy that BBT didn't make that same connection, esp. being much more experienced (going by postcount at least).

Overall this isn't a strong scum read, but I'll put my vote down VOTE: BlueBloodedToffee because I don't have a stronger read right now.

[IdleMuse]

My read was that meg and you were scum, and since it looked unlikely that there were enough people to eliminate you, I switched to meg. I was also hoping for more content from meg, rather than just sitting back and not doing much, and that post they made at that point was not the contentful examination of the current wagons and cases that I was hoping for. So I swapped my vote.

What made you feel it was unlikely there'd be enough people to get Brick?

I did counting. Two of the following people would have needed to vote brick - Aureal, Element, Pav, Meg, or BBT. Of them, Pav had previously, but, of the other four, I had the impression that you and Element had town reads on brick, Meg was quiet, had defended brick, and I thought possibly their scumpartner at the time anyway, and BBT had also posted they were unlikely to vote brick. Maybe I was wrong, but I felt like I was wasting my time pursuing that wagon at that time.

Re. my vote on Elements today, I think she answered the points about her voting behaviour at the end of D1 well enough, like, I had no scum read on elements at all in D1 so it was literally just that hammer action and I think the defense she has made makes enough sense now that I'd consider it neutral.

UNVOTE: unvote elements

You didn't give any thought of your own to the possible circumstances in which the hammer coming there could be advantageous to certain parties during the night? Because it rather seems like trying to turn my startlement with its swiftness into trying to start something on Elements there with no real reasoning behind it.

I thought the circumstances there would be fairly obvious, maybe not, or maybe my understanding of the meta is off, but, I assumed that the scum would prefer a town elimination over a no-elimination, so the advantage to them is... getting the elim, while they still were around to post? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. My thinking there was not particularly deep, I just wanted the questioned of the hammer vote landing before cactus could potentionally cc meg to not go unanswered.

[IdleMuse]

Gonna go ahead and express my doubts that two scum are on the flashwagon that ends the day,

I mean it's entirely possible ofc that it was one-on one-off, I just think it's unlikely it was both-off.

[IdleMuse]

Is 6:2 worse for town than 5:2? I get that it means the vote threshold is higher, is that enough to offset the 'being closer to the mafia wincon'? Maybe this is just an aspect of mafia analysis I never encountered way back when.

[IdleMuse]

Sorry I've been away for a bit, first day back in the office today zzzz. Going to go through the last few pages now.

[IdleMuse]

If you take it to the next step, 4:2 is worse than 3:2. Still limlo but with a higher vote threshold

Yeah, I can see this, although obviously we'd hope to be at 5:1/4:1, neither of which are limo but I think your point still holds, as it then would go to 3:1/2:1 which is the same. Anyway, maths aside, I understnad what you're getting at here, and while it can't town-clear you (too much WIFOM), I'll accept it's at least NAI.

[IdleMuse]

This was something that I questioned D1 as I was catching up; I can't remember if it was you that said it, but someone made out that D1 was a decision between Meg or Brick and no-one else was a consideration. Made me uneasy at the time and even more so in light of Meg's flip.

This was not me, it was Aureal in 522. I don't read this as suspicious though.

[IdleMuse]

Talk about your Brick read some more? You seem to have completely 180'd on it? What posts did you think came from a scum POV and now think otherwise?

I have 180d on brick, indeed. I think 505 probably best represents my thoughts on Brick in the latter half of D2, nothing posted after that really changed that core opinion. But a reread over the nighttime and meg's flip (I was quite keen on the meg+brick pairing) made me realise that I was focussing too much on the stubbornness around pair hunting (example 547) and the almost-constant repetition of stuff like 'So how are you going to justify when I flip town?', "so when I do flip town, cactus is going to essentially be out of this game", "When I flip town, will my reads list be of more effect to you?" - they were constantly hammering that 'when i flip town' phrase. With the benefit of hindsight I just don't see a scum motivation for stuff like that., the stubborness isn't alignmnet-indicative, and while the constant 'when I flip town' feels LAMIST, there just so much of it, I think it's more indicative of town thinking-out-loud. 628 in particular I think is very town.

[IdleMuse]

I said more about Weuler than you're letting on, did you forget 689 existed? Like, I don't need to justify my vote on Weuler at all, but there is more than enough in my ISO to support a vote in a game that a) I replaced into and b) we were starting to run low on time in. In fact, had I not voted for Weuler, who do you think I had more reasoning to vote for?

How is my Cactus read not informed? Again, my ISO shows numerous posts regarding Cactus and my dislike of their play in this game. You're literally saying things that can be proven wrong just by ISO'ing me...

Find me a player that pushed Charles more than Cactus if you don't think he was tunneling my slot. I'll wait.

689 just shows that your read on Weuler was wrong. Being wrong doesn't mean you're scum, but it doesn't exonerate you either. I'm not asking you to justify your vote at all, I'm asking everyone else to consider that that may have been an opportunistic vote on a wagon that was rolling, rather than one grounded in legitimate suspicion.

I reread your ISO wrt cactus and your dislike of their play, and I'll summarise it here along with my thoughts.
519 - criticising cactus' entrance; I don't really get the hate for cactus' early posts, they were aggressive sure but asking game-centric relevant questions. I don't read that as scum, trying to jumpstart the game.
519 - criticising cactus's attempt to get charles to actually post; I read this as trying to pressure the slot to actually attend the game. Maybe aggressively so.
519 - some interesting back and forth re. elements; I like this from BBT.
689 - "Talk more about how the fear of leadership _definitely_ coming from town?" - nitpicking the choice of vocab.
then today
789 - Three points, none of them really elaborated on.
"Bad push on Brick" - Specifically what was bad about it? You haven't really highlighted anything you think is bad about that push.
"Obsessed with my slot when it was an easy push" - I really don't read obsession into their ISO on this. Yes, they posted a lot about the slot, but a lot of it was when using it to justify voting Weuler. Also what would scum have gained from obsessing over a lurking player?
"Says many things that don't make sense" - Same as point 1, examples rather than just 'they bad, i vote'.

I feel like I've fallen into defending cactus a bunch so I'll just clarify my read here; I think their play is easily read as aggressive and short with people, but, that's very NAI, and they seem to be doing legitimate scum-hunting to me. The only posts I don't like are the pair around policy-limming BBT which don't make sense to me. Overall, that leans pro-town, to me.

[IdleMuse]

I just think it's unlikely it was both-off.

Why?

Maths. I don't think it's Aureal and Cactus. I town read both of them, and sure, I could be wrong, but given all the possible permutations of who the scum could be, I think it's more likely it's not them than it is.

[IdleMuse]

Idle is now professing ignorance about the concept that no D1 elimination is bad for town

I'm very aware even before today that no-elim was bad for town, and that town should always eliminate someone D1 (being that everyone is of unknown alignment), but, my impression was that scum would prefer a town elimination over a no-elimination (being that they know who is town). That's what I was not getting. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

I actually have this written in a notebook when elements first replied to me about it:

Town: Unknown Elim > No-elim
Scum: Town Elim > No-elim > Scum Elim

I think it's not intuitive that it's actually

Scum: No-elim > Town-elim > Scum-elim

, as Elements explained. I learnt something.

[IdleMuse]

Hmm, OK. Cactus did something similar, did he not? You don't see the scum motivation for someone repeatedly saying they're town...like, really? Your flip on Brick makes very little sense to me but I don't know what it means.

689 just shows that your read on Weuler was wrong. Being wrong doesn't mean you're scum, but it doesn't exonerate you either. I'm not asking you to justify your vote at all, I'm asking everyone else to consider that that may have been an opportunistic vote on a wagon that was rolling, rather than one grounded in legitimate suspicion.

Umm, you didn't answer my question. Who did I have more 'legitimate suspicion on than Weuler? Would you rather I voted a vanity wagon or just didn't vote at all? Tell me what town!BBT should have done.

I reread your ISO wrt cactus and your dislike of their play, and I'll summarise it here along with my thoughts.
519 - criticising cactus' entrance; I don't really get the hate for cactus' early posts, they were aggressive sure but asking game-centric relevant questions. I don't read that as scum, trying to jumpstart the game.
519 - criticising cactus's attempt to get charles to actually post; I read this as trying to pressure the slot to actually attend the game. Maybe aggressively so.
519 - some interesting back and forth re. elements; I like this from BBT.
689 - "Talk more about how the fear of leadership _definitely_ coming from town?" - nitpicking the choice of vocab.
then today
789 - Three points, none of them really elaborated on.
"Bad push on Brick" - Specifically what was bad about it? You haven't really highlighted anything you think is bad about that push.
"Obsessed with my slot when it was an easy push" - I really don't read obsession into their ISO on this. Yes, they posted a lot about the slot, but a lot of it was when using it to justify voting Weuler. Also what would scum have gained from obsessing over a lurking player?
"Says many things that don't make sense" - Same as point 1, examples rather than just 'they bad, i vote'.

So we agree that your accusation of my read on Cactus being uninformed was just wrong? Instead, we have now shifted the goalposts to you not liking my reasoning for scum reading Cactus? Just so we're both clear on what's just happened.

1. Do you read Brick as scum, then, over that behaviour?

2. I'm not going to try to tell you how to play town, this is an obvious trap.

3. I never said your read on cactus was

uninformed

- I said it was

uninformative

. You saying 'Says many things that don't make sense' is useless to the town, it's not actually explaining your vote at all. The only reason I can find in your ISO for your suspicion is the attitude of cactus towards Charles (your slot). Original post 820 for reference: "non-informative judgement".

[IdleMuse]

Okay, I will give the obvious answer: I'd rather you built a convincing case based on solid observations and voted for that, rather than Weuler.

Are you referring to cactus doing the same in 608? - I interpreted that as poking fun at Brickwall for using that phraseology so much.

[IdleMuse]

I see, that's fair enough. I guess I could go into Cactus in detail at some point.

I am interested in this, for sure. Not just in a sense of 'okay, prove it' sorta thing, but like, I could be sold on cactus case if it was actually solid and not just based on them being to-the-point with people.

[IdleMuse]

Don't you? I think it looks a little suspicious, it seems like channelling town to these two options.

Nah, to me I don't read that as trying to set up the idea that it must be one of the two, it's just a statement of opinion that it's likely to be one of those two.

[IdleMuse]

Gonna go ahead and express my doubts that two scum are on the flashwagon that ends the day,

I mean it's entirely possible ofc that it was one-on one-off, I just think it's unlikely it was both-off.

Whilst I agree with you on the above that I think at least one scum is on the wagon, it is ultimately all speculation. Although, like I said to you I suspect at least 1 person is on the wagon. So, out of:

Pavowski,

MegAzumarill

, Brickwalll, BlueBloodedToffee, Elements

Who do you think is scum?

@idle please answer

... have you not read my posting this day? BBT is my highest suspicion from those four. That's why I didn't answer it before, I thought it was obvious...

[IdleMuse]

Am I right in counting it's three people at E-2 and elements not voting?

[IdleMuse]

You don't think my reasoning for voting Weuler was solid?

No, I don't.

[IdleMuse]

Aureal v Cactus has me flip-flopping back and forth on the both of them a lot.
Post on BBT to follow.

I think both Pav and Elements have both been super uncommunicative today. I know right now its a bit of a midweek mid-day2 lull (I didn't even realise I was near prod, for instance!) but both of them have gone for ages now without really explaining where their thoughts are coming from, and I'd like to know.

- Pav: 'vibes over analysis' is a great way (well, not that great) to hide the fact you have no analysis and your vibes are coming from a scum perspective.
- Elements: post frequency is a lot, but, so little actual content, just lots of naked votes. Saying you can't read the game is a great way (well, not that great) to disavow your naked votes in the future.

Pav: Who are you actually suspicious of right now? You've not been voting for a while now. Do you have any scum-reads at all above 'vibes'?
Elements: I'm particularly curious about 959 (obviously). Was it BBT's behaviour, or, being suspicious of the wagon composition?

post-edit: Tell me why she's scum?

[IdleMuse]

Wagon composition.
I think I want to vote in you/Aureal today

Why, though. This is what I mean, you've been super-light on any kind of explanation of your thinking.

[IdleMuse]

Wondering if that post of Idle's is going to materialize.

Yeah I'm typing I got lost down ISO wells half-way through.

[IdleMuse]

Curious what value you see in cactus's mindset of "I had a bad read on Weuler therefore it's impossible that anybody else had a better one!"?

You mean 991? I indeed see no value at all in that, it's clearly just... wrong, and that's what I mean by flip-flopping, much of cactus' logic today I disagree with. Do you think that cactus' defenses and positive reads on me is an active attempt to pocket? I'm talking like 862, 917, 955, etc.

I think 988 is particularly suspicious: "My bad, keep thinking that Meg and Weuler are the same wagon since I didn't witness their formation first hand" - what?? I feel like only scum make mistakes like this, because they aren't paying as much attention necessarily to the differences between town-aligned players (since, at a basic level, eliminating either of them is desirable, whereas town should be trying harder to actually ascertain alignment. That said it's not a strong case, I'm just confused how anyone could confuse the two wagons, town OR scum. Just leans scum to me).

I also think writing anything off as a 'vanity' vote or wagon is kinda unhelpful, like, maybe I'm misunderstanding how the term is being used.

Actually BBT said it well:

Weuler was scummy because you say so? Or I say so? Clearly the people who thought Weuler was scum were wrong so now you're scum reading someone who was correctly town reading Weuler? Having ISO'd Aureal for their Weuler read, I think it flows pretty naturally. What are you seeing?

I've been holding off on posting my reads on BBT because I was waiting for some casework on cactus from them, which I think 1030 probably counts as? I'd still like to hear more about what reads lead BBT to voting cactus right out of the gate today, because I still don't understand where that came from, and I don't want to forget that in light of better analysis today - you can't retroactively explain your reads based on stuff they've posted today (that said, I can't see both BBT and cactus being scum together, so I need to think about this a bit more tbh).

But then I scroll down further and see:

Brick, can we not do Pav?

Yet another comment sans explanation (

[IdleMuse]

UNVOTE: BBT

VOTE: Elements

My strongest scumread right now. I'm not discounting the theory BBT proposed in 1032, but right now I don't see anywhere I'd rather vote.

[IdleMuse]

I know 294 has been talked to death but I have recently been thinking how hilarious it would be if it were a scum!Elements creation.

Lost the exact post where Elements said she regretted creating it now which actually strikes me as very unscummy

I know 294 has been talked to death but I have recently been thinking how hilarious it would be if it were a scum!Elements creation.Lost the exact post where Elements said she regretted creating it now which actually strikes me as very unscummy

I'm also kinda done with discussion of 294 tbh, it was so early in the game at this point. I don't think being sick of how much people keep referring back to the VERY basic reads in it is particularly alignment-indicative.

I'm very tempted to my own followup pair-chart now we have pages and pages of _actual_ gameplay to refer to, rather than just some RVS interactions and a bit of early game sounding-out. But sadly I don't think I have a block of time free to do a project like that until Sunday which iirc is after the day end.

[IdleMuse]

UNVOTE: BBT

VOTE: Elements

My strongest scumread right now. I'm not discounting the theory BBT proposed in 1032, but right now I don't see anywhere I'd rather vote.

why do you think I'm scum?

Origin of thought: 996

Following on from that:
- completely ignored my 999
- 1003 is a post lacking any kind of substantiation, same as the criticism I poked BBT over; just posting reads (and hyper vague ones at that) is of extremely little use. Esp. when you leave some of them blank??
- 1004 I agree with you here that it's kinda dumb to criticise you for not casing yourself in 294, given how early that was in the game.
- 1008 A pretty huge flipflop from your reads list in 1003? I'll ignore myself in this one because you left me blank (although was it left blank for exactly this plausible deniability later??), but you went from you could 'think of nothing memorable' about aureal to #1 scummarking her, from 'vague town lean' on Pav to joint #2, and for brick I can't even make out what your read is supposed to be there in 1003.

[IdleMuse]

@Elements And more generally, you keep talking about mysterious theories and ideas and reads and refuse to elaborate on them. Is this just scum mimicking having legitimate town thought processes, or is there actually anything you can contribute from these internal reasonings?

[IdleMuse]

UNVOTE: BBT

VOTE: Elements

My strongest scumread right now. I'm not discounting the theory BBT proposed in 1032, but right now I don't see anywhere I'd rather vote.

why do you think I'm scum?

Seconded

Who are you asking here, me?

[IdleMuse]

Simply echoing Element's sentiment, what you posted was a very flimsy way to vote

Right, that makes more sense, I was like.. but I haven't accused you of being scum at all!

[IdleMuse]

I'm not, I think Cactus would be less likely mis-limmed on future days than I would

While I understand the point that that would be a reason in niche cases to self-hammer if you were 100% sure of a different town's alignment, mechanically you cannot be, and, it seems like a wild leap to claim that cactus is safer from miselimination than you? Cactus has been under more or less constant attention since mid-day1?

[IdleMuse]

@cactus Is your argument that people who correctly townread Weuler should be scum? Because I did too, and you've been pretty townready on me.

[IdleMuse]

You also keep defending Aureal with questions and not giving reads. This feels like a distancing play because you're pushing Aureal but don't want anyone else to push her.

Yeah what? You're gonna have to explain this one in depth.

[IdleMuse]

@cactus Is your argument that people who correctly townread Weuler should be scum? Because I did too, and you've been pretty townready on me.

My argument is that people who do not have a reason to townread Weuler is scum
Can you point out which one of Weuler's posts you found towny?

- The early e-1-then-unvote I bought as newbie town, and said so at the time.
- 270 - prevaricating, slight town to me in the early game
- 342 - felt like legitimate attempt to pressure charles into actually posting content not just 'hi, bye'
- 378 - the mea culpa felt geniune, I read it as nervous town (same as myself D1 out the gate)
- 401 and similar around that time - felt like legitimate scumhunting to me.
- 578 - I don't see how this post would have come from scum at all, scum don't tend to discuss PRs in open chat (whereas town, esp. newbie town, obviously do sometimes) unless they have an agenda to it and I saw no agenda there.
- I'm getting bored of isoing a dead player who we now know the alignment of anyway, I don't think this exercise was a particularly useful one other than I think it shows there's plenty of reasonable posts to suggest that faith in Weuler's towniness wasn't unjustified (triple negative?).

preview: and indeed I missed a bunch of current posts doing this.

[IdleMuse]

Brick, are you still keen on pushing a Pav wagon today?

[IdleMuse]

Now we see whether your or elements were right on top of p44

[IdleMuse]

VOTE: Elements.

None of my reasonings for this have changed by the reveals, and in fact 1060 and 1065 are pretty interesting reading now. BBT outed Pav as the other mason to her in their not-so-subtle convo around 1075 when elements was implying she townread cactus as the other mason, although I've lost the specific post in question re. pav now.

[IdleMuse]

err that's e-1 but I don't think we're at mi-lo so I'll let that vote stand.

[IdleMuse]

Idle and Cactus were townreading each other from the start of the game, not even starting at Null just going straight to a townread, and never voted each other. Their reasons for towning each other were the same from the start, never developed or really elaborated upon with the new content each was producing. They had very little interaction with each other and what little there was was very bland and had zero conflict or disagreement.
I think this is two scum players who don't know how to interact with each other.

Even newbie scum know not to constantly townread each other. Which is why you put some nice safe distancing in with cactus end of D1. Since we're doing ISOs:

Elements: 283 posts
- 77; likes cactus
- 78; towning cactus with only minor RVS logic
- 79; asks cactus a question, NAI
- 80; getting a read on other peoples thoughts of cactus
- 117; irrelevant to alignment
- 151; nice false dilemma there; the scum read on this is that she's saying 'you're saying cactus and I are acting similarly, so if you townread them, you must townread me'.
- 161; elaboration of the above.
- 166; follow-on discussion highlighting where cactus has been aggressive.
- 288; irrelevant interaction.
- the famous 294; none of the cactus pairs make it to the shortlist. Some are highlighted as possibles.
- 295; irrelevant interaction
- 308; probably NAI, but scumbuddies obviously have an incentive to help each other be more comprehensible in general
- 309; agreeing with cactus
- 310; continuation of discussion with cactus
- 311; continuation of discussion with cactus
- 395; NAI pronoun correction
- Huge gap of no references or interactions (by ctrl-f at least) to

- 685; naked vote on cactus from nowhere (safe distancing, had no votes at that point)

- 704; intent to hammer Weuler (including because it's a pseudo-unvote on cactus)
- 723; I don't understand this post at all in retrospect. Asking someone who is under the hammer, to vote for someone specifically? Then hammering them a bit later? Confusing.
-

751; claiming to know cactus' posting availability?

- 801; questioning BBT's read on cactus
- 805; straight-up townreading cactus
- 809; some easy defences of cactus, nothing too insightful imo
- 812; allowing herself to be seen as persuadable on cactus
- 813; continuation of the above, proceeding to a more a neutral read than before
- 838; discussion of cactus' play
- 840; mildly LAMIST conculsion to that discussion
- 841; defence of cactus, but quite no true scotsman. 'Scum wouldn't play like that'.
- 863; answering a question from cactus
- 893; defending and strengthening the distancing in the latter half of D1. If she really wanted a cactus wagon I feel like she could have tried harder...
- 898; not directly about cactus but worth noting one of the two e-2 wagons was cactus
- 965; "hi tell me who we should smear if/when cactus flips, as that is now looking possible"
- 968; continuation of the above, also testing if the cactus wagon could be dismantled
- 970; continuation
- 972; framing Aureal as cactus' scumbuddy for if/when cactus flips
- 974; refusing to answer in the clear why she's no longer interested in cactus wagon
- 979; implying cactus was mason (did anyone else think this?)
- 1003; 'town for reasons' lol
- 1004; doubling down on 'uhh reasons'
- 1006; still 'reasons'
- 1019; continuation
- 1029; 'i reassessed'
- 1060; Believe me, my reasoning is so sound!
- 1065; Somehow I believe cactus isn't likely to be mislimmed.
- 1098; bit of coaching
- 1104; vote, but, like before, it's when cactus has no votes, even though there is some suspicion around.
- 1131; reinforcing that she's on the cactus wagon
- 1137; 'you changed my mind' is easier to say than to actually case a scumbuddy
- 1141; nice subtle distancing herself there, 'scum are probably quiet right now'
- 1183; post-cactus flip so largely irrelevant
- 1187; post-cactus flip so largely irrelevant, but a mea culpa on town-reading cactus
- and onwards: 5 posts relating to this discussion right now

So like, 56 posts relating to cactus:
townreads: 4
defending: 16
scumreads/votes: 2
attacking/interrogation: 0

Lots and lots of neutral interactions. This is more like what I'd expect from a scum pair, a relatively low amount of direct meaningful interaction, some townreads, but not too many, and some distancing votes at safe points.

The strongest pro-town indication in this ISO I feel is the fact that she stayed on the cactus wagon to conclusion, but, I'm not prepared to clear her solely on that basis, because a) If you're gonna be on a bussing wagon, I feel like you want to be first on, and b) she never expressed why she made that vote, other than 'BBT persuaded me' - (and that was relating to the mason position, not necessarily cactus' scumminess - it was entirely possible cactus was VT at that point)

[IdleMuse]

okay sure we both have scum equity with Cactus. I however pushed through the Cactus elimination while you just sat there voting me

Did you do any pushing? Or just sitting? From that ISO it looks like mostly what you did while on that wagon was post about Aureal.

I didn't vote cactus because I wasn't convinced they weren't stubborn newb town.

Post-preview: Re. who I'd suspect if you flip town, I'll have a think about that, I have a meeting now.

[IdleMuse]

If I'm scum with Cactus I can just say in response to BBT anything along the lines of "yea sure I see where you're coming from I guess I might be wrong. I still think Aureal has the best chance of flipping scum" and keep my vote on Aureal.

Feels like WIFOM. You could have.. but equally, you could have done what I think you saw a safe distancing vote, which you then decided to stay on to bus cactus.

[IdleMuse]

Idle, If I get voted and flip town who is your next port of call?

Aureal. If Brickwall is scum he's playing a blinder. If BBT is scum I think the out-of-the-gate pressure on cactus D2 following on into hammering them was very unusual. I guess that could be an extreme bussing strat deliberately intended to townlock, but I think that pretty unlikely?

[IdleMuse]

Brick, are you still keen on pushing a Pav wagon today?

Maybe this was the attempt to divert

This also looks bad for Idle given the flip

I was probing to see if Brick understood the memo re. Pav being the other mason.

[IdleMuse]

The biggest point for Elements not being scum is that she really didn't have to join the Cactus wagon.

She could have steered well clear and held a decent enough position to do so.

I agree this is the biggest point in her favour, as I said in my ISO post. But given plenty of people seemed likely to vote cactus, I think it was equally likely she thought she could do that and either hop off it if it's looking like she could stall the wagon by doing so, or if not, it's strong distancing to use in her favour if the wagon does reach conclusion.

[IdleMuse]

I don't know what else she would say/do though except for 'everyone else is town and you're scum' outside of pushing you. We're just at that point of the game.

I agree, just waiting on Brick's thoughts really. Unless they have a blinder of a gotcha case on Aureal or yourself I don't really see my position changing.

[IdleMuse]

Current thoughts on people as of right now without looking over the game at all or anything:

cactus - Town for reasons

Brickwalll - I don't think the option clashes with myself and Cactus come from scum. It made Brick stand out and now that we know my Meg pairings were wrong scum just dismissing scum reads on town doesn't seem likely. Only thoughts to the contrary is I'm surprised

IdleMuse -

Aureal - I can think of nothing memorable from this slot. Feels like it's just coasting through a slow day letting indecision build up for a potentially chaotic end of day again.

Pavowski - I vaguely remember liking him early game and I don't think he's done anything different since so I guess town lean?

BlueBloodedToffee - Similar to Pav

I'd also really like to know what you think the scum motivation behind this post is

I think it's a really weak defence, I'm not persuaded at all. Any good scum will have a bunch of posts that they can easily point to and ask that.

[IdleMuse]

So, the inverse of the bolded sentence is 'if Brickwall is town he's having a shocker.'

I didn't think I was playing that badly haha.

That logic doesn't hold, being town-read is desirable for both scum and town

[IdleMuse]

specially with the question of asking "If I flip town, whose your next vote"

This is Elements scouting who to NK tonight.

[IdleMuse]

dle's very drastic switch on her read of me at the beginning of D2 was also odd.

I thought you were the other Mason at that point, which is why I didn't want to elaborate on that too much.

[IdleMuse]

. Lastly, and I think most scummy for me, is how quickly Idle put Megs at E-1 and in a position to claim. No matter what reasoning you give, it was just far too quick.

All I can say to this, I just happened to be online when I saw that, had suspicions of you her, so put the vote in to see what she was dangling. I agree it was probably not the the towniest play and I haven't really tried to defend myself on that point so far because I totally see the point and would attack myself over it if the situation was flipped.

[IdleMuse]

Intent to hammer, Idle.

I think you probably get a lot of information out of my death anyway, and I think it leaves the scum with a hard choice of who to kill tonight, so if you truly think that is the your strongest opinion and you can't get away from that then hammer you should. I will say, tomorrow, whoever is alive, please don't clear Elements solely on the basis of the fact they voted cactus. They had posted basically no criticism of cactus, just sat on the wagon, and if that gets them to the end of the game with a scum win then it will have been a gambit worth taking.

[IdleMuse]

The biggest point for Elements not being scum is that she really didn't have to join the Cactus wagon.

She could have steered well clear and held a decent enough position to do so.

I agree this is the biggest point in her favour, as I said in my ISO post. But given plenty of people seemed likely to vote cactus, I think it was equally likely she thought she could do that and either hop off it if it's looking like she could stall the wagon by doing so, or if not, it's strong distancing to use in her favour if the wagon does reach conclusion.

I think this post and conceding that elements didn't have to hop on the cactus wagon is a big blow for Idle's case on elements. In my opinion, the cases falls apart when Idle makes this post. So then thinking becomes, so if not elements then who else could be scum other than Idle? Again - I have given my thoughts on BBT and Aureal above so the only real answer is nobody.

If not Elements, then Aureal. I don't think it's you, because I think if you were scum you would have voted on one of these wagons already, and I don't think it's BBT because I feel like it's a huge stretch for BBT and cactus to be partners given their interactions and wagon behaviour.

[IdleMuse]

I think as long as we elim Idle/Aureal we win the game.

I don't think I can bring myself to vote either Elements or Brickwall outside of something drastic happening.

I think game ends with an Idle elim anyway.

Please don't dismiss the possibility I'm right on D4

[IdleMuse]

I'm only slightly paranoid that I've got Brickwall completely wrong.

If he's scum though, he deserves to win so I'm really not entertaining that thought a whole lot.

Heh, I guess I'm with you on that, although I'm also slightly paranoid you played a stunning gambit with cactus d2 ;P But no, jokes aside, I'm with you that Aureal is a possibility, I just think it's way more likely Elements than her. I just don't see any argument for her towniness other than the fact of the cactus vote, she's done so little of what I see as honest scumhunting esp. D2. And I see significant reason to believe that that cactus vote was planned and deliberate bussing. Whereas I read Aureal's ISO as having actually done that scumhunting effort. I guess whoever is alive tomorrow will have to re-weigh the situation based on who gets NKd. I think I've made my analysis as clear and useful as I can do.

[IdleMuse]

(Damn I didn't see that hammer vote, sorry!)

[IdleMuse]

Well played BBT I can't believe I cleared you despite pushing to ignore elements' potential bussing of cactus, when yours was so much more intense ;P