Verbose Mafia 2 - Post or Perish (Game Over)

[Fiasco]

Fiasco, still in a state of shock, finds the nearest tap and fills himself a glass of nice, safe water. He sits down on a chair in a corner of the room, gathering his thoughts, trying to observe the motions of the other guests, hoping to gauge their intentions. What are all these other masked people doing here? Why are they so calm, so confident, so focused on their food and drinks and pleasantries? Perhaps they do not realize they have been blackmailed -- or perhaps they know something he does not?

Fiasco gets up and tries, cautiously, to discuss his absurd situation with various people.

Fritzler, Cogito Ergo Sum, Seol, Kelly Chen, and anyone I may have overlooked... you speak of "lynching"? This, combined with the strange abduction, worries me greatly. Mr. Gray and Mr. Green seem to have "invited" themselves a rather strange collection of verbose "guests"! I understand that you're very religious; it's just, Kelly, please be open-minded, because the current predicament all of us seem to have landed in looks rather more urgent. And Cogito... what is this about talking lemons? I have never heard of such a thing. Good sir, I bite my Netherlands at thee!

[Fiasco]

Fiasco sits by the window, watching clouds go by and sipping a glass of cola. Could that be the great Mafiatic Ocean down below? He's still worried, but part of him hopes the slice of lemon in the glass will give him the advice he needs -- it wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen today. Some fellow guests seem undisturbed by the prospect of applying random lethal force to the others, and that, for one, is a belief Fiasco cannot respect. He seems unable to concentrate on this problem, however, as another question grates on his mind: is there any possible arrangement of seats in the plane that would allow all the conversations he overhears, between so many different people, to take place? Fiasco shrugs. It doesn't matter: since the conversations are in fact taking place, he might as well listen closely and see if there is anything to learn, or any confusion to clear up.

Fritzler, are these murderous fantasies necessary? When among total strangers, captured by loonies who think they're colors, do you always start discussing your ability to murder the rest, or the lack of such ability? And who is this "mith" of whom you speak, anyway?

I think etiquette and even vomit are among the least of our problems. Are there any here interested in calmly coordinating their panic with me, and preparing to see to it that those of us who are of good will make it through this alive and photograph-free?

Oh, and Silent Speaker, I was, of course, referring to the country.

Fiasco tries to arrange a deck of cards on his table in such a way as to represent the pieces on a chess board, but fails.

[Fiasco]

Fiasco, now with a slightly better idea of what to expect but still a bit overwhelmed by recent events, mumbles something about Ra, Ra, Ra, Egypt's Sunniest... Submarine? He then begins to involve himself in the discussion.

Adele argues that we should not judge one another on any eccentricities of speech we are displaying, on account of these eccentricities having been imposed, by force, on behalf of some outside entity. I am unwilling to go along with this line of reasoning. Who is to say that a similar entity has not distorted the values and allegiances of some among us, and moreover, placed these distortions in some correspondence with the aforementioned eccentricities? Such a correspondence may be subtle and twisted, but it is unlikely to be wholly absent.

She suggests, furthermore, that all of us spend our votes in such a way as to give each person three nominations. For example, everyone could nominate the two people preceding and the one person following him or her in the alphabet. Under such a scheme I, for example, would nominate Commodore Amazing, Dripping Goofball and Fritzler. I assume that she intends everyone to change their nominations after doing so; to do otherwise defeats the point of this part of the day, and moreover, makes it unlikely that we will be able to reach a majority in time.

Even then, I am not sure I see what this would accomplish (though it would also do no harm). Perhaps Adele can explain. It is true that, if only the guilty among us use all their nominations, those nominated will be more likely to be innocent. But in my view, the solution to this is not to start by spreading nominations equally; then, it is still true that if the guilty change their votes more often from the initial arrangement, they will have more influence. The solution is for everyone to make honest attempts to determine who are the villains here, and nominate them. If there are no clues, nominate people anyway, temporarily; as Pooky has indicated, there are no adverse consequences to nominating and then unnominating.

At this point I might as well go with the little list mentioned above, except that I will leave Commodore Amazing alone, as some here seem to bear a grudge against him already. Instead, I will nominate Adele. Rest assured, though, that I will probably change my mind in the future.

Nominate: Adele, DrippingGoofball, Fritzler

[Fiasco]

It seems to me that dropping the religion subject entirely is not an option. Kelly Chen, at least, seems compelled to talk about it. So we need to do a few things.

Firstly, we need to realize that forcibly imposed behaviors do not reflect on the character of the behaver; at least not on what it was before it was created anew under the nefarious influence of Grey, Green, Blue and whatever other colors they are in league with.

Secondly, while I maintain (like mathcam) that it may pay to correlate speech patterns with innocence, guilt, and alliances, we should not be overly hasty in coming to conclusions. Accusing Kelly Chen of wanting to murder us all would be an example of such a hasty conclusion.

Thirdly, we need to calm down! I agree that we should stop discussing any differences among us not relevant to the question who are the killers. We should discuss the subjects that are relevant, and these discussions will need a good amount of momentum for us to come to an informed decision in time; but I wouldn't put it past the likes of Grey, Green and Blue to make the innocents on this island confuse and anger each other, and we should avoid humoring them. That includes you, MikeBurnFire! I can understand if you want to maintain harmony by avoiding inflammatory topics, but then don't put it in terms of "ignorant persecutors" and "oversensitive zealots" and "shut up"; then you're defeating yourself. The way you reacted to Fritzler was also unnecessary, I think.

That said, I don't think the MikeBurnFire nominations have much logic behind them, and I can understand why they annoy him. I'm also not willing to nominate mathcam for reasons Turbovolver can't tell us, or to nominate VitaminR because he's telling us to. At least not until I can make more sense out of what's happening. (If that's just reverse psychology, congratulations, because it's working.)

Fiasco keeps an eye on all those involved. He has a lot of eyes.

[Fiasco]

Fiasco, on overhearing MikeBurnFire's comment to Turbovolver, fails to suppress a brief cynical laugh, but decides not to explain.

Mathcam provides the argument that we should kill those likely to be killed by our captors. In my opinion this may be good enough to base early random nominations on, but not a lynch. Remember that anyone killed by our captors could have either bad intentions or good intentions. In this sort of situation a random lynch is normally not seen as such a bad thing compared to not lynching anyone, going into night and letting the killers do their work; why, then (other than to encourage conscientious participation) should we go out of our way to prevent random killings by our hosts? (Random with respect to roles rather than masks, of course.)

I don't think Turbovolver's criticism of MikeBurnFire is valid. Mike had just been nominated three times in a row when he defended himself; clearly that means some people saw merit in LoudmouthLee's attack, making it only reasonable for Mike to respond.

Thok's point about Kelly Chen is interesting. It is possible that her religiousness is only a front for some obsession with fire. That doesn't disprove the idea that she might be on the side of light despite her fanaticism; after all, once again, correspondences between speech and motivations may be subtle. It does, however, give us a hint that we should think about.

Tamuz will get a nomination from me for the way (s)he (s)heeped onto both the Mike and Cam bandwagons, without a clear explanation of his/her thinking. Other recent contenders in the random gibberish department have been Commodore Amazing and MikeBurnFire, and I'm wary of them as well.

Unnominate: DrippingGoofball

,

Nominate: Tamuz

[Fiasco]

Kelly Chen still seems to be one of the top nominees, but she has warned strongly against lynching her, and expressed a preference for being killed during the night instead. I think it would be useful at this point for her to clarify whether these were just empty threats, related to her Tourette's syndrome, or whether she stands by the opinion that there will be harmful consequences for whoever lynches her. In the latter case, she's probably not a good nomination choice. (And I don't think she would have much to gain by lying about this, due to the night kill request.)

Mathcam, you're right that it would be awful if a good guy died on us unnecessarily near the end. However, the point remains that this may happen to bad guys, too. It's not clear to me our lynch today will be so random that this considerations like this start to matter. I'm also interested in your reason for suspecting Cogito Ergo Sum.

Seol, the nomination phase is already nearly over; it bothers me slightly that you just nominated two people for what I can only interpret as arbitrary reasons, and moreover that they were people who had already accumulated a few nominations.

Adele, if your goal is to maximize the options available at lynching time, how does it help to give people their first nomination? Shouldn't you be focusing on those close to the top three who might make it to the lynching stage as a fourth, fifth or sixth candidate? I think it would help if you clarified what exactly you are trying to accomplish. (My favored strategy is still for everyone to place all three nominations on those that seem most likely to be among the killers.) I would also still like you to clarify your idea that speech restrictions don't relate to alliances. How do you know?

Unnominate: Fritzler

,

Nominate: Seol

[Fiasco]

Seol, I think we have enough material for (slightly) better than random nominations already; at least it's clear that some people think there are better than random targets, and if you disagree, then you could explain why, and you could counter these people by nominating the rivals of their nominees. If you assume that you really can't do better than random, then while random nominating probably can't hurt, I don't see why you would want to focus your nominations where they have a lot of impact (which you cited as your reason to hop onto the Com and Cam bandwagons).

Thok, you realize that by nominating VitaminR, you're actually rewarding him, right? At least, if his request for nominations is still open.

VitaminR, it amuses me that you nominated Kelly Chen for nominating two others on your list, but not Fritzler for nominating three others on your list.

[Fiasco]

DrippingGoofball's nomination of MikeBurnFire is hard to interpret as a selfish deed. After all, she will be worse off as one among three people on the lynching block than as one among eight people on the lynching block. Breaking the tie now would benefit all those left with four votes, and hurt the top three. This means anyone who does so (including the Goofball) should be scrutinized for the possibility that they might be protecting their partners in crime. On the other hand, it is possible to overdo the massive tie: if there are too many candidates in the lynching region, we may not be able to come to a majority decision in time.

I agree that Ingersoll seems both likely to be among the invitees, and unlikely to be among the killers. We shouldn't ignore the possibility that that is why DrippingGoofball is claiming to be Ingersoll, but for now I am inclined to trust her.

As much as his early mention pleaseth our Lord Godwin, for reasons of sensitivity (among others) I have my doubts that our hosts would invite Adolf Hitler. That said, there are some here whose style of speaking RATHER REMINDS ME OF HIM! (much more so than Mike's capitalization of two words). I doubt that our hosts would be this obvious, though, and I don't believe this to be a nomination-worthy suspicion.

My nominations stand. I don't think most of the nomination leaders seem particularly likely to be guilty. Although I don't agree with the view that there should be as many people on the block as possible, I like how our current reasonably broad range of nominees will leave us some space to make a less uninformed decision later today.

[Fiasco]

Does anyone else think that shadowy figure on the nearby hill could be the specter of no-lynch looming over us? With eleven votes needed to lynch, nine candidates, and little time, we need to move quickly. I don't think having this many candidates is a good idea for future days.

Which potential bandwagons appeal to me?

Voting Fritzler appeals to me, but the main reason behind that is the annoyance factor, and we need to lynch killers rather than annoyers. We'll just need to live with Fritzler for now, I think.

Cogito Ergo Sum unnominated VitaminR near the end of the nomination phase, supposedly to place him in an eight-way tie with the others, but actually removing him from the lynching block altogether. My tolerance for miscounters is low: counting is simply not that hard, and miscounts are horribly convenient as an excuse for scummy activities. I don't want to take it to the level of instituting a "lynch all miscounters" policy (though I've been considering it), so I'm not going to vote Cogito, but consider this a warning.

I still think Adele should explain her early comment about restrictions on speech, as well as just why she wants to maximize the number of people on the lynching block.

My actual vote will be going to Turbovolver. I think it's suspicious how he jumped onto the MikeBurnFire nom-bandwagon just because Mike defended himself after getting a wave of nominations for a reason Turbovolver himself agrees was weak. I think it's convenient for him how he jumped onto the Adele vote-bandwagon when it looked like he might be in danger -- there are reasons to suspect Adele, but in my opinion the one mentioned by Tamuz is not among them. Turbovolver's constant references with respect to his paranoia aren't very reassuring, and I'm probably not the only one who has figured out his identity from the strong hints he has been dropping (why, Turbovolver? at least Goofball thought she was close to being lynched). The Pooky vote, I think, is just a mistake that doesn't mean anything.

If the alternative is no-lynch, I'm open to other reasonable lynches.

Vote: Turbovolver

[Fiasco]

Turbovolver, your identity does explain your paranoia, but not why you're advertising it so much. And even so... you're a very controversial figure for a lot of reasons, and much less obviously a good guy than Ingersoll. I could imagine you being among the good guys in a helpful way, or among the good guys in a destructive way, or among the bad guys.

You've just used this "Race Card" ability on Silent Speaker without much provocation, and without explaining yourself. If you're interested in convincing the town (the beach?) that your ability is useful, and that you're on the right side, and that you'll use it wisely, then I'll listen closely and it won't take much for me to unvote you. Even if your ability is such that it should remain a secret, I bet you can do a better job of explaining why you're not just throwing it around at random. (Was TSS's only crime that he pointed out a probably irrelevant pattern in the nominations?) I don't like the self-destructiveness and tendencies toward random retaliation you seem to be displaying now.

I agree we don't know whether Mike is innocent. That doesn't make your choice justified. For your choice to be justified, he would have to be more likely to be guilty than the average player, and it would have to be because he defended himself against a weakly-supported bandwagon. That charge is just not valid.

Goofball, I don't think it's reasonable to punish Adele for Pooky's actions. Doing so rewards the possible scum tactic of associating oneself with an innocent to get that innocent lynched.

[Fiasco]

Just in case anyone missed it, Turbovolver lied about his role abilities and made us wait for one third of the voting phase before revealing his lie. His reason? To see how the Silent Speaker would react. That didn't turn out to be useful. Meanwhile, votes have suddenly started piling up on DrippingGoofball, who might have been clumsy in not reading the rules and perhaps discussing the setup unnecessarily, but who should get some credit for having a plausible name claim and a fitting restriction. (Violating it pre-game didn't help, though.) Do those of you on her bandwagon think she's not Ingersoll, or do you think she's Ingersoll but evil anyway?

I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record, but we don't have much time left to coordinate our votes. As I see it, we have three options: One, push someone for a role claim and leave enough time to bandwagon someone else. Two, lynch someone regardless of their role claim. Three, don't lynch anyone. The third option is seen as a bad thing, the second risks lynching an important role, and it's starting to look doubtful whether we'll have the time for the first option.

I don't think the Mathcam wagon is based on anything.

I've changed my mind on Fritzler a bit and would probably join a lynch if given the direct choice. As far as I can tell he hasn't contributed anything meaningful yet; maybe he always behaves like this (I don't think so -- I've seen him be more useful and less annoying in the past), but if this is true, then part of the reason is that he can get away with it, because everyone says "oh, he always behaves like this". He should give us some logical reasoning on who is the best lynch, and why.

Vote stands, though.

[Fiasco]

A few people have provoked ticking from my Geiger Counter of Evil lately. (It's more accurate than either Scumdar or Sense of Smell.)

First, there's DrippingGoofball. As I understand it, she claims she believed the top three nominees would all die, and this explains some of her strange behavior near the nomination deadline. That's an implausible claim as it is, but I couldn't help but observe recently that, even though Goofball supposedly thought she would die in hours, she didn't reveal her role abilities. Under her misinterpretation of the rules, that could easily have saved her (though obviously given the real rules it would have been the wrong move). Of course, it's quite possible that someone would choose to name-claim but not role-claim in such a situation... but combined with her breaking her restriction in the beginning, this leads me to suspect she may be lying about being Ingersoll. (On the other hand, doing so might risk a counterclaim by the real Ingersoll, so I don't know what to think about her.)

Then there are Turbovolver and Adele, who both described Turbovolver's statements as merely "misleading". Turbovolver said he had a special ability, and said we would see its effects in TSS's posts. He knew this was false when he said it. That's not "close to lying", that's undeniably lying. Of course, whether it's the kind of lying that falls under "lynch all liars" is very debatable, but combined with the rest of Turbovolver's behavior, my vote is still happiest on him. I'll check in (and maybe say something) one more time before the day ends; my vote may or may not change then.

Violent Malcolms like Verbose Mafia?

[Fiasco]

Some people here sound suspiciously like ventriloquist monkeys. I couldn't help but hear a hint of the disturbing sound of Mr. Grey's voice when the Goofball made her first statement. I also note that her agnosticism seems to have evaporated overnight -- if she is indeed who she says she is. That in itself is enough, in my view, for a nomination -- and I had already planned to nominate her for her antics yesterday.

I too am unsure what to think of VitaminR's request. I'm entirely willing to believe something bad will happen if it is denied, but will this be something bad for the innocents or for the killers? Unless we can arrange another stable tied situation, there will be tradeoffs involved in that VitaminR may take a more suspicious person's place on the lynching block.

Nominate: DrippingGoofball

[Fiasco]

While I definitely think she should be on the lynching block today, I don't fully agree with the role fishing accusations against Goofball. It

is

(and definitely was, at the time) an open question whether fulfilling VitaminR's request will be good for the town; more information will help the town as well as the scum make better decisions. VitaminR seems competent enough to divulge only that relevant information that he thinks will not help the scum, and keep the rest a secret, and I'd advise him to just follow his own best judgment on this. He also seems competent enough not to use any forbidden words (had there been any).

Besides, this game is a big puzzle in some ways, and while I agree that it's not good play, I can easily imagine curiosity leading someone to speculate and ask questions.

But once again, Goofball, it's unreasonable to punish Adele for things Pooky said, and this encourages the scum strategy of associating oneself with an innocent in the hope of getting that innocent lynched.

As to VitaminR, my objection in my last post was that we may fail to keep him tied for third; we may find when the voting phase starts that his presence in the top three created opportunities to unvote someone else tied for third (possibly by accident; that is how VitaminR missed the lynching block yesterday), and thereby force the town to choose between only two candidates. And it looks like he'll actually be among the top two, limiting the number of others we can put on the lynching block without risk of unvotes.

Of course, if this a matter of life and death for VitaminR, then that is more important. Despite the point about nominating himself (which I think also applies to yesterday), I don't think VitaminR looks more suspicious than the average player; his request does sound more typical of an innocent beachie than of a scum. (I was going to say that

if

VitaminR started looking very scummy for some reason, then it may be best to leave him off the lynching block, for the same reason that a typical somewhat-better-than-random lynch is better than a no-lynch; but if he's guilty, he could also be lying when he says that that will kill him.)

I think given Turbovolver's behavior yesterday, the lynch was justified. Even after Silent Speaker reacted, Turbovolver made everyone wait for a long time. I simply can't see any good pro-town reason to do so. Destructive fun may or may not have been a better explanation than scumminess, but there are reasons to vote against destructive fun, too, both from a within-game and a meta-game point of view.

I'm going to nominate Fritzler, for basically the same reasons as yesterday, and think about a third nomination. (Will rethink nominations tomorrow; time pressure now.)

Oh, and, (sigh) why not:

"I am gone forever." Exit, pursued by Commodore Amazing.
"Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Commodore Amazing!"

Nominate: Fritzler

[Fiasco]

Goofball, remember what I said about destructive fun? Also, why are you saying goodbye when the entire voting stage is still to come?

I've had some thoughts relating to nominations. I agree that VitaminR should be on the lynching block, but once again, there is no reason why he should have so many more votes than the number three; his own suggestion was that we put him in a tie at number three, so that he doesn't get in the way of other players we would like to see safely in the nomination range. Of course, by now it may be too late for that.

It looks like four nominations will be our threshold again. Given current nominations there will be just three people on the lynching block, including VitaminR. I don't think we should have as many choices as yesterday, but I think we should have more than this. Something like six or seven sounds like a good number. I like Mathcam's idea to eliminate potential targets in multiple stages. Maybe we could agree that after half of the voting stage is over, we will only vote for what is then the top three.

That means more people need to be at three votes right now. I'm going to unnominate Goofball, not because she doesn't belong on the block (she does), but because she will end up there anyway, and is a wasted nomination at this point. I'm going to nominate two others.

First, LoudmouthLee. I didn't like it yesterday when he cast suspicions on those who voted Turbovolver: again, I think given Turbovolver's behavior (as well as the fact that toward the end, the alternative was no-lynch) the votes were justified. And I don't like his latest move, which was to nominate three people because he thought at least one in the triangle was scum; but as Goofball will be on the block anyway, and Commodore Amazing will probably not be, only one of his three nominations (Adele, who seems reasonably innocent to me) was actually disadvantaged much.

Second, Mathcam. He has made a few remarks lately that it's okay for an innocent beachie to nominate others just because it will get him out of trouble. These remarks don't sit well with me. It may be true that if only innocent beachies follow this strategy, the beach is better off. But if everyone, including the scum, follows this strategy, the beach is worse off than if everyone does not follow this strategy: the advantage for individual innocents cancels out against the advantage for individual guilties, leaving only the disruption of the normal nomination process (which we have to assume is better than random). When innocents use and defend "selfish" strategies like this, it legitimates guilties doing the same.

These are my final nominations, as I will be unable to be here again before the end of the nomination phase.

Unnominate: DrippingGoofball, Nominate: LoudmouthLee, Mathcam

[Fiasco]

I criticized LML earlier for nominating a group of three people on the grounds that their interactions were such that at least one of them was probably scum, while putting only one of these people in danger. I turned out to be mistaken about this, as Commodore Amazing is now on the lynching block due to LML's nomination. In part, my mistake was based on an error that was in the nomination count then. My case against LML is thus a bit (but not much) weaker than I thought: LML may have worked from the same error initially, but he didn't unnominate CA when the error was corrected.

I don't see the merit in the Adele bandwagon. While I think she said a few strange things near the start of day one, I don't think she's behaved suspiciously since then. The main reason cited right now seems to be her "bandwagon hop" from Goofball to Turbovolver. However, that happened at a point when the only realistic options for the town were no-lynch and a Turbovolver lynch. I don't see how you can blame her for putting on a

thirteenth

vote, the only possible effect of which was to prevent a last-minute no-lynch; I think some of you are looking scummier for giving this as a reason to vote her, or for giving no reason at all.

I don't think it's wise to lynch either VitaminR or Commodore Amazing today; we're not sure about any special abilities they might have gained through their strange requests, and neither looks extremely scummy to me. I do worry, though, what VitaminR will ask us to do on future days. Yesterday he just needed a few nominations; today he needed to be on the lynching block, with one vote; what will he need to survive tomorrow?

I think Goofball has shown a pattern of dubious behavior. I don't fully agree with the role fishing accusations, but I don't fully disagree with them, either. She seemed certain earlier that she would be harshly punished for failing to obey her restriction; that doesn't seem to have happened, which casts further doubt on her honesty.

I think Fritzler has shown a pattern of being consistently unhelpful. There has never been any reasoning to his choice of nomination and vote targets; usually his target was just whoever was most convenient for him. I don't buy the "he's just Fritzler" defense; I think he's capable of doing better than this.

I still disagree with Mathcam on his point about selfish behavior. Scum have more to gain by disruptive self-preserving tactics than innocent beachies; if we don't consider them a scum tell, then that helps the scum on the whole.

Among all potential targets, Fritzler and Goofball are my favorites now, but there are a few others whose lynch I'd join if necessary.

Vote: Fritzler

[Fiasco]

Fiasco sat back contentedly as the fiery luminescent sparks of what looked like the beginning of a beautiful and protracted flame war between Pooky and Goofball joined the ethereal rays of the afternoon sun in an elegant dance across the golden albeit already slightly blood-soaked sands of the beach -- except at occasional intervals, when they were interrupted by the grinding but also dreamily seductive sound of the APPROACHING DEADLINE, deliciously tasty as the stars themselves, rich and sparkling as a song in a snowstorm, graceful and swift and nutritious as the moon fluttering across the sky on a Tuesday in early February or perhaps even a Thursday, fragrant and yet mysteriously inedible as a poem written by angelic kitten-rabbit hybrids and sweet unicorns (perhaps also on a Thursday), luscious and verbose as a long irrelevant sentence that just. won't. end., even though the sentence author knows everyone else would like it to end, but cruelly chooses to let it drag on and on and on and even uses periods in the middle so as to give the reader cruel false hope as well as just for emphasis -- except at occasional intervals, when it was more like a sock, albeit still a clean and captivatingly beautiful sock, more so than you would expect socks could be in this world... Fiasco wished deep in his heart that he could cherish this moment forever and ramble on about it, but then he suddenly realized THAT HE HAD BEEN CAPTURED BY LOONIES AND STUCK ON AN ISLAND FULL OF MURDERERS AND THAT THERE WAS NO TIME TO WASTE ON PETTY FIGHTS AND POINTLESS DRAMATICS! YEESH! And there was also a pirate.

My profoundest apologies. I had to get that out of my system. I'll shut up now about wasting time.

Goofball, like some others, I don't understand why you're so sure you'll be lynched. Adele still has a few more votes. Rather than say how doomed you are, you should spend your energy on proving your innocence with good reasoning and calmly helping us find scum to lynch instead of you. I don't understand whether you're saying you want to be lynched today, or you want to be lynched somewhere in the mid-game. I also don't understand what work you're claiming you'll do for the town, now that VitaminR already has his needed vote.

I'm not sure what to think of Adele's role hints; I'd advise her to share any information that lends plausibility to her claim of innocence (which is what the innocents need), but not to share information related to her role abilities (which is what the scum need).

Goofball has suggested she's a safe lynch, and I think she's more likely than random to be scum, so I'll:

Unvote: Fritzler, Vote: DrippingGoofball

[Fiasco]

I also believe Adele's claimed identity and abilities. (There I was thinking I heard Mr. Grey!) Her identity and abilities do not prove her innocent, but C. de B. doesn't sound like he would be one of the murderers. It's not clear to me whether Adele thinks Goofball has private evidence of Adele's innocence, or merely private evidence of Adele's identity and abilities.

I disagree with Thok in that I think Adele's recent use of the ability wasn't what you would expect if she were trying to get Goofball lynched. It was clear for a few different reasons that they weren't Goofball's own words; this wouldn't have worked.

I already disagreed with the Adele bandwagon, and after the claim I think she is clearly a worse than random lynch (though not a confirmed innocent). I'm keeping my vote on Goofball; it may still change later, if further developments make her a bad lynch and force us to quickly find a new center of attention to focus our potential votes on.

[Fiasco]

I must say I still don't understand where this bandwagon is coming from, other than pure inertia. Adele has plausibly claimed to be someone you'd expect to be a good guy, and I don't see much to fault in her behavior. It's probably too late by now with five switchers needed, but here are some points. (Yes, she can defend herself, but we're running out of time.)

When Adele put those words into Goofball's mouth, she didn't know she'd be a bandwagon target today, so I don't think proving her role was her main motivation. And if she were a scum trying to get Goofball lynched, I presume she could have thought of many things more effective than "take a close look at me". (Example: "Hi, I'm the Serial Killer! Don't lynch me; I'll help you kill the other scum!". Or: "By way of punishment, Mr. Grey is forcing me to reveal that I am Adolf Hitler.") A scum could cause

massive

mayhem with this ability by crafting a well-disguised incriminating message. The strange content, the unusual punctuation and the British spelling were all indications that this was not Goofball herself speaking.

Thok brings up the possibility that Adele is not Cyrano. But hasn't Goofball already confirmed that she is? I think Goofball should clarify whether she has private information that suggests Adele is Cyrano, or just that she has the ability. I further suspect the reason Adele hasn't stated how she used the power day one is that it works once each night.

Seol says Adele's tone has been over-justifying. I think the situation here is the same as with MikeBurnFire. If you're being bandwagoned, then of course you're going to justify yourself as thoroughly as possible.

I don't like how these wagons become self-justifying because of a few early votes. Some more of these, and the killers will reign supreme.

Fiasco boards a small rubber boat with a "SAVE THE ADELES" banner and circles the pirate ship.

[Fiasco]

First off, good catch on the post restriction. I've been scrutinizing some people's posts for unusual patterns; this is exactly the sort of thing I should have found, but didn't.

The case for CES as a scum rests on three assumptions:

One: CES's restriction is to start each day with "SATAN" as the initial letters of his posts.
Two: Someone with such a post restriction would be Satan himself.
Three: Satan would be anti-beach.

I take it there is no doubt about the first assumption. I also take it there is almost no doubt about the third assumption. That leaves the second assumption.

Despite what Goofball says, Satan definitely fits into the theme of verbose and charismatic characters. He's supposed to be the Deceiver, the Prince of Lies, and whatnot. While with the possible exception of Cyrano de Bergerac -- who had an abillity inspired by his fictional version -- all deaths so far have been historical characters, given the surreal nature of our whole experience here, a Satan among us sounds like a definite possibility.

It's also possible that CES is merely someone who has something to do with Satan. Even in that case, he is more likely than average to be scum -- perhaps of a cultish type. I will not feed CES any specific ideas that he can base a fake claim on.

I will keep some of yesterday's nominations. DrippingGoofball still looks scummy, and we now know Adele was pro-town. PetroleumJelly makes the case against LoudmouthLee with some force, though I disagree with some of the specifics -- for example, the parts about Satan. (Actually I just noticed LML has claimed; I'm going to think about whether to believe him, and keep my nomination on for now.)

I'm not yet sure what to make of the information Commodore Amazing received from his auditions, but it looks like (assuming he's telling the truth) it could be important.

Nominate: Cogito Ergo Sum, DrippingGoofball, LoudmouthLee

[Fiasco]

Seol, it's not true that Adele was the correct lynch given what we knew yesterday. You've ignored the main arguments to the contrary. A scum with even the tiniest bit of creativity could have used Adele's ability to much greater effect than Adele did. (And its potential in the hands of a scum is in itself evidence that the scum wouldn't possess that ability. At a frequency of one per night, it's especially powerful.) Her use of the ability didn't hinder the normal process of the town finding and lynching scum; due to the message's content in combination with the way Goofball presented it, it was always clear that the words weren't Goofball's own. I think you already agree that the other main argument for the lynch -- Adele's bandwagon-hop at the end of D1 -- was a bad argument. Combine that with how Cyrano seems an unlikely scum, and I think the lynch was pretty obviously misguided; the lynchers aren't in a position to cast aspersions on the non-lynchers. You may, however, be correct that CES shouldn't have singled out you and Thok.

If it's true that Mason is the hardest claim for a scum to make, then we definitely shouldn't lynch CES. I don't have enough experience to judge whether this assertion is true. In theory, I could see a Mason claim saving the scum's life for either of two reasons: one, some of the other scum can also claim Mason to confirm him in the hope of surviving for long enough; or two, even if no one else claims Mason, his lack of partners may not be noticed for a long time. Still, I agree there seems to be a lot of risk involved. I will symbolically unnominate CES (I don't think he's the right lynch, but we should probably have him on the block in case new information comes along), but would like to hear further comments from the more experienced on whether a Mason claim at this point makes any sense for a scum. The Satanism stuff still sounds a lot like a cult to me.

Finally, Seol: one of your recent posts didn't obey your restriction. I take it that was just an oversight rather than anything meaningful?

We have a lot of new information that I'm partly still processing. (For example, Com Am says there's just one good hanging among a set of nine players; if he's speaking the truth, there'd have to be a lot of good hangings among the other five; and yes, I know that includes me.) To make a reasoned decision today, we need to discuss everything in time and avoid tactics that stifle such discussions, such as Turbovolver's on D1.

Unnominate: Cogito Ergo Sum

[Fiasco]

(apologies for length)

Seol, the point is not so much that Adele could have behaved more scummily; it's that, if she were scum, she probably

would

have behaved much more scummily. What she did may have been suboptimal as town play (though I'm not really convinced), but if it was much more suboptimal as scum play than as town play (and I believe it was), then it nonetheless constituted evidence for her innocence (except to the extent that it could have been a WIFOM gambit). The main reason to lynch those whose play is suboptimal as town play is that such players are more likely to be scum, and if Adele wasn't more likely to be scum in this case, then that doesn't apply. Another reason could be to provide a metagame incentive against certain kinds of bad play, but I don't think this

was

bad play; at least it wasn't nearly bad enough to justify lynching a probable innocent.

Saying that a deed is scummy is equivalent to saying that innocents would (or should) be less likely than guilties to commit that deed. If there are a lot of other things that guilties could (and would want to) do instead, then that should lower our estimation on how likely guilties are to commit the deed in question, and therefore the scumminess of that deed would be lessened. These "could have"s are perfectly relevant.

I believe it's rather easy to make up a message that would be

both

much more damaging for the speaker or the town,

and

much less clearly involuntary, than the one that was sent. It was always clear that if Adele was a scum, she was intentionally holding back in her use of the ability. Yes, one reason to do that might be to keep the possibility open of being defended by Goofball, but I think if you need to depend on theories like that, you might as well admit that it just wasn't very scummy play.

Thok, yes, if Adele's only goal was to prove herself, then she could have made Goofball say something meaningless. But the actual message sent wasn't much more harmful than "monkeys enjoy bananas". If Adele thought Goofball looked suspicious, then getting the town to pay attention to her also seems like a legitimate goal.

If I understand you correctly, your other point is that a creative townie has as much to gain by using this ability as a creative scum. I disagree. For a scum, the ability is mostly useful for making townies lie to each other in damaging ways. I don't see any analogous creative use of the ability that would help the town. If there were something a player of unknown alignment could be made to say that gave the town (as opposed to the scum) a large advantage, then townies would already be saying that all the time.

I'm probably over-analyzing this. There are topics of greater current gravity:

Seol, I agree with much of what you said on the risk of scum claiming Mason. There is one problem, though. It's true that, if another scum backs the claimer up, and if one of the two dies, then the other will also be caught. But if there is only one scum faction (and though I don't believe in needless detailed speculations at this stage, it looks very possible given what we know) (does anyone else suspect Ted Striker?), then when is this scenario going to happen? The claimed masons will usually not be lynched or vigged, and they will not nightkill themselves. I could easily see it working, but again I have no experience with these things.

That brings me to something else that's suspicious about CES. In his guesses about scum this morning, why did he seem so sure there's only one scum group, consisting of five members?

Werebear: no post restriction? That sounds Godfatherific.

Pooky's point about Napoleon is worth listening to, I think. I'm not impressed by his second and third pieces of evidence (the "mortal" comment actually sounds Satanic rather than Napoleonic), but the St. Helene reference combined with the later guillotine reference (not mentioned by Pooky) makes me think CES may indeed have been setting up a Napoleon claim. I think dropping hints for false claims makes sense as a scum motivation, and I don't really see how else to understand CES's comments.

[Fiasco]

CES, I agree with you that Napoleon might not have been the safest fake claim to set up (though note that when you made those comments, you didn't necessarily know that verbosity was a major theme in the selection of roles). Still, I'd expect there to be a story why you said "the springs of Saint Helene". Is there a place called Saint Helene that has particularly famous springs? Not that I know, but maybe I'm wrong. The lemon reference could be taken as an indirect Napoleon hint; google it (lemon + Napoleon) to find out why. And the mention of water was obviously a reference to Waterloo... alright, I'll stop now.

Your lack of fame conflicts somewhat with the other roles we've seen. Would you say that, although not famous, you're a particularly verbose type? Because otherwise, I don't really see how your claim fits in.

I don't think I've often seen a five-member scum group, except maybe in games much larger than this, but maybe that's just my lack of experience.

Despite the multiple inconclusive lines of evidence that I think point in the same direction, I agree that because of the mason claim, CES is not the person to focus on for today's lynch.

Seol, I think you misunderstood. The reason I apologized wasn't that the length of that post was too great, it was that the length of that post was insufficient as judged by the standards of true verbosity -- less so than most other posts, perhaps, but still, we should all have unreachable ideals to live up to, should we not?

Silent Speaker, I await your case with curiosity.

I agree with those who say LoudmouthLee's claim looks weak. We could use some clarifications on his ability. What players, exactly, get to send him premonitions? Just those that were lynched? When do they get to send them? Do these carry any more information than just the dead player's personal opinion? Is there anything else in these messages than just one name?

[Fiasco]

"It just sounds pristine and pure?" So

there are no springs of Saint Helene

, and you just made up a random name that "sounds pristine and pure", and it just happens to fit exactly into a pattern of possible Napoleon hints? I hope you'll give me permission to express my extreme skepticism about this claim. There is also the matter of Kelly Chen asking for French speakers directly before your hints ("directly" in the sense that there were no posts by you in the mean time). Perhaps it was your intent to deceive her and the town by answering what you thought was some sort of call for allies, but in a way that you thought you could deny later?

Napoleon may have been evil in a sense, but he is not infamous for being evil in the way that someone like Hitler or Genghis Khan is. If you tried to pass off Napoleon as a pro-town role, you might have had

some

trouble, but not that much. If you were looking for a famous Frenchman to hint at in reaction to Kelly Chen, Napoleon is in my opinion an obvious choice. And again, if you're a scum, then when you dropped those hints, you probably had

no way of knowing

the selection of roles was themed around rhetorical skills or verbosity.

I'm sorry, but I get the impression your claims don't add up and you may be a scum, though it's

possible

you're just the victim of an awkward post restriction combined with unwise random comments about made-up places as well as a good dose of bad luck. I'm also having doubts about the "lynch in the endgame if necessary" strategy; that

may

work against a mafia, but it looks like a bad way to deal with a cult, which is rarer but also makes a lot more sense flavor-wise. Though on the other hand a cult probably doesn't account for the kills, which means that problem may solve itself. Hmmm.

I'm not sure right now what to do with CES, but we should have him on the lynching block as an option.

Nominate: Cogito Ergo Sum

[Fiasco]

SpamWise, you have wholly ignored the substance of my argument against Cogito Ergo Sum. I can't stand it when people do that (it's a personal flaw of mine), so forgive me if my tone against you is going to sound unpleasant again or whatever.

It's not true that I changed my opinion only on the basis of the comment about springs. There was also Kelly Chen's call for French speakers directly preceding CES's most important possible hint, which I had only just noticed. These things together made me feel rather cheated by CES's claims. Having him up for nomination always seemed like a no-brainer to me (observe that the unnomination was only symbolic); not because he necessarily always looked scummier than others, but because the nature of his claim is such that new information

could

easily make him look very scummy.

I didn't say I'd like to see CES lynched; again, I'm not sure what we should do with him. There seems to be a lot of conflicting evidence. I think a name claim at this point could help his credibility a lot. Is there any reason to think such a claim would help the scum? (Not a rhetorical question.)

You've also misunderstood the point about Napoleon's lack of notable rhetorical skills. I would say that this lack

does

make him unlikely to be among the guests. The point was that CES had no way of knowing that most of the guests would be verbose, and it disturbs me that he continued to use this argument after I had pointed this out.

Let me summarize again. Kelly Chen requested that French speakers make themselves known. CES, in his next message, gratuitously mentioned some non-existent springs that just happen to share a name strongly connected to Napoleon. He continues to drop random statements that could be pointed to as hints later; especially the guillotine mention. And now he turns out to have hidden the word SATAN -- who would fit into the theme quite well -- in his posts, in a rather obscure way. There is some other evidence that point toward him being scum, such as his weird scum group speculations. I would say the case is pretty solid... except the mason claim does seem like good evidence in the other direction. So I'm just confused at the moment.

[Fiasco]

SpamWise, my apologies -- I should have checked before I finished my last message. When I said you misunderstood the point about Napoleon's verbosity, I was going by my own mismemory of what you had said (which was something along the lines of "I agree with the point that Napoleon's lack of verbosity doesn't prove he's not in the game").

May the magnificent light rays of Lord Ebwop shine upon you.

Rasputin may not have been a verbose orator, but he definitely seems to have been a type with great charisma who gained a fiendish influence through his speech. Also, he wasn't really one of the players.

Cogito, it was SpamWise, not I, who made the Rasputin argument. I'm willing to believe that you don't usually drop role hints, and this does count in your favor to some extent, but then this seems to be an unusually hinty kind of game, and it would have been more credible if you had said this before it became clear that role hints weren't going to be of use.

[Fiasco]

Cogito: hmmm, I now see how you could see the Rasputin argument as evidence that, if you were scum, you would know most of the guests to be verbose. I'm not really convinced, though. There's a whole mass of other things Rasputin's presence could hint at other than a theme of verbosity; from that information alone, it could just have been famous statesperson-like types, or famous historical people in general. You may or may not have had useful additional information as a scum; I have no way of knowing, and neither do you, unless you're a scum.

I don't believe you when you say you would have claimed Descartes or Molière if you wanted to be a Frenchman, for the simple reason that they're exactly the people we know you would think of. You don't think someone would observe the coincidence in a guy named Cogito Ergo Sum claiming to be Descartes? Or that you were also Molière in some other game we once played before we were stranded on this horrible island?

[Fiasco]

Cogito Ergo Sum, of course you could have mentioned something to do with Descartes without any negative side effects, but it would also have been pointless, as you could never have gotten away with a Descartes claim. Responding to Kelly's request in a non-specific way also wouldn't give you anything to point at when you might want to claim some French role later. It wouldn't have been the logical step to take; in case you wanted to deny having anything to do with Kelly, you would want to make your response unobvious, but also provable in retrospect. I agree there are several other things you could have done, but there is some friction between those two goals, and a Napoleon hint like this would have been a sensible way to resolve that, I think.

Goofball, actually, come to think of it, it makes much more sense to lynch Commodore Amazing himself at some point than to lynch someone on his list (the one with only one good hanging) for the information; we already have CA's results (unless he expects to get more in the future, in which case lynching him doesn't make sense), and when we learn his aligment that reveals a lot of new information. If there's only one good hanging on his list, then there must be a

lot

of good hangings among those not on his list. (Which I'm afraid leads me to suspect that he may have misinterpreted the "good hanging" thing, or that he lied about it, or that there are scum roles that circumvent it.) I'm loath to go after him already, for a lot of reasons; one of them is that he seems to have some other abilities or information than the good hangings list. But it seems like one option to keep in mind for later.

[Fiasco]

It's not clear to me that masons would choose to out themselves. Multiple mason groups are not unheard of. Maybe this is another lack of experience thing. Many of Seol's arguments against scum claiming mason, in addition to working less well against cults, have the disadvantage of relying on power roles; historical precedent suggests we may not have many. The possibility of finding out about the fake mason claim too late worries me.

CES has, however, behaved reasonably and calmly in reaction to the accusations. The mason claim is also, all things considered, evidence for his innocence. On the whole, I may have been too harsh to him; if he's innocent, it must be annoying for him to be accused on the basis mostly of coincidences beyond his control. So, as disturbing as I find PetroleumJelly's way of communicating, I've come to agree, at least in part, with his/her comments on where I should spend my energy.

But CES, IGMEOY. (And here's a tip for the future: I would

never

let you get away with a Descartes claim,

ever

. You're exactly as likely to be given a Descartes role as any random person, but you're

much

more likely to falsely claim to be him.)

It's a good point that Com Am will probably be confirmable by the roles he cast. It's possible, but unlikely, that he can cast such roles as a scum, so we can consider him a useful source for now. The people not on Com Am's list (including the later MikeBurnFire amendment) are:

DrippingGoofball
Fiasco
Fritzler
MikeBurnFire
PookyTheMagicalBear
Seol
VitaminR

I'm already nominating DrippingGoofball, Seol is already on the lynching block, and I'm getting a pro-town vibe from Fiasco. MikeBurnFire and VitaminR both seem not particularly scummy, and unlikely to be on the block. That leaves Fritzler and Pooky. Although I'm going to unnominate LML and CES, I'd still like to see them on the block, as well.

If anyone wants to nominate me on these same grounds, I would of course be a hypocrite to protest. Not that that's an invitation. Silent Speaker, if you intend to present your case in time for people to nominate me on it, you'll have to be quick. If you intend to give me time to defend myself before that happens, you'll have to be even quicker.

Unnominate: LoudmouthLee, Cogito Ergo Sum; Nominate: Fritzler, PookyTheMagicalBear

[Fiasco]

Silent Speaker: let me try to summarize your case.

One: I'm not on Com Am's list. Fair enough, I've nominated people for this myself; see my previous post.
Two: I exhibited a "tell" you can't tell me about. I'll ignore this one.
Three: There were holes in my argument for CES being scum.
Four: I nominated CES and LML despite the 80% clearance and the LML claim, and said I was "keeping" my LML nomination on from the previous day.

To counter Three and Four:

You say I didn't explicitly mention my second assumption (that someone with a SATAN post restriction would be Satan) again. I never claimed to have proven it true, of course; I was just organizing our ignorance. I did, however, give some points in favor of the assumption, by defending the idea that Satan would fit into this game. If the setup is such that Satan fits into it, then someone with a SATAN post restriction is more likely to actually be Satan; that Satan fits in is a relevant point. I would still defend it. The point is not that "deceiver implies verbose"; it's that the popular image of Satan is that of a smooth talker, the type who convinces people to sell him their souls. Charisma or persuasive power, not

just

wordiness, seems to be the common denominator here. Out of four confirmed roles, we've seen three that were clearly historical, and one (Cyrano) with both a historical and a fictional version; the role (a poet putting words into people's mouths) seems to have been based on the fictional version. I don't think this is strong evidence against CES's role also being fictional. Besides, all roles seen so far have been pro-town; who knows, maybe other factions are slightly different in theme.

There are possible counter-points, one of which is your: "the one with SATAN for a role restriction is the last person who should be suspected of being Satan, anti-beach, as typically those who are evil do not announce it every day first thing". I hope you were just exaggerating for effect; of course the person who encodes SATAN into his posts is more likely to be Satan than the person who encodes DONALD DUCK into his posts. To say that he announces it every day first thing is, of course, very misleading: he doesn't "announce" it, he encodes it in a hard-to-find way; and he doesn't

choose

to do so, he has to. There doesn't seem to be a particle of doubt in your mind whether this might be a

weakness

intentionally forced on him by our captors, perhaps to compensate for some other strengths. By the way, this argument was (as far as I can tell) never brought up by anyone before my post. So not only did I completely disregard your argument, I did so pre-emptively. Churlish of me, huh?

I put a nomination on LML, and he didn't have a nomination from me before I put it on, and he did have a nomination from me the day before. I called this: keeping my nomination from the last day. By one possible definition of "keeping", I was lying, and by another possible definition of "keeping", I was telling the truth. I don't think this is interesting.

The reason I ignored LML's claim was that I had written most of the post without taking that into account, and I didn't feel like rewriting. I planned to address the claim in a future post, and maybe change my opinion based on it. I suppose I could have said "no wait, turns out he's claimed, so I'm not going to nominate yet", but it's just a temporary nomination; it doesn't do anything until the deadline. I did address the claim later.

The reason I ignored the 80% clearance was that I had strong doubts about Com Am's results (stronger than they are now). I was still thinking about whether he was a reliable source. Besides, a nomination is not a vote; LML's and CES's claims are such that we'll probably have a better idea of their plausibility later today, which means we should probably have them as options.

On the whole, I think your case is very weak; in 30 posts, of course you're going to be able to find some incompletely supported arguments and semantic nitpicks. It's strange that you think this makes me the most suspicious out of all players here.

Goofball, my list of people included all those not on Com Am's first list (the one with only one good hanging), plus MikeBurnFire, who shouldn't have been on the list if I understand Com Am correctly.

[Fiasco]

Fiasco notices an inconspicuous orange blotch in the distance. The sun must be setting already! Fiasco sits down and absorbs the silence that seems to have settled over the beach.

On reflection, I'm inclined to think Com Am is probably a good guy. Shakespeare sounds like a likely guest here, and no counterclaimer has come forward.

I think we have a good cross section of people on the block again. Of those on the block, the following were not on The List: DrippingGoofball, Fritzler, Pooky, Seol, VitaminR.

Goofball already seemed like a decent hanging without The List. The reasons from the previous days still apply, but are now strengthened somewhat by Com Am's results. I'm very much open to other reasonable cases.

Vote: DrippingGoofball

[Fiasco]

I agree LML's claims don't look credible. On the other hand, if Com Am's list is right, we would be betting on him being the one scum among eight players. So I'm not sure I'd go along with a lynch just yet. We may learn more in the future, through e.g. deaths.

Actually, here's something interesting: in case whoever we decide to lynch turns up pro-town,

we may have a way of testing LML's ability

! To do that, the lynchee would have to first decide on a name to send to LML; and he or she would have to

somehow

make it so that at least one other person in the town could figure out what name would be sent,

but

so that, if LML is scum, no one in his scum faction could figure it out.

The only problem is that this is really tough to do. (It's also an ethical minefield, kind of...) The lynchee could maybe make some sort of obscure allusion that would only be understood by a set of people that probably contains at least one pro-townie and no one who is scum with LML.

This is under the assumption that LML, if he really has the ability, can

only

receive one name, and no other text. If he can receive other text, then it may be possible to send LML a clue, setting him up to decipher an earlier code or allusion, and thereby prove his innocence (or at least that he has the ability). A clarification on his part would really be helpful here, I think.

Any creative solutions? If we can make this work, we're guaranteed to either nuke a scum today (and maybe try to test LML again tomorrow), or get a good idea of whether LML is lying tomorrow morning. If he is, we can wave goodbye and lynch him. If he isn't, we have a mostly-confirmed pro-townie.

[Fiasco]

LoudmouthLee: So when you listen to the dead, you can hear not just a name, but an entire message? In that case, there should be no problems testing your claim. Whoever is about to be lynched should tell us some sort of obscure hint or riddle, the explanation of which is known only to him or her. If that person turns up pro-beach, he or she should then give you the explanation that night as a premonition. If you aren't lying about your ability, you will then be able to explain the hint to us first thing in the morning. (To those voting LML: this testability means I think LML is a bad lynch for today, though that may well change tomorrow.)

Silent Speaker: By nominating CES, I wasn't indicating that I thought the three-step argument proved him scum; merely that it made him at least somewhat more likely to be scum than the average player. I stand by the point that, if Satan is a likely guest here, that goes some way toward making it plausible that CES is Satan. You somehow seem overly certain of the motivations of Mr. Grey. Again, why is it so impossible that he gave someone a restriction that would make him look evil if discovered? It's not as if CES was an automatic lynch; and who knows what advantages he or his partners have by way of compensation? Insane kidnappers like Mr. Grey normally want to see a fair fight between different teams, certainly, but does that mean each individual player necessarily has a good chance to survive to the end? I don't see why. The situation he has set up for us seems, to a large degree, to involve the element of having all sorts of hints in people's speech; I wouldn't find it strange at all if he had arranged for there to be some sort of reward for this kind of perceptiveness. (I've heard of a fabled Labyrinth where a group of people was put into a situation similar to the one we are in; they too profited, or could have profited, by scrutinizing the speech patterns of the villains.)

Your accusation of piffle is piffle. As far as I could see on a reread, the point that a SATAN restriction would be too obvious for a bad guy to have -- for that is what we were talking about -- was not mentioned before my post, or in my post. It's not a worthless point, but you can hardly blame me for not addressing all possible non-worthless points ahead of time.

[Fiasco]

Thok: I don't mean to be rude, but did you miss my point, twice? LML's claim is

testable

,

if

whoever is lynched remembers to drop something cryptic before the lynch that can be explained in a premonition. (Unless we lynch a scum; scum can't be trusted to deliver the message to LML. However, in that case, hey, we've lynched a scum, and we can try again later.) What do we have to gain by lynching LML today? If he's lying, he's almost certainly going down D4 or D5. If he's not lying, we're killing someone who could become a confirmed townie.

I think we're better off lynching someone not on The List; if Com Am's results are solid, we stand a better chance of lynching a scum that way.

I'm passionately ambivalent about the Seol wagon. As an Unlisted, he's better than random, and certainly also better than no-lynch. I've disagreed with him on some past issues. But I don't feel there has been a strong case for him being scum; some of the votes on him seem opportunistic.

Pooky's claimed tactic of trying to get people to follow him in attacking CES looks very dubious. As I think Seol said already, it's a terribly convenient general-purpose excuse, and we don't really have time for these things. I'm finding it hard to judge Pooky's scumminess from his posts. They're a bit long-windedly off-topic and emotional at times. (Not that I'm one who should complain about long-windedness.)

[Fiasco]

I have to agree it looks awfully like LML is a scum who couldn't keep his story straight. In theory it could have been just a very unfortunate phrasing, but, sorry, in combination with everything else, I don't think so. But because of LML's attack on CES, and because they're both on The List, I doubt LML and CES are in cahoots.

I still agree with CES that LML

can

be tested safely. The only question is whether we'd

want

to bother testing him; it's possible that he's so scummy that we'd prefer to have our other, uncertain lynch tomorrow instead of today (to be able to work with more information).

Fiasco puts on a hat that says "geek"; it goes nicely with his new "I helped lynch Malcolm X and all I got was this T-shirt" T-shirt. Meanwhile, crickets chirp. In the distance, perhaps sensing a bad joke in the air, an Inca hoots.

I'm not saying this is the most fun method, but if you don't want to leave anything to chance, the following is what you do: Find a few random huge prime numbers (100+ digits, say), at least not ones that LML can somehow look up or guess. Multiply them together. Say the result out loud. Then if you get lynched, send the factors to LML. Tomorrow morning, we ask that LML provides the factors.

This is just a proof of principle and I don't really recommend doing it that way (CES just gave what I assume is a more realistic example), but if there's a group of analysts that can figure out that one, Seol, they're very capable indeed. And the idea is that, as long as you make it practically impossible to decipher, you can

point at

your hint and say "this is my hint", so there can be no confusion.

If LML succeeds at deciphering such an impossible hint, that proves beyond reasonable doubt that he has the message-receiving ability he claims, though it doesn't completely disprove the idea that he is scum. On the other hand, if he can't decipher the hint, then we know for sure that he's a scum.

I'm undecided whether lynching LML would be a good idea at this point; he looks very scummy, but he

can

be tested safely, and in my opinion some of you should know better than to deny that. Goofball, how do you figure that CES is "protecting" LML by advocating an experiment that will prove whether he's scum?

[Fiasco]

Silent Speaker, I don't think you've understood the nature of the experiment. The lynchee is supposed to drop a hint or a code such that, with some additional information, it suddenly becomes clear what the hint meant, and it becomes clear that whoever figured it out must have been given that information. If LML can solve such a hint, it means he is indeed able to listen to messages from the dead.

It's interesting that you'd think I was scum if CES and LML turned up scum. Doesn't that invalidate your main reason for suspecting me, which was the attack on CES?

[Fiasco]

I can understand the idea that LML seems so scummy we shouldn't bother testing him. I'll definitely be here to Clinch the Lynch should it turn out to be necessary. But the idea that testing LML

won't work

is clearly false, as has been explained at length by CES and myself. Those defending it are either just being obstinate and not thinking, or they're afraid that the outcome of the test might not be in their favor... though given how scummy LML looks, it's probably the former.

Fiasco's voice suddenly sounds warped, greater in volume, and deeper:

Why am I surrounded by incompetents?

Fiasco's voice returns to normal.

If you encode a reasonably

long

block of text, in a way that is complicated enough that you wouldn't find it by brute force but simple enough that it wasn't clearly just made up by LML to find a fake message, there is

no way

for him to find the message if he's not able to listen to the dead, and there is

nothing

that can go wrong. For added, extra, overkill security, I really like CES's suggestion of encoding a description of the way of encoding itself.

Silent Speaker, I still don't see what was objectionable in my attack on CES. Do you think it's scummy to think, based on the Satan thing, that he's a somewhat better than average lynch candidate? Or do you think, given that, that it's scummy to nominate him?

If it comes down to an LML vs No-Lynch choice, I'll be happy to jump on. In the mean time, though, I think we need to seriously consider doing the experiment. Pooky seems like the best alternative lynch candidate, as he's an Unlisted and looks a bit scummier than Seol.

Unvote: DrippingGoofball, Vote: PookyTheMagicalBear

[Fiasco]

(The quick brown fox jumps over the Moon. Voltage Meters like Verbose Mafia. Giggity Giggity goo!)

I said I'd hop on if the choice was between lynching LML and no one. Well, that appears to be the case now. It's a shame we didn't seriously consider testing him, but if he's pro-town, he has himself to blame. If he's pro-town, then all those who argued against testing him will also look scummy.

I hope we've caught a scum; the evidence seems good. LoudmouthLee, observe, for the HAMMAH of Damocles now hangs over you!

Unvote: PookyTheMagicalBear, Vote: LoudmouthLee

[Fiasco]

So passes LoudmouthLee, Pope of Poop.

If the death scene reveals his alignment anywhere, I also must have missed it. Between his lies and his identity as a scummy character, I'd bet that he was scum, though. Which in turn would force us to reconsider whether any of the other deaths may have been scum, as well. While I don't

think

so, the possibility of a Christian scum theme casts some doubt on the alignment of Jonathan Edwards.

Silent Speaker, I don't remember an attack by LML on CA. Perhaps you meant CES? I tend to agree that, given what we know, he is probably innocent. Still, one possibility is that he and LML were in different scum groups. In case of a cult, that might not show up in the kills.

I also tend to agree that The List is now our most important piece of information. If all scum are good hangings, and if all good hangings are scum, then we can now clear several different players. To reiterate, the people that we

cannot

clear are:

DrippingGoofball
Fiasco
Fritzler
MikeBurnFire
PookyTheMagicalBear
Seol
VitaminR

On preview, I see some of these points have already been made, but eh, what the Hades.

[Fiasco]

May the magnificent light rays of Lord Ebwop shine upon you all today as they did yesterday.

My apologies. On digging further into my memory, I found that Malcolm X, Jonathan Edwards, and Cyrano de Bergerac have all been confirmed to be innocents in their respective death scenes. That would lead me to think that except in those cases where we are explicitly told the victim is innocent, the victim is scum. However, interestingly enough, Huey Long was not, as far as I can tell, confirmed to be innocent in death. He did not seem like one of the deadlier guests here. If, as I still believe is true, Alexander VI was among the murderers and Huey Long was not, then that means innocents are sometimes revealed to be such in death, and sometimes not. I expect that as more deaths trickle in, we will slowly obtain a better idea of just what it is that Lee's death scene says about his alignment. In the mean time, I think it won't hurt to think of him as a nearly-confirmed scum.

[Fiasco]

Goofball, Huey Long was indeed a nightkill (though remember: so was Jonathan Edwards, and Edwards was directly stated to be innocent in his death scene). That doesn't

automatically

confirm him as innocent (in theory he could still have been a cultist or something), but it does go a long way, and I'd agree that despite the lack of a direct confirmation, he was almost certainly innocent.

I don't mind being nominated for being among the Unlisted -- that's just a bit of bad luck on my part, I guess. Note once again that there's an error on your list, Goofball; MikeBurnFire intentionally mis-auditioned, and should therefore not have been on the list of probable good hangings.

It's unfair to describe me as "rooting" for LML, though. I've probably worked against him more than most here. When I brought up the idea of testing him, it wasn't clear at all that he would be the lynch. And I'm going to keep making this point: the experiment

would have worked

. We would have learned the next day that LML was lying, unless we lynched another scum. Later, I weakly argued in favor of doing the experiment instead of lynching him, but when it came down to it, I did put the hammering vote on him. (Also, without my D2 nomination, he probably wouldn't have been on the block then.)

Thok, it wasn't CES who suggested the plan to test LML, it was me; I still think it was a good enough idea that I wouldn't mind having the blame/credit/responsibility for that. You mention that you argued against the plan as if that's a point in favor of you; it isn't, because your logic was bad.

VitaminR, I'm afraid I can't argue against your gut.

With three Unlisteds already on the block, and one Unlisted me, there are only three left. That makes my nominations rather simple, at least for now.

Nominate: PookyTheMagicalBear, VitaminR, MikeBurnFire

[Fiasco]

Goofball: Sorry, there was a speako in my last message. I should have said that MikeBurnFire shouldn't have been on the list of probable

bad

hangings. In other words, he's not confirmed innocent.

As I understood it, when Com Am made his list with only one good hanging, he included MikeBurnFire on the list because he thought MBF had auditioned. But if you look closely at MBF's audition attempt, you'll notice that his lines are (deliberately) wrong. So Com Am later corrected himself, saying that MBF should

not

have been on the list. He belongs on the Goofball-Fiasco-Fritzler-Pooky-Seol-Vitamin list instead.

Fritzler, you're not following CA's nominations, because as far as I know he never nominated me.

Today's random verbose gibbericious filler text is brought to you mostly by the Postmodernism Generator! Yay! Fun! (Can be ignored safely.)



***



THE RUBICON OF SEXUAL IDENTITY: FRITZLERIST SITUATION IN THE WORKS OF PETROLEUMJELLY

1. Discourses of failure

"Art is part of the collapse of language," says Mathcam; however, according to Tamuz[1] , it is not so much art that is part of the collapse of language, but rather the defining characteristic, and eventually the stasis, of art. The subject is interpolated into a postdialectic paradigm of expression that includes sexuality as a reality. Thus, DrippingGoofball suggests the use of capitalist deappropriation to modify sexual identity.

Kelly Chen[2] implies that we have to choose between Fritzlerist situation and conceptualist presemantic theory. But Mathcam promotes the use of materialist situationism to attack hierarchy.

If capitalist deappropriation holds, the works of Thok are postmodern. Therefore, MikeBurnFire suggests the use of materialist situationism to read and analyse class.

2. Capitalist deappropriation and posttextual nationalism

If one examines posttextual nationalism, one is faced with a choice: either accept capitalist deappropriation or conclude that consciousness is a legal fiction, given that language is distinct from culture. The subject is contextualised into a Fritzlerist situation that includes art as a totality. Thus, LoudmouthLee uses the term ‘DrippingGoofballist hyperreality’ to denote not, in fact, narrative, but subnarrative.

"Society is part of the absurdity of consciousness. Popity popity pope. Et tu, Fernando Poo? Et tu, Seol, Kelly Chen? Scary and perplexing," says LoudmouthLee. The Silent Speaker promotes the use of capitalist deappropriation to deconstruct colonialist perceptions of sexual identity. But a number of discourses concerning posttextual nationalism may be discovered.

"Truth is unattainable," says MikeBurnFire; however, according to Commodore Amazing[3] , it is not so much truth that is unattainable, but rather the rubicon, and hence the stasis, of truth. In

I Don't Know, I Don't Know

, Thok examines capitalist deappropriation; in

Et Tu, Rasputin

, although, he analyses Fritzlerist situation. Thus, VitaminR[4] states that we have to choose between posttextual nationalism and DrippingGoofballist simulacra.

"Class is intrinsically impossible," says MikeBurnFire; "Voltage Meters like Verbose Mafia," counters SpamWise. The subject is interpolated into a capitalist deappropriation that includes consciousness as a whole. It could be said that Adele suggests the use of posttextual nationalism to challenge reality.

The economy of capitalist rationalism prevalent in Cogito Ergo Sum’s

Then Fall, Adele, Pursued by a Magical Bear

is also evident in

More Et Tu, Werebear, With Less Art

, and indeed even in

Et Tu, VitaminR? Then Prevent a Bad Marriage, MikeBurnFire

, although in a more substructuralist sense. Thus, several narratives concerning the role of the writer as reader exist.

The main theme of Werebear’s[5] critique of capitalist deappropriation is not discourse per se, but postdiscourse. In a sense, if Fritzlerist situation holds, we have to choose between capitalist deappropriation and textual LoudmouthLeeism.

Fritzler promotes the use of neosemiotic materialism to deconstruct the status quo. Therefore, Fiasco[6] holds that the works of Cogito Ergo Sum are not postmodern.

The Silent Speaker suggests the use of capitalist deappropriation to modify and challenge sexual identity. However, it could be said that Mathcam uses the term ‘Fritzlerist situation’ to denote the collapse, and therefore the paradigm, of postpatriarchialist art.

The example of capitalist deappropriation which is a central theme of Cogito Ergo Sum’s

Tamuz, I Am Gone Forever! Giggity Giggity Goo!

emerges again in

Hammah!

. In a sense, Seol promotes the use of Fritzlerist situation to attack outmoded, elitist perceptions of society.

3. Cogito Ergo Sum and capitalist deappropriation

"Class is elitist, lol," says Fritzler; however, according to BabyJesus[7] , it is not so much class that is elitist, but rather the fatal flaw, and some would say the paradigm, of class. If Fritzlerist situation holds, we have to choose between The Silent Speakerist `powerful communication’ and the subcapitalist paradigm of discourse. Therefore, the primary theme of the works of Cogito Ergo Sum is not narrative, but prenarrative.

Posttextual nationalism suggests that sexual identity has intrinsic meaning. However, the characteristic theme of Commodore Amazing’s[8] model of Fritzlerist situation is a self-fulfilling paradox.

MikeBurnFire’s essay on dialectic discourse states that the collective is capable of intentionality. We may construe InternetStranger[9] as holding that we have to choose between Fritzlerist situation and Mathcamist reading.

Many deconstructions concerning capitalist deappropriation may be found. Thus, in

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Bear

, PookyTheMagicalBear affirms posttextual nationalism; in

Turbovolver’s Wake

he analyses Fritzlerist situation.

4. Realities of genre

In the works of PookyTheMagicalBear, a predominant concept is the concept of subcapitalist narrativity. The main theme of the works of PookyTheMagicalBear is the rubicon of textual society. In a sense, the without/within distinction intrinsic to PookyTheMagicalBear’s

Buy My Car Or Burn

is also evident in

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Bear

, although in a more mythopoetical sense.

The characteristic theme of Phoebus’s[10] critique of capitalist deappropriation is a self-sufficient whole. Posttextual nationalism states that sexual identity, perhaps paradoxically, has objective value. However, if DrippingGoofballist simulation holds, we have to choose between posttextual nationalism and capitalist materialism.

Any number of narratives concerning the role of the observer as reader exist. Thus, SpamWise[11] implies that we have to choose between subcultural objectivism and capitalist discourse.

The Silent Speaker’s analysis of capitalist deappropriation suggests that art is used to exploit minorities, given that the pretextual paradigm of discourse is invalid. Therefore, many constructivisms concerning capitalist deappropriation may be revealed.

If posttextual nationalism holds, the works of Cogito Ergo Sum are modernistic. Thus, the subject is contextualised into a cultural narrative that includes language as a paradox.


Seol suggests the use of posttextual nationalism to read society. Therefore, the subject is interpolated into a capitalist deappropriation that includes narrativity as a totality.


(references omitted)

[Fiasco]

So Thok has been faking a post restriction? That does not inspire confidence, despite The List. As a matter of fact, I think it may be a borderline case of "lynch all liars". Avoiding giving hints to the scum doesn't seem like a strong enough reason to justify a move so seemingly scummy. We'll have to see what else he's willing to declare, but in the mean time, he seems like a good candidate for the lynching block.

Speaking of "lynch all liars", "lynch all liars" does not imply "all liars are scum", but it comes reasonably close. And we've seen plenty of lies from LML; as an excuse he predicted that (very) bad things would happen when he was lynched, but none of that is visible to me. I agree with Seol that we can safely assume he was scum.

Silent Speaker, I agree that CES isn't a good target today. However, you're making the assumption all the scum are in one group. While that's a reasonable assumption given the kills, it's not guaranteed, especially not given the possibility of a cult.

Now that, as the Silent Speaker says, three out of the seven Unlisteds can be "reasonably cleared" (though I'm not quite sure how reasonably...), I'm having my doubts about Commodore Amazing's interpretation of the results, for the reasons mentioned by Seol (and with the added knowledge that I'm not scum).

Unnominate: PookyTheMagicalBear, Nominate: Thok

[Fiasco]

Uh, okay, some quick comments -- I'm suddenly in danger of failing the requirements. I've seen several disturbing things lately.

MikeBurnFire's "Freudian slip", for example, where he said he didn't want to "out CES as scum". Taken at face value, that's a direct admission of scumhood. Whether he's scum or town, he said it by mistake. The question is, is it a mistake he'd be more likely to make as scum than as town? I'd say yes -- accidentally giving away the truth seems easier than accidentally giving away a falsehood. It disturbs me no one other than Seol seems to have thought this worth mentioning. Let's look closely at MBF (and his claimed comason) tomorrow.

Now that we know this is (in a sense) a no reveals game, one of the main reasons why scum wouldn't claim mason is moot. It's no longer necessarily true that if one dies, the other is also caught. The question is whether they would have known this. Maybe, maybe not. In any case, between the Satan thing, the Napoleon thing, the Freudian thing, and this, I'm getting somewhat suspicious of our Satanists again.

I also find it hard to believe that LML didn't know he was cast as Julius Caesar. All his et-tuing is just too much of a coincidence.

I don't understand some of Com Am's recent claims. If nothing happened to him when he was cast as Hamlet, why did he think the other roles could confirm him?

Werebear's latest point is interesting -- could the lack of kill have been due to rule-breakage?

I'll refrain from voting for now as a sign of my confusion. I have more thoughts, but to reach the required posting frequency, I have to post this now.

[Fiasco]

Re: VitaminR: I think his claim is reasonably solid. Sutch does seem harmless, and if not verbose, then at least... loud. (So what if he's uniquely British, though? So is Jack the Ripper.) People or entities that are harmless in real life are sometimes killers in Mafia, but here I doubt that's the case, as we've had a very not-harmless person die already as a probable scum. There have definitely been enough hints to establish that if VitaminR is

not

Sutch, he's prepared the claim from the beginning. Maybe as a safe claim? It seems unlikely. (Hitler would also be the type to shout and want votes, but again it seems unlikely.)

Re: Thok: I'm not reassured. It's certainly conceivable there was a pro-town reason why he's been faking organisms, but it definitely seems like something scum would want to do. And it now turns out he's actually been faking

three

restrictions -- food and semicolons as well.

Re: Seol: I'm skeptical. Perry Mason is fictional. Observe that all other roles we've seen are real (or in Cyrano's case, both real and fictional, but with the role based on the fictional version... hmmm).

I'm

a real person. Maybe it's a good idea for anyone else who's fictional to come forward and say they're fictional? I can't see that doing much harm. Perry Mason does seem like the verbally persuasive type. Given the role, the one-shot cop ability certainly makes sense. I'm not sure whether the posting restriction makes sense -- is Perry Mason known for

stressing

some words? Also, just to be sure: Seol, you're not actually claiming to be a mason in the mafia sense of the word, are you?

It now seems that I'm the only one on the List who hasn't yet given out any role information, or promises of role information. I'm willing to claim today, as far as the flavor part of my role goes, if the alternative is to be lynched (or even to be pursued by a bear tonight). I'd like to know, soon, whether many people intend to vote me now that Seol and VitaminR have claimed -- if so, I'm going to claim before it's too late for an alternative.

[Fiasco]

CES, you're

fictional

? That undercuts your entire defense. Real 20th/21st century style Satanists may be merely "Goth", as Seol puts it, but the popular archetype of a Satanist in

fiction

is definitely evil. And as I just realized, MikeBurnFire with his "JESUS AS CAT IN My RESTRICTION" seems to have been hinting at having something to do with the Narnia universe. (Where else would you find Jesus as a cat?) I'm not really familiar with that universe, but given the views of its creator, I wouldn't expect any Satanists from there to be good guys.

It also reflects badly on MikeBurnFire. If you are masons, then not only is MikeBurnFire fictional himself, he would have known that

you

are fictional. And yet, knowing this, he argued aggressively ("you should be smarter than that") against the possibility that you're Satan

because Satan is fictional

? It doesn't add up, and if you're both telling the truth, this was (again) really clumsy play on MikeBurnFire's part. Sorry.

I will be taking a very close look at both of you tomorrow.

Unconvincing claim or not, in my opinion the least we can do is leave Seol alive for one more day so that if he is honest, he can use his cop investigation. If you are advocating his lynch after his claim of one-shot cop, CES, that suggests to me you may have something to hide. (Except I'm not sure that's what you're advocating.) And it seems obvious this is a night ability and not a day ability -- otherwise Seol would probably have said so.

[Fiasco]

Seol, it doesn't bother me at all that you mentioned MBF's Freudian slip -- what bothers me is that no one else mentioned it. Apologies for being unclear there.

Your point about Lord Sutch being uniquely British is well-taken. It does seem relatively unlikely that VitaminR would come up with such a claim -- except, perhaps, if he searched Wikipedia for "screaming" to find a claim to go along with his post restriction. I'm not so sure about Mr. Grey's British accent, though. I detect an undertone of Unitedstatesitude in his speech.

MikeBurnFire (and by extension Cogito Ergo Sum) is looking weirder by the post. It turns out now that MBF thought he was real, and he thought CES was also real, even though they are both fictional. And when he argued from this assumption, CES didn't complain. They are from a novel, apparently, but not from the Narnia universe... and MBF "thinks" his Jesus-as-cat code was a joke. And furthermore, as Seol pointed out, CES said they were guaranteed innocent, but MBF said that CES wasn't scum "to his knowledge"? I expect a clarification from MBF on that one -- did he just forget about the confirmed innocence? This is beginning to turn into a whole pile of evidence that this was just a badly-executed gambit. It's a shame neither of you is on the block; in the absence of new developments, I will be probably be pushing to have one of you lynched tomorrow. Though I'm not sure what you're saying your death will prove. Will it be an obviously innocent character, or just a character obviously connected to some other character who would also be a guest? The latter isn't proof of masonhood.

[Fiasco]

This just gets worse and worse. Apparently MikeBurnFire read his PM, but missed the part about the other mason(s) being confirmed innocent. That is the first thing I would ask myself if I were a mason. I've seen the MikeBurnFire mask once before, in some nearly-forgotten past; the wearer was one of the three Magi then. They were masons but they did not know each other to be innocent, and had to ask the moderator (come to think of it his name was also Mr. Grey or something similar) for clarification. So I

know

this is an issue MBF is aware of. I can't believe he wouldn't read his PM closely for signs of guaranteed innocence. I especially don't think MBF would continue to be unaware of the guaranteed innocence

after Seol mentioned the issue as a direct question to CES, and Seol explicitly asked the other masons to look into it as well, and CES answered that, yes, they were guaranteed innocent

.

It also turns out they don't actually know each other's role names! At least, if I'm interpreting MBF correctly. I would have expected that information to be present in their role PMs. Even if it was not, I would expect them to exchange this information as a high priority during one of the nights,

especially

last night after CES was attacked for his Satanic posting restriction. CES says that if he reveals the novel they're from, that amounts to revealing his role name. Then how come MBF doesn't know CES's role name?

As for the "Jesus As Cat" message being a joke, MBF later said about that message, "I don't recall telling you not to attempt to decypher my messages." It's possible, but again, it gives off a bad impression.

If you two aren't scum, you've been horribly sloppy in your play, in my opinion. (At least MBF. It doesn't take that much energy to read your role PM closely, once, when you're asked.)

Re: VitaminR: I agree it's probably a bad idea to lynch him. If we think he's scummy, we can nomination-starve him to death; except if he's lying when he says that will kill him, and except if a scum partner nominates him anyway. In the former case, it will be clear that VitaminR is scum, and we can lynch him anyway. In the latter case, it will be obvious that whoever nominates him is scum, and we can lynch that person. I don't know why CES said the modus operandi for the kills doesn't fit him, though; I'd say it fits exactly.

[Fiasco]

Worse and worse and worse.

MikeBurnFire, you said earlier that you had multiple post restrictions. Now it seems you're saying you have only one post restriction, and it's the "double-g" restriction that I think everyone figured out ages ago. Which is it? Were you lying, or what? Having a double-g word in each post isn't similar at all to having your starting letters be "SATAN", so unless you were using "my restriction" to refer to a completely different restriction when you said that your restriction was similar to CES's, I can't interpret that as anything else than a lie.

The double-g restriction is interesting in itself. LML had a double-p restriction, and he was a pope. The double-g restriction may point to identities such as Genghis Khan, or Gorgias, the "father of sophistry".

Also, are you saying that when Seol asked about confirmed innocence, you went back to check? That's what you seem to be saying, but in that case, why were you still confused several real-time "days" later about CES not being scum "to your knowledge"?

Cogito Ergo Sum, I think I may have noticed a restriction in your posts other than the one about Satan. Referring to Thok's faking, you said it was "strange", so I doubt that, if you're pro-town, you've been faking a restriction yourself. Are you willing to go on record as saying that you have only one post restriction? You did call your restriction "my restriction", which would imply that you have only one.

I'm also interested in the friction between your claim that your role is one that you "might have chosen", like Descartes or Moliere, and your claim that your role is not famous, and MikeBurnFire's claim that

his

role name

doesn't even get any Google hits

. (Seriously, what character doesn't even have any Google hits nowadays? By the way, everyone, please stop referring to Wikipedia as "wiki" or "the wiki".)

I'm also interested in why you said: "Once I do come forward, I think you'll understand why I'm not coming forward". Earlier you seemed to be implying that you just wanted to be careful about giving out information, rather than having any

specific

reason for coming forward. And MikeBurnFire doesn't understand why you don't want to come forward, so apparently it's not obvious from the role flavor alone, and requires an explanation from you (that you won't be able to give if nightkilled, and that you didn't bother to tell MBF last night).

I'm not going to "just trust you" -- this is Mafia, remember? I don't see how, in a no reveals game, it will be obvious that you're masons once one of you dies. Maybe you're connected, but that's also possible for cultists.

[Fiasco]

Jesus day-vigging Christ.

(I'm sad to say that's an expletive rather than a role claim.)

When,

two days ago

, I said: "I'd like to know, soon, whether many people intend to vote me now that Seol and VitaminR have claimed -- if so, I'm going to claim before it's too late for an alternative", I

wasn't kidding

. This is exactly the situation I wished to prevent. You didn't listen.

Since I don't even have a single thing to defend myself against, all I can do for now is claim. I won't claim fully until I feel it's strictly necessary.

I'm Galileo Galilei. My main post restriction is to have a physics word in each post. If you're unclear on any specific post, I'll be happy to tell you what word I used there. Past examples have included, off the top of my head: force, momentum, energy, experiment, inertia, gravity, matter, light, space, geiger counter, particle, wave, universe, friction, pressure, potential, current, and of course voltage. There is more, but it's something the scum would want to know. My role abilities have to do with Popes and (tele)Scopes; it's a weakish information-type thing. I prefer not to tell you more unless more strictly necessary. It will be useful to keep me around for at least the near future.

I feel it's pretty clear by now that the List is mostly useless. I urge you to reconsider your tactic of lynching me like nuclear waste. This is a quantum leap in foolishness.

And no, Thok, I have not been lumberjacking.

Oh, woe is identical to me.

[Fiasco]

And

then

they all stop posting. Way to go. The lameness of this bandwagon is astronomical. (I would not normally say this. The meaning of this will become clearer later.)

I have some more info that will make my role more plausible. I have results from my telescope. I can choose, at night, to make these results publishable the next day. To do so I have had to follow an extra posting restriction (let me just say it's secrecy-flavored, Galileo-related, and intentionally hard to find). I was informed there would be unsavory elements trying to find the restriction and thereby thwart me. Maybe now that we have a dead Pope, these elements are gone; I don't know. I was warned of Popes. That's why I'm sure LML was scum. I'm not sure whether there are also other Popes in the game. Maybe even Alexander Pope. I wasn't directly told all Popes would be scum, but I was warned of them in a way. I put a dramatic pause between "a" and "pope" when I said it earlier today, to breadcrumb at the possibility of multi-popes, but the forum seems to have swallowed it. I know, I know. There is no forum. But you can still find it by quoting, should you so desire.

So yeah, this supports a religion theme.

I need two unvotes to be able to give my info to the town. If you don't find all this plausible, lynch me tomorrow.

Beware of vacuum cleaner salesmen. They are purveyors of suckage.

[Fiasco]

Observe the vacuum that is this thread!

PetroleumJelly, thank you for the unvote. I hope someone else will be as wise as you. To clarify, it is not the case that I need to be under a lynching vote to tell you information. I need to make a decision tonight, and I can only make that decision under the condition that no one among a certain group of people (and I don't know for certain who this group is, or whether they might all be dead). Sending in this decision will enable me to "publish" the results. They are not something I can tell you today, in-thread. You know how sometimes scientists used weird forms of encryption to prove priority? This is a bit like this, and I'll explain soon when it starts looking completely hopeless.

Voltage Meters like Verbose Mafia.

[Fiasco]

Observe the vacuum that is this thread! May the magnificent light rays of Lord Ebwop shine upon you all!

I meant to say: "under the condition that no one among a certain group of people (and I don't know for certain who this group is, or whether they might all be dead by now; maybe there's just one person in there) finds the way of encryption in my additional posting restriction and acts on this information".

VitaminR, thank you also for the unvote.

Voltage Meters like Verbose Mafia.

[Fiasco]

Observe the vacuum that is this thread!

Since it's still very possible I'll die soon, I should say what I thought CES's faked restriction was. He seems to have a word in nearly every post with an "a" followed (not necessarily directly) by a "y". Of course that's a very common thing. But his posts are short, and they follow the pattern pretty faithfully.

Voltage Meters like Verbose Mafia.

[Fiasco]

Silenced by Pope today. (Urban? GreGory?) Fifty words max real-daily. Cannot nominate, vote. Results inaccessible (until Pope death?). Anagrams were discovered. One pair each post, six plus letters. ("lameness", "salesmen") Google: Galileo anagrams.

Mike female?! Thought "Omens" biography?!?! Gregarious real?! Dubious. Note Aziraphale quote!

Fluff: "atom". EPPUR SI MUOVE!

[Fiasco]

Fornicating Hades. "Babble"?? Information density! Reread closely!

Single nonserial kill: mafia absent, cult present? Lynch cult

early

.

Wikipedia opens: "fantasy novel". Mike thought "Omens" biography, nuns real? Mind boggles.

Mike: "he", "reclusive", "restriction" / "multiple restrictions". Lies. Refuses answering.

Cogito asked Botticelli Aziraphale directly pre-roles. Coincidence?

PetroleumJelly, confirm.

Destiny awaits.

[Fiasco]

Angering. Enraging. Pay *attention*! Hate wasting words.

Millionth time: Mike *unlisted*. Denying scummy.

"All scum Popes"? Unsaid. "Useless until dead"? Untrue. Other factual, logic errors.

Mike: "more than one restriction", "Satanic restriction", "eerily similar", "hardly findable". Unambiguous lies. Lal. Mason case decent otherwise.

Mason option. Seol best lynch otherwise.

Laser.

[Fiasco]

Topato Potato likes Rad Gravity.

Sutch, Nuns real OR prepared from beginning. (Initial trinity possible if recruits slow. Possibly recruit(s) dead!)

Commodore, restriction today directly caused by inane lightningwagon yesterday. Full explanation tomorrow.

Seol, misunderstanding? Results lost on *my* death. Accessible on *pope* death.

Morally support Seol lynch. Information.

[Fiasco]

Etruscan Centaurs like Entropy Cops.

Why didn't Seol investigate claimed mason? Three in one. (Two known then.)

Mike, explain "more restrictions" in your "number five". Appears mendacious!

More mason doubts; expound tomorrow.

Sutch claim actually expected of VitaminR, methinks. Restriction not known real; also, proves not identity. Masons same.

[Fiasco]

Again: fifty

daily

, not postly. Last post. Cannot vote anyway. Long explanations tomorrow. Seol lynch seems OK.

Mike: failed "gg". Unpunished. Strange.

Cogito: if "ay" restriction unreal, please violate it clearly, repeatedly

today

.

(astronomy? ethology? theology? et tu, commodore? et tu, tamuz? et tu, seol? et tu, scooby doo? poo!)

[Fiasco]

To whoever just gave me a

new

restriction: I suppose that in daily life, you're the type that forces

other people

to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk?

I can understand if some people found my lack of clarity yesterday disturbing. Let me try to explain again what happened. I am Galileo Galilei (the Heretic!). My main restriction is that I need to have a physics word in each post; I've given a list of examples toward the end of Day Four. I have an additional restriction that I needed to follow

in secret

to be able to use my information ability. This restriction is that I need to have two words in each post that are anagrams, and that are at least six letters. I have followed this restriction in every post so far; if you're in doubt on any of them, please ask me. Common pairs include: except and expect, silent and listen, observe and verbose. The flavor of this is that I need to encrypt my results; you will find it helpful to type "Galileo anagrams" into Google (with no quotes). I was informed that there were elements trying to discover this restriction. Apparently, this happened during or just before Night Four; maybe I gave away a bit too much information in my reaction to the lightningwagon, partly because I suspected LML might be the only relevant scum, and he was dead. Some other scum, seemingly also Popelike in nature, acted on this discovery in Night Four. This scum prevented me (and is still preventing me) from accessing my role results, and moreover, "silenced me", in that he gave me a restriction yesterday: I could post at most fifty words each real-time day, and I could not vote or nominate. This is something that applies to me only; it's a reference to Pope Urban VIII silencing Galileo, but I'm not sure whether the player in question is that particular pope.

Sigh. Now I have to verify whether every sentence has a different number of words. Note to self: make future posts shorter. I think I've been targeted by the same joker that targeted Commodore Amazing and Thok earlier.

Butchers like Schubert. May the Force be with you.

[Fiasco]

I took the liberty of going back in time a bit and answering your question. Solemn melons like happy lemons, full of energy.

I would like some clarifications, as well, from the claimed masons.

For example, MikeBurnFire, in your sixth burst of speech, perhaps confusingly labeled "number five", you said, "I, as well as several others here (perhaps even yourself), have more than one restriction". Yet yesterday, you said, "I NEVER said I had more than one restriction. So lay off." Please explain.

[Fiasco]

Ethics itches, gravity sucks.

MikeBurnFire, I would also like you to clarify what your punishment from Mr. Grey was. (You also mentioned a punishment on Day One.) The punishments we have seen so far (though I'm not sure for what) have been the loss of role abilities, and being placed on the lynching block. But neither of these happened to you, even though you do have a sort of role ability (talking to other masons).

Thok, I'm still not happy about your restriction faking. If you have no reason to hide, you should probably reveal your identity. This will allow the town to decide whether your misdirection was justified.

I could choose to reveal the nature of the information I generate, if not the specific results. I strongly prefer not to, though, because it will enable the scum to adapt their behavior, sort of. (I am being deliberately vague.)

[Fiasco]

Ethics

still

itches, gravity

still

sucks.

MikeBurnFire, thank you for going back in time and answering my question. I'm not sure I'm convinced. Wasn't it obvious, and didn't it say in the rules, that (almost)

all of us

would have "more than one restriction" in the sense of having to say at least five sentences as well as having an individual restriction? Why, then, would you say, "several others here (perhaps even yourself)"? Also, apparently, the punishment you referred to in your sixth burst of speech was a different sort of punishment?

[Fiasco]

I just reviewed the rules by which Grey would have us live. This made me extra confused. According to the rules, repeated offenses after the first cause the offender to be placed on the lynching block the next day. Why hasn't this happened to MikeBurnFire? It's happened to PetroleumJelly (who never posted nine times per day before being on the block).

This post is an importunate permutation of electrons!

[Fiasco]

ANTIFERROMAGNET REFRAGMENTATION!

Commodore, this is not helpful. I tried to make the best of an inconvenient restriction yesterday; if you read closely, everything is meaningful, except for some fluff to satisfy restrictions. I've already clarified a lot in previous posts today; if there's anything specific you'd like me to explain, ask.

MikeBurnFire, thanks for your explanations, but I still don't understand. By my count, three things went wrong: you were punished for lack of verbosity pre-game, and you were punished later for failing your "gg" restriction, twice. That is three times in total. According to the rules, a repeat offense causes the offender to be placed on the lynching block.

[Fiasco]

GLORIOUS ANTIFERROMAGNET REFRAGMENTATION!

The claimed masons case is very confusing. There is definitely some good evidence in their favor. No other masons have come forward. From the hints, it's clear that they've been preparing this claim from the beginning if it's not real. Two of the three are on the list of probable bad hangings, though I don't think we can put much trust in that list.

Still, there are a lot of confusing things about their story. MikeBurnFire, could you explain why, if you didn't look at the wiki page, you quoted the "nitrous oxide" thing from Good Omens?

Interestingly enough, there was a previous, uh, situation like ours, where all the guests were characters from "Good Omens". Mary Loquacious was there. She was in a mafia group, together with Satan and others.

I hope no one minds if I will be double posting like mad.

[Fiasco]

ANTIFERROMAGNET REFRAGMENTATION!

On to PetroleumJelly. You've misunderstood my role. My restriction yesterday, once again, was specific to my role; it was a reference to Pope Urban VIII silencing Galileo. ("And yet it moves", and so on; you must have heard of it.) The way in which this happened is a reference to another thing about Galileo, which is that he used anagrams to hide scientific results. (So has anyone actually Googled?)

I think you're missing the point on Mike's Satanic messages. The point is not that he came to Cogito's aid, which is only logical for a mason. The point is that he lied, or nearly lied, while doing so: he said he had difficult-to-find Satanic messages in his posts, which was never true. In Mafia, there is a strong ethic against lying as a protown player; many take it to the point of "lynch all liars". You must have heard of that, too.

Finally, I'd say you were a cult whose recruits stop working at some fixed number (I think I've seen those before), but the thing is, I'm not sure where that leaves LML.

[Fiasco]

GLORIOUS ANTIFERROMAGNET FRAGMENTATION!

There's something else I don't understand, PetroleumJelly. When exactly were you forced to make nine posts per day, and for what offense, and did you do so?

Also, your post restriction. Do you actually need to say "my dear" every time, or do you just need to speak to someone and say his or her name?

Gabriella Gregarious doesn't exist in the book, it turns out. I'm not sure what to make of that. MikeBurnFire, what about your earlier comments that you are "a reclusive person"? That seems like an anti-breadcrumb; it's not something you'd expect someone named "Gregarious" to say.

[Fiasco]

Antiferromagnet REfragmentation, blast it. REfragmentation.

I haven't read the book either. I do know that Gabriella Gregarious isn't in it, at least not by name. I don't really see why this should be a cause for extra suspicion on MBF, though; CES did say that he wasn't sure she was in the book, and MBF did say he didn't get any Google hits.

Thok, if there is no risk to it, I'd still like you to reveal your identity. I will nominate you until you do so. We should also have a claimed mason on the block as an option.

Nominate: Thok, MikeBurnFire

[Fiasco]

Topato Potato is less English than a tree full of Teletubbies on Earl Grey. Angular momentum makes the world go round.

PetroleumJelly, to be honest, I feel you're not paying attention, and it's getting annoying to constantly have to correct you in my verbally crippled state. You sometimes seem to forget that we have no way to

know

whether you're masons, and saying "trust me, I'm a mason" a dozen times is not proof. If we are to distinguish masons from scum, we will need to look for flaws in everyone's stories. All players should present their claims clearly and, where possible, completely. They should avoid gratuitously giving off the sort of tells that would be exhibited by a scum making up a story. They should react to critical questions by answering them, rather than by attacking the asker or by ignoring them. They should avoid jumping to conclusions. To be honest, I think if you're speaking the truth, all three of you have been playing rather sloppily by these standards. I do think there's a good amount of evidence for your innocence, and I keep intending to look closer at possible scumminess in the other players, but every time you come up with more logic holes that I feel I have to look at.

There were some specific points, but they'll have to wait until my next post (sigh).

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles!

Now that it turns out I was partially right about Mike's lack of punishment being disturbing, I'm really confused. The rules don't say anything about multiple offenses per day; they say that repeated offenses are punished by automatic placement on the lynching block. It's possible that this is an error in the rules, but, PetroleumJelly, you can hardly blame me for taking them literally.

I was also under the impression that the punishment for failing the restriction included the loss of role abilities, but apparently this is not true of the masons. Is there anyone

else

for whom the punishment is not loss of role abilities, but instead increased verbosity?

More later.

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles!

PetroleumJelly, not only do we nonmasons not know whether "gg" is MikeBurnFire's real restriction (he's certainly put a lot of other fluff out there), I've already mentioned some reasons why it might be. A lot of popes were named Gregory. There have been other historical figures with "gg" names, like Gorgias or Genghis Khan.

Urban VIII is the pope who historically silenced Galilei, but I didn't say it would be him in this game; just that it's a pope, in the abstract.

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles!

PetroleumJelly, are you saying being a mason (or a claimed mason) makes it okay to lie? I disagree, though in this case I wouldn't advocate thoughtlessly lynching in response. And Mike's claim that "gg" is a Satanic message is a quarter-truth at best. He also said it was hard to find, which it was not. He also said it was eerily similar to Cogito's restriction, which it also was not.

It is

not

true that any of you said that Sister Gregarious does not exist in the book; that was new information, though Cogito did say that he wasn't sure that she was in the book.

MikeBurnFire, I'm having trouble imagining a state of your mind in which you could use the quote about Aziraphale as a breadcrumb, but in which you also thought "Good Omens" was a biography and the order of Chattering Nuns was real.

[Fiasco]

Isotropy and porosity!

I have some more comments, mostly on the claimed masons. I promise, though, that soon I'll look more systematically at the behavior of the other players; going after them may be more productive at this point.

PetroleumJelly, you've said we've seen six nights; this is not true. We've seen five nights. If recruits happen on even nights only, there have been just two opportunities. We don't know whether any recruits may have failed. We don't know whether any recruits may have been lynched or nightkilled.

[Fiasco]

Porosity and isotropy!

On to Commodore Amazing. I'm sorry, I really am, but I don't see what you're asking of me that hasn't already been addressed in today's posts. I've just seen a general request to clarify what I said yesterday. I do apologize for calling you "not helpful"; I suppose we all have our inattentive moments at times.

[Fiasco]

Voltage meters dislike zinc, for it is the lamest of metals.

On to MikeBurnFire. It seems that for some reason you're counting my extra restrictions today and yesterday as points against me. Yesterday's restriction was clearly scum-inflicted, and I don't think the one who inflicted it on me is going to come forward. Today's restriction, however, could have been inflicted by either a scum or a pro-townie; I think future claims may shed light on its nature.

My restriction today is not that I have to post a lot. My restriction today is that I can't have two sentences in the same post with the same number of words. I'm making a lot of posts because given this restriction it's less tedious than making a few long posts.

You're correct that "just because you skimmed a webpage on Good Omens doesn't mean you know everything about it", but the webpage starts out saying that Good Omens is a fantasy book, and yet you were very sure it was a biography. It's not proof of scum, but I do think it's a strange gap in your story.

[Fiasco]

Voltage meters like aluminum, for there is no manlier mineral.

Silent speaker, that's a valid point in itself, but I think I can clarify. From my role, it's reasonably clear that whoever could silence me by finding the restriction

knew

that there was such a restriction to look for,

and

knew that the person whose restriction they were looking for was Galileo Galilei. Once I claimed to be Galileo, I assumed that it gave the scum no new information to say that I had a restriction they would be looking for. At the time of my claim, things were moving very quickly, and it looked like I was about to die, so I may have made errors of judgment then; but I don't think this was one of them.

[Fiasco]

Voltage meters indicate indifference toward thorium, for it is neither their most favorite nor their least favorite actinide.

Cogito, please take care to distinguish between knowledge possessed by the town, and knowledge possessed by the masonry (if you are one). If you had no opportunity to talk before Night One, then that proves beyond reasonable doubt that you really are the Chattering Nuns. However, we don't

know

this to be the case, and we can't take your word for it. In games that start with day, it

is

, to my knowledge, customary to allow night conversation during the pre-game phase.

I'm not sure I'm happy that you ignored my request yesterday to prove that the "ay" restriction wasn't your real restriction. I didn't see any downsides to it.

[Fiasco]

Modulate the phase flux of the termite emitter!

It's certainly not as customary for Greys to

publicly

announce that talking groups can talk as it is for them to allow talking groups to talk during the pregame in games that start with day.

I don't think Mike's mistake makes him likely to be scum. I guess one possible interpretation, though, is that it means he may have changed his story. I'll admit that looks unlikely, though it also looks unlikely as a genuine mistake.

Of course, if there

is

a cult, and it wasn't originally you, you can bet that they've recruited at least one of you by now.

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide.

I just realized I should probably clarify. I don't think the masons are very likely to be scum. (I do think it's quite

possible

that they're scum, given the information available to the town, and I think they've been rather glib in arguing that it's not.) It's just that the constant gaps in their arguments irritate me; I shouldn't let them, but they do.

I've taken a quick look at some of the others. Next post!

[Fiasco]

Glibness is not a blessing. Protons are protown.

I think some of Commodore Amazing's behavior has been dubious, but he's been cleared by Seol. I doubt a one shot cop would get anything but a correct result, excepting Godfathers. I think we can safely consider him a confirmed innocent for now.

VitaminR's claim looks fairly plausible as far as flavor goes. We have no hard evidence on him either way.

I sympathize with some of Werebear's sentiments against the claimed masons. On the other hand, he seems rather fanatical in pushing for the lynch when there is some puzzling evidence in both directions, and for the rest he's largely stayed in the background.

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide.

My Thok nomination is still happy, for reasons stated. Possible other nominees (excluding the other masons and CA) are Speaker, SpamWise, Tamuz, Werebear.

None of the voting patterns seem very informative to me.

SpamWise will be away for the rest of the day, it seems. I wonder whether he'll be replaced, or anything? He hasn't really said anything controversial. In the beginning he's hinted at an identity that seems fairly plausible. I'm not sure about him.

Tamuz has also stayed in the background. I'm not sure what to think of him, either; he's at most slightly more suspicious than the rest.

Silent Speaker has been more active, but he's another player we have no real information about.

Werebear will probably end up on the block anyway (I'll move my nomination if necessary). I'm going to nominate Tamuz and Silent Speaker, more by elimination than because they seem extremely scummy.

I'll shut up now.

Nominate: Tamuz, the silent speaker

[Fiasco]

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a black hole. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Medusa was not amused.

I'll reiterate Silent Speaker's request not to vote for VitaminR until we've decided whether or not to leave him alive. That said, VitaminR does not seem extremely suspicious to me. The problem with the plan is that it will definitely work if VitaminR is protown, whereas if VitaminR is antitown, it may very well not work -- though in that case, we will at least know tomorrow that he is scum.

I just noticed this strange claim from MikeBurnFire that I didn't respond to earlier:

"He protected Lee, saying that his role was provable, even though it wasn't because he was lying scum."

That wasn't at all what I said. What I said was that

if

LML had the ability,

then

this was provable -- and since he did

not

have the ability, we would know the next day that he had been lying. (Of course, shortly before the deadline he admitted to lying anyway; by that point the test had become superfluous.)

I don't think testing Commodore's list is a strong argument for lynching anyone; I'm not sure how knowing the alignment of an Unlisted would lead to any practical conclusions.

[Fiasco]

Magneto weighs one megaton.

PetroleumJelly, you make some good points, but also some bad ones. Cults can start out with a few members, if they are limited somehow in their recruits -- for example, if they recruit once every two nights, or if they have a maximum number of recruits to make. I'm fairly sure I've seen that before. It's also possible the cult killed Pooky and had to give up one or more recruit attempts to do so. It's also very possible there were failed recruit attempts, or there were recruits that were killed.

There seems to be no other mason group. There was once a vaguely similar situation to ours, in some Labyrinth or other, where there was also a group of three masons. I'm convinced that LML was a scum of

some

sort. That adds up to a good amount of evidence in favor of the claimed masons. It's clear, though, that there is

something

weird going on on this island. There is no need to be glib about what has and has not been proven, and it disturbs me that you keep jumping to the same conclusions. (Specifically we have no way of knowing whether your identities and restrictions are genuine if you were able to coordinate your story.)

I'm not sure exactly what is going on, but if we

are

dealing with a cult, do you agree that the masons' guaranteed innocence no longer means much? The claimed masons seem like obvious targets for recruitment.

Werebear, what would you plan to do next after lynching a claimed mason, if he comes up as a Chattering Nun?

[Fiasco]

There was an error in my last message. Magneto weighs less than a megaton.

I agree with the theory that Pooky needed to know his victim's post restriction to make a kill. (I just figured out that Mathcam's restriction was probably having to triple-post each day.) Pooky said he had two other pieces of information. I am not sure what that could mean.

The silencing ability was specifically based on my role flavor, though; I doubt others have equivalent "weaknesses".

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide.

The Pooky point is a decent point -- it means you took some risk, unless you really are the Nuns, but you are scum, and you knew your alignment would not be revealed. However, note that you only fully claimed the morning after Pooky died (IIRC).

Our situation is weird enough that

any

imagined situation requires some stretching. If there's no cult, what

are

we dealing with?

I do agree Tamuz looks like a decent target (he seems bloodthirsty lately), but there are a few others I'm still considering.

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide.

Note that before Pooky died, we didn't know how many masons there were.

Mary Loquacious was scum with Satan in a previous situation like our own. You're really not the most obviously protown characters, at least as far as I can tell (trying to bring about Armageddon and so on). This is the fifth sentence.

[Fiasco]

Voltage Meters like Parties with Pirates.

PetroleumJelly, I'm going to say the same thing as the last few times. Please distinguish between information possessed by you, and information possessed by us. We have no way to know whether your restrictions are real, other than due to believing your mason claim for other reasons. We have no way to know whether or not you were allowed to talk before the game started; if you were not, then that makes your claim that much less plausible. Usually, in games that start with day, talking groups

are

allowed to talk before day one starts.

As for how fast scum can fake a role claim: keep in mind that Cogito was talking about Good Omens in another thread within an hour or so before we received our role PMs.

More later.

[Fiasco]

Voltage Meters like Einstein in the Nineties.

Mike, yes, you did hide those names, but that doesn't mean it was never viable to claim two masons. You only pointed at it when you had claimed three. And who knows what else you hid (Jesus as Cat, anyone?).

More later.

[Fiasco]

Vacuum Minds like Verbose Mafia. Nudity is untidy!

Werebear, I disagree with that analysis. Assuming alignments are not revealed on death, there can be two different results from Mike's death. Either he does not turn up as Sister Gregarious, in which case Mike, Cogito, and Jelly are all scum; or he does turn up as Sister Gregarious, in which case Mike, Cogito, and Jelly are all partially, but not wholly, confirmed.

[Fiasco]

Superconducting Gnomes like stealing genitals. Beware!

I see a few advantages and a few disadvantages in a Mike lynch.

The disadvantages are fairly obvious; there have been a few good arguments in favor of the claimed masons, though in my opinion PetroleumJelly isn't helping. (I still think there is also a great number of puzzling holes in their story, though these don't unambiguously have a scummy interpretation.)

One advantage is that,

if

they are lying about being the Chattering Nuns, this will be clear on Mike's death, and we will catch three scum for the price of one. If they are telling the truth about being Masons, we will still have a block of two partially confirmed innocents.

Another advantage is that if there is a standard cult, Mike seems like a reasonably likely recruit. On the other hand, lynching the recruiter would be even better.

On the whole, I'm just not sure. I'll park my vote on Tamuz for now so that we'll have more realistic options, but I'd probably be willing to switch to Mike or Werebear if necessary. (I don't really see the case against Silent Speaker; he's not sticking his neck out much, true, but that's not such a huge crime.)

Vote: Tamuz

[Fiasco]

Space Gerbils dislike Superconducting Gnomes. Why? Because they keep stealing their genitals! They really hate that.

Mike, that story can't be completely right. Your role names were revealed the day after the night in which Cogito explained to you his reason for not nameclaiming. So how can you have shared your names with each other the next night?

[Fiasco]

Space Penguins like Sapient Panties.

I think it would be nice to have a few things clarified before we run out of time again.

Mike, you seemingly made a mistake in your summary of Mason PMs. How did this happen? I think it's easier to imagine you making such a mistake if you were making it up than if you were actually looking at your PMs.

Tamuz, you said you were put on the block for failing your restriction once. Isn't that strange?

If I understand you correctly, you're saying the following. There are game mechanics that will cause bad things to happen to you when your restriction is discovered, and you were informed of this in advance, just like in my case. Is that what you are saying?

You've said that you deliberately failed your restriction on Day Two. Why would you want to do this if you were trying to hide it?

Finally, VitaminR, you've sounded a bit strange lately at the end of your posts -- do you have some sort of additional restriction?

[Fiasco]

The happiest epitaphs are written in outer space, by gerbils.

PetroleumJelly makes a good point about Tamuz losing his night actions. I agree the Werebear wagon is better at this point, but will be looking closely at Tamuz tomorrow.

Though I still have my reservations (does anyone disagree that masons seem like a likely cult recruit?), the claimed masons get points for a detailed account of their night conversations with no new gaping holes.

Silent Speaker, I'd like to turn my "maybe, but probably not" into a "not". VitaminR doesn't seem that scummy to me; if he becomes scummier, a straightforward lynch will take a bit longer, but will be safer.

Unvote: Tamuz, Vote: Werebear

[Fiasco]

Voltage meters like a softer forest.

I'm having second thoughts. Should we let Tamuz save himself just by not posting? It isn't the best incentive. We don't

know

whether non-posting scum lose their night actions; Tamuz did say he was put on the block the first time, and non-posting masons don't lose their night talking, if they are indeed masons.

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide.

All this is confusing. Here are some quick thoughts.

VitaminR, again, do you have some sort of extra restriction? There are actually four yeas and four nays now, so it's not at all obvious you'll die.

Werebear, what does your restriction have to do with John Locke? Also, as Cogito points out, what good is a normal doctor against this kind of kill?

I don't think Tamuz is cleared, at all. He's still a better target than the Silent Speaker.

By my calculations, if the imposer of extra restrictions is protown, and never targeted himself, he must be one of Silent Speaker, SpamWise and Tamuz (if not protown, he could be just about anyone).

Unvote: Werebear, Vote: Tamuz

[Fiasco]

Include my nuclide again.

Werebear, I can't argue with that? Just watch me. I think it's fairly obvious that Pooky was responsible for all the suicides; otherwise, we're dealing with a serial killer that never killed. Also, else how did he know about the faked restriction?

You're now arguing there's a cult that can kill every night? That sounds way unlikely; do you think they can recruit, as well?

[Fiasco]

May the magnificent light rays of Lord Ebwop never start stealing your genitals.

Just noticed you already answered the recruit question. It seems what you're saying is they're a cult-flavored mafia? Still seems way unlikely. I may vote you again later.

[Fiasco]

Space Gerbils are a true seaside disease.

Cogito, once again, you are

not

sure that Mike is innocent, because he could have been recruited by a cult. Could one of you please acknowledge this possibility, once?

And Mike, come on, if Werebear's story is true, then that doesn't help confirm Tamuz at all. Unless you want to argue, like Werebear, that Pooky was not responsible for the suicides, which is absurd.

I do think Commodore has a good point about the "best worst case", but I think Tamuz is a better lynch than Mike. I'll switch to Mike if it's between him and no lynch; otherwise I'll keep my vote on Tamuz and maybe Werebear.

[Fiasco]

RESETING INTEGERS...

FEEDING SPACE GERBILS...

Oh, and I forgot. Werebear, what's your role title? Mike, Cogito, Jelly, what are your role titles?

Mike, were you actually told (implicitly or explicitly) that you would stay innocent throughout the game? If so, that's something you should have said much, much earlier. The evidence that we have a cult is that no other possibility seems to fit.

Read the Derren Brown entry; there's stuff there about a suicide pact. I'm absolutely convinced Pooky caused the suicides; if he killed only himself, he's a disgrace to serial killers everywhere.

[Fiasco]

Don't forget to restock your rockets, or you'll run out of energy.

I agree it's possible there's a scum group that can't recruit or kill. It would have to be pretty large, though, probably. Or maybe they kill with a delay of five days, haha.

What specific events make you certain Mike hasn't been recruited?

[Fiasco]

Antiferromagnet refragmentation.

Three hours, actually. I'm hoping SpamWise will be able to give us his thoughts.

Werebear, are you really saying Pooky didn't kill anyone else than himself? How do you explain that? Again, there's stuff in his Wikipedia entry about suicide pacts.

You were suspicious of Tamuz yesterday; you even nominated him. So how come you protected him that night?

[Fiasco]

Antiferromagnet refragmentation.

You mentioned a suicide by poisoning. I didn't mean to include that one; it was clearly Fritzler's own choice.

What's your role title?

More sentences and more words are needed.

[Fiasco]

Let me start by warning against accidentally nominating VitaminR. I'm not advocating that we let him die, but if we keep him alive, this should be a decision consciously made by the majority of the town, as it was yesterday (more or less).

I tend to think Tamuz was protown, because I don't think Tamuz's character fits in well with Popes. There is an element of deception in it, though.

I'll nominate Werebear for the same reason as MikeBurnFire. I'll nominate Thok for the same reason as yesterday. Of the rest, I'm also not sure about the Silent Speaker. We should have a mason on the block as an option (though they're not that high on my list of good lynches); I'm not yet sure which one, though I dislike Mike's idea of a no lynch. I'll probably change my nominations later on.

With all those funny extra restrictions lifted, I am now finally the sole master of this stream of electrons. Free, free at last!

Nominate: Werebear, Thok, the silent speaker

[Fiasco]

The quick flying pumpkin jumped over the laser beam. There is no such thing as an astute statue.

It depends on what you mean by "the pope theory", I suppose. I would be very surprised, given what I know, if there were not at least one more pope among the players.

Like SpamWise, I'm not enthusiastic about the Silent Speaker's recent comments. It would be very hard to argue that LML was not scum. If LML was scum, then the fakery theory doesn't really work -- as far as I know, Alexander VI was exactly who he said he was, he just killed people.

I find it hard to believe Perry Mason was scum. The flavor of him being a one-shot cop makes sense; as his Guide entry states, sometimes he would prove his client's innocence directly and sometimes he would prove it by finding someone else guilty.

Fritzler, are you still with us? If so, any thoughts?

Does anyone have thoughts about whether to keep VitaminR alive?

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles.

Silent Speaker, my results are not an unambiguous innocent/guilty on anyone. They consist of other (fairly ambiguous) information about players, which may in some specific cases help us catch scum. I still prefer not to state their exact nature, as the scum could to some extent adapt their strategy. I think once I do state the nature of the results, you'll agree it makes sense (in terms of flavor) in conjunction with what you already know about my role.

You're correct that I can't tell you what the results are -- I don't know them, because I haven't been able to "bank" them yet, so to speak. However, I

could

give you a list of who I've targeted. Again, the scum may be able to use this to their advantage in some ways, so I'm hesitant to do this. If a lot of people think that's outweighed by what it will tell you about me, though, I'll comply.

As for what I can say to you to make you not nominate me -- I'm not sure. I think Galileo G. is an unlikely scum. That leaves the possibility that I'm not him. I suppose in that case you'd have to believe I faked either the physics or the anagrams restriction, or both, from the beginning, and that I faked my D5 pope-caused restriction as well. Which is admittedly all possible from your perspective (though I don't think either restriction individually points to scummy identities, either). A lot of people have called aspects of my role "convenient". If so, then that's not something I can do anything about, but it's true that from your perspective it may be a sign of scum. I don't see what's convenient, though. As scum, I'd benefit from being able to feed the town any false information of my choosing. If there are no more popes, then I'm not going to have a chance to give you fiddled information either, so that theory (that I've been stalling in order to fiddle with my results) doesn't work. Being speech-crippled D5 was also not the most convenient thing to happen to me.

Cogito, I'm not quite sure about a mass claim (which at this point means claims from Silent Speaker, SpamWise, and Thok). Kills don't seem to be a danger, but maybe a cult will be able to use the information in its recruiting decisions, or maybe the scum will be able to use the information in some way we haven't thought of yet. (Strange things are definitely going on.) On the other hand, I've found that claims are often the best place to force scum errors, and it will be nice to be able to compare claims.

[Fiasco]

Never underestimate the Forces of Fresco.

I was told the punishment for failing the "different number of words in a sentence" restriction was the same as the punishment for failing my main restriction. I believe the others who have been targeted with such a restriction will be able to confirm.

I wasn't explicitly told the punishment for ignoring the pope-silencing on D5. From how it was described I'd guess the scum might be able to execute me the next night, or something.

And yeah, I guess we can have a mass claim as far as I'm concerned. How should we decide on the order?

[Fiasco]

Creators like Nuclear Reactors.

With most of the claims already out, I guess the order isn't as important as getting on with it quickly enough to make informed nomination decisions. (I consider CA to be more confirmed than the masons, but on the other hand even if the masons are scum, the three mass claimers are probably all not scum together with them.)

Your idea that the additional restrictions are how the scum make their kills is intriguing, because it would account for the lack of other kills. It also has the advantage of making me pretty much a confirmed innocent if true. Unfortunately, it's not true; when I got my "words per sentence" restriction yesterday, it said failing it meant the same as failing an ordinary restriction. It wouldn't have killed me.

Other than mine, the only extra restrictions I'm aware of have been Thok's typoes, and I think Commodore Amazing also mentioned something earlier. There may have been others; if any of those are alive, we should hear them.

[Fiasco]

Ah, yes. Seol and numbers. I'd forgotten about that one.

I don't think the extra restrictions are obviously a scum ability. I certainly don't think the extra restrictions are obviously a town ability, either. TSS, would you mind explaining the reasoning behind your choice of targets? Was it really necessary to hit me with what is by far the most annoying restriction out of all those?

I think seeing your ability as a doctor ability is rather a stretch. It was usually obvious that the restriction was temporary. The most likely meaningful outcome, rather than Pooky being misled, is simply the loss of night abilities due to failing the extra restriction. That makes you more like a weak roleblocker.

TSS, unless you think a nameclaim will make your restriction obvious and that will cause something bad to happen, I would like you to nameclaim as well.

I do, of course, agree that we know for a fact that you (or possibly your scum partners, if any) caused the restrictions.

It is, after all, unclear whether Noxious Romans like Nuclear Reactors.

[Fiasco]

Reclaim the miracle of your magnetism! Help repel spam with our fine herbal products!

I think people are being slower about giving up information than we can really afford.

I think a Werebear or maybe TSS lynch is probably the way to go today, but I await SpamWise's claim.

I think we should decide soon whether to nominate VitaminR. (If we do, we may want to have him on the block also.) More people should comment on that. Thok claims he may be able to save VitaminR; I'm not sure how that should factor into the decision, if at all.

Werebear, was there any flavor given for your voting restriction? Why would Locke be restricted in his voting? Also, did you get an extra restriction?

TSS, I see: you're saying Pooky's role mechanics could be such that he needed to know all restrictions someone followed on a given day. That is possible. From Pooky's comments about Thok, I'd guess that he needed to get only one restriction (the main one) right, though.

I don't see how you went from the pope thing being convenient to choosing that annoying restriction for me. (And I don't see what was convenient about it in the first place; again, if I'm scum, and if I faked the silencing, and there are no more popes, then I passed up the chance to feed false information to the town.)

You claim you think "something bad" will happen if you nameclaim. Isn't there anything more you can say about that without causing the bad thing to happen? Will this bad thing prevent you from nameclaiming all day, or even for the rest of the game? I don't think this is helping your case.

Hey, a SpamWise claim! First question that comes to mind: what flavor sense does it make for Demosthenes to be able to make an investigation?

[Fiasco]

The miracle of your magnetism! Reclaim it! Herbal products!

One man, one vote! That does make a lot of sense, in a way. Only I'd expect Werebear to have mentioned it by now.

CES, I think you've misunderstood TSS in the same way that I originally misunderstood him. What he's saying is if Pooky guessed only the main restriction, he may have been unable to kill due to not also guessing the temporary restriction.

I'm sure a Fiascoscum could have come up with some sort of information that was unlikely to be proven false.

I agree the masons seem like a good target for Demosthenes. I could easily imagine Demosthenes as paranoid, though, unfortunately.

SpamWise, is "the ancient greek orator" your actual title? Were you told anything about how Demosthenes makes investigations?

I'm also not sure about the "at least three times per day" restriction; everyone else's restriction seems to have applied to every post where possible.

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles.

Just a quick check-in post. I like the current set of blockees. I think we should lynch Werebear or maybe TSS. I think we should keep SpamWise alive for at least one more night.

TSS, I disagree, but that can wait for now.

SpamWise, Demosthenes did write speeches for legal use, but the way I understand it Perry Mason actually proved people innocent/guilty by investigating the evidence. Writing speeches for legal use does not seem like it would grant an investigation ability.

I don't see not counterclaiming Seol as a point against SpamWise; if he's telling the truth, having another one-shot cop in the game would be too much of a coincidence for it to be a lie.

[Fiasco]

Despoil the dipoles. Dipoles are scummy.

You know, MBF, if you'd just announced at the beginning of the day that you would be saving VitaminR, that would have saved us some time and brain activity.

I'm not happy with VitaminR escaping our consideration as a possible target in this way. I haven't changed my opinion on Werebear or TSS.

Unnominate: Thok, Nominate: VitaminR

[Fiasco]

You could at least have had the courtesy to warn us in advance so we could have time to decide whether to put him on the block, and so we wouldn't need to waste time discussing the nomination-starving proposal.

It's obviously too late now, but I was thinking that with Thok's claim, it may have made sense to nomination-starve VitaminR and ask Thok to target him tonight. If VitaminR lived, he was either lying scum, or Thok saved him. (If necessary we could then try again and ask Thok to target someone else; that would give us either a confirmed-innocent Thok or a confirmed-guilty VitaminR.) If VitaminR died (at least if by suicide; possible if he's scum, guaranteed if he's town), we would then have cause to doubt Thok's claim.

Antiferromagnet Refragmentation.

[Fiasco]

Voltage meters always expect rain, except during winter, when they expect snow.

TSS, it makes perfect sense to me that SpamWise didn't counterclaim Seol. If SpamWise knew he was a one-shot cop, then Seol claiming one-shot cop as an ordinary fake claim would be too much of a coincidence. From SpamWise's perspective it could have been a safe claim, or something like that, but it seems unlikely. SpamWise could be lying about his role, but his not counterclaiming Seol is not an additional reason to believe that he is.

If SpamWise is lying, then obviously there's no use in keeping him around to make a fake investigation. But the information simply isn't good enough for us to confidently say that he's lying. It's quite possible that he's telling the truth, and so we should at least give him a chance to give his result tomorrow.

That you're so eager to see SpamWise lynched, and that I find your lack of claim disturbing, earns you my vote. I would be very willing to switch to Werebear, but not to SpamWise today.

Again, isn't there anything you can say about your lack of claim that won't make bad things happen, but that helps convince us it's not just stalling?

PJ, as I've explained, I've been silenced by a pope, who is preventing me from publishing my results (or accessing them myself). I could give you the nature of the results, or the list of people I've targeted (see my posts earlier today), but I'd prefer not to unless a lot of people think I should, because the scum will be able to use it to adapt their behavior to some extent.

Vote: the silent speaker

[Fiasco]

Dearest of Jellies:

I think you still haven't understood my claims. Let me repeat and elaborate. I'm simply not able to give you my information, because I don't have access to it myself. I do have the ability to "publish" my information, if I choose to do so at night. I assume this means Grey himself will make the information public the next morning, though CA's precedent suggests that maybe Grey will PM it to me instead. However, ever since some scum discovered my anagrams restriction, I no longer have this ability; I think I'll regain it on the death of the pope that is silencing me. (I think I've always been clear about this.)

The post, vote and nomination restriction that accompanied the silencing, on the other hand, was in effect only for one day. TSS's sentence-length restriction that I had to follow the next day had nothing to do with the silencing, or with me not stating my results.

What I

could

tell you is, firstly, the

nature

of my results; and secondly, which players I've chosen as targets. I have fairly good reasons to not reveal the nature of my results yet, at least until tomorrow morning (again, scum adapting their behavior). I'll state it today if some more people than just you think I should, though; and I think in any case, once I do, you'll agree that it makes sense for Galilei to know such things.

I suppose that in the mean time, there is no objection to sharing my list of targets so far.

N1: Fritzler
N2: DrippingGoofball
N3: CogitoErgoSum
N4: Seol
N5: Thok
N6: I would have targeted Werebear, but yesterday I said "antiferromagnet fragmentation" instead of "antiferromagnet refragmentation" and thus failed my restriction.

[Fiasco]

TSS, cut the flapdoodle.

You were busy pestering Seol N4, so you couldn't have silenced me? That's not an ironclad alibi, that's a crapclad alibi. They're pretty clearly separate, independent abilities, with the silencing being one-shot only and uniquely tied to my role. There's no reason you'd have to forego one to use the other. Besides, for all we know one of your scummy friends is imposing the restrictions. Even if you

did

have an ironclad alibi, I would still be voting for you; you could be a scum and yet not a pope.

Of course any scumpopes aren't going to claim pope now that I'm out. That they haven't therefore doesn't count against me. And I have not said that all our scum are popes; just that there are scumpopes on this island.

I have not "gone three days on the promise undelivered of information". The D4 lightningwagon on me had two reasons behind it: you were all in a hurry to avoid no-lynch, and I'm not on CA's list. Those aren't really valid anymore. The reason I'm alive isn't that, although people thought I was probably scum, they wanted to keep me alive to have my results; the reason I'm alive is that people have tended to believe my claim.

I agree Seol would have been looking for a plausible, convenient claim if scum. If I were SpamWise and a one-shot cop, I still would not have counterclaimed, because a good explanation for the coincidence of claims is that Grey invited two one-shot cops to the island. Games with one-shot cops aren't common.

Which part of "something bad will happen if I nameclaim" was too hard for me? Well, there's the part that you somehow can't say anything else, at all, about what that something bad is or is not, and the part where you've ignored all requests for further explanation. Talk about convenient. There's also the part that the only alternative seems to be your lynch.

SpamWise, what's your role title?

Voltage meters like direct credit.

[Fiasco]

TheScummySpeaker, you might as well call me maFiascum; that's mostly why I picked the name, after all.

Your logic is getting worse.

I said "

games with

one-shot cops aren't common" for a reason. Once it's known there's one 1SC in the game, and another 1SC is claimed, there are two possible explanations (barring safe claims):

1) Purely by coincidence, someone claimed a role that exists in hardly any games, but that does exist in this one
2) There really are two 1SCs.

The latter possibility, if it's already known there is at least one 1SC, is less of a stretch than the former. This is a judgment call, but it's one I simply can't imagine going the other way.

That's not to say we have two 1SCs; just that it would have been a reasonable supposition for SpamWise, if he is telling the truth.

I've never suggested the lack of claimed popes counts in my favor. That would indeed be absurd.

If there were no more popes, and this were known to the town, that would count very strongly against me. That, however, is not the situation we are in.

As for the possibility of you being scum, but not a pope: YA RLY, and there is no contradiction with what I said about Tamuz. Tamuz's role seems unlikely (though not impossible) as a partner of popes, don't you agree? Yet even if it were known (which you keep claiming, but which you haven't continued arguing for, and which is simply not true) that you cannot, cannot, CANNOT be a pope, then you could still be a scum who

does

fit in as a partner of popes.

There is nothing desperate in my countering certain mistaken arguments against SpamWise; there can't be, because SpamWise isn't in any serious danger of being lynched, because lynching him today is an obvious bad idea.

Sarcasm is a bad idea when you're wrong. As you will find when reading my posts today, I asked you twice whether there was any information you could give to make your lack of nameclaim more acceptable.

I'm willing to believe your post restriction claim, though just about EVERY post probably contains a sentence with each initial letter different, so it's not that verifiable. I don't understand your flavored reason for not being allowed to nameclaim. I don't understand why you couldn't have specified the "something bad". I don't understand why you go on claiming that the reason you're not nameclaiming is something different, namely, that we'll see it as scummy (which is nonsense). Are you allowed to hint at your name, at all? Your behavior reminds me of LML, with his vague threats of something bad happening on his lynch.

Reclaim the miracle of your magnetism.

[Fiasco]

SpamWise, the masonry seems like the right target. I'd still like to know your title (the one with the exclamation mark).

Why are some of you still voting no-lynch? Because that's what not voting means.

Despoil the dipoles.

[Fiasco]

TSS, this is just tiresome. Of course the frequency of a role has bearing on how plausible it is for it to be fake-double-claimed by accident. If one in a trillion games have Role X, and you're Role X, and someone else claims to be Role X also, are you going to think, "hmm, must be a fake claim, since I'm the X of this game", or are you going to think "hmm, there must be something funny going on, like two Xes being in this game, or maybe a safe claim"? The latter, obviously.

"A no-lynch puts us in the same position tomorrow as today with an extra word from SpamWise" only if the scum have no night actions, at all. That's a big assumption.

The minimum sentence length of ten probably makes your claimed restriction verifiable (at least verifiable as followed from the beginning). That is new information to me, though; don't pretend that it isn't.

And I'm not "defending" SpamWise; I think his claim is dubious and he'll probably be a good target tomorrow. I do think lynching him today is a bad idea, and I do think some of your arguments against him don't hold water.

Indicate my actinide.

[Fiasco]

And by the way, it's disingenuous to say you don't have anything to defend yourself against. You've been horribly vague about your reasons for not nameclaiming. Again: are you allowed to hint at your role name in any way? Even if not, is the bad thing that happens worse than you being lynched?

Indicate my actinide.

[Fiasco]

"Night actions" doesn't equate to "deaths".

If you failed your restriction once, why did you say a few posts ago that all your posts obeyed one of the five restrictions?

I guess I can accept the "not in the spirit of the game" thing, if it is like that. It still all sounds horribly convenient.

Indicate my actinide.

[Fiasco]

Not so silent now, huh?!

Hey, wait.

I tend to think right now that the masons are who they say they are. Like everyone else, I await SpamWise's result, though I don't see an obvious right response to either an innocent or a guilty result.

I'm not sure about TSS's alignment. The fascism connection does disturb me a bit, but it seems to be only a weak connection.

In any case, there are three people who should be lynch options, though I might switch the choice of mason around later.

Listen to the radiation!

Nominate: SpamWise, Werebear, MikeBurnFire

[Fiasco]

Cogito: good point about Werebear; that leaves me with an extra nomination, one that has Thok as its only reasonable target, though it might move to VitaminR later.

I agree that in case of an innocent result, lynching a mason makes no sense. Actually, we probably shouldn't talk about these things for now, in order not to give a possible ScumWise any ideas.

PetroleumJelly: you still haven't understood what I've been saying. Please reread my previous answers (plural) to the same question. I haven't been able to use the publishing ability yet. I've given you my list of targets yesterday; to that list, I can add SpamWise for last night. I could also give you the nature of my results; that is, what my results would tell us if I could publish them. That would be the equivalent of saying "I'm a cop" or "I'm a tracker", rather than "I'm a cop and X is guilty". (My ability is weaker than that of a cop or tracker, though. I think once I explain, you'll find that it makes good sense.) This isn't really useful information to the town except insofar as it may help you judge my claim, so unless a few people think I should claim this,

and actually understand what they're asking

, I may as well wait until I'm being strongly considered (again) as a target for lynching.

Werebear's claim of being titled Doctor is a bit dubious, but do note that both "Serial Killer" and "Tree Stump" are standard role names.

May the antiferromagnet refragmentation be with you.

Unnominate: Werebear, Nominate: Thok

[Fiasco]

An innocent result. Interesting! I'd have given the Prosecutor a serious chance of being paranoid.

This means that the masons are innocent, unless SpamWise is naive (very unlikely IMHO), insane (fairly unlikely IMHO), or scum together with the masons (also not that likely IMHO).

I think SpamWise, or possibly Werebear, is the correct lynch today. Assuming the masons are innocent, with three of them alive, we're doing pretty well indeed, and Cogito's "just kill all the nonmasons" strategy is starting to make a lot of sense.

Vacuum Minds dislike Freaky Fakery.

[Fiasco]

I second that last sentence, but I don't understand your argument. Since you're on the lynching block, it's clear that you failed your restriction yesterday. There's no way you could get away with saying you protected SpamWise last night. Even if there were, how would that have helped your case?

Voltage Meters like Direct Credit.

[Fiasco]

I too am checking in. It doesn't seem as though there's much to discuss except for vote targets. Maybe we could start that discussion in advance.

Include my nuclide. Include another sentence.

Unnominate: MikeBurnFire, Nominate: VitaminR

[Fiasco]

I guess it's fair enough for you guys to want me on the block as an option. I don't see the lack of further pope deaths as strong evidence, though. None of the others (excluding Pooky) have clearly been scum, and I still think it's quite possible none of them were. If so, the lack of scumpope deaths would be explained by the lack of scum deaths.

As some minor evidence in my favor, note that LML is the only dead character so far to have an "unnecessary" adjective. That he was called "The Controversial Pope" and not "The Pope" suggests there are indeed other popes.

Voltage Meters observe Verbose Mafia.

[Fiasco]

If there's a case building against me, I must have missed it.

PetroleumJelly, I do not have information in the sense that I know what my results are. I do have information in the sense that I'll be able to publish my results later; I also have information in the sense that I know what my results are

about

, in the same way that a cop knows his future results will give him innocent/guilty information, but does not know what it will be.

For the rest, I hope the following answers your questions:

"I'm simply not able to give you my information, because I don't have access to it myself. I do have the ability to "publish" my information, if I choose to do so at night. I assume this means Grey himself will make the information public the next morning, though CA's precedent suggests that maybe Grey will PM it to me instead. However, ever since some scum discovered my anagrams restriction, I no longer have this ability; I think I'll regain it on the death of the pope that is silencing me. (I think I've always been clear about this.)"

and:

"I've given you my list of targets yesterday; to that list, I can add SpamWise for last night. I could also give you the nature of my results; that is, what my results would tell us if I could publish them. That would be the equivalent of saying "I'm a cop" or "I'm a tracker", rather than "I'm a cop and X is guilty". (My ability is weaker than that of a cop or tracker, though. I think once I explain, you'll find that it makes good sense.) This isn't really useful information to the town except insofar as it may help you judge my claim, so unless a few people think I should claim this, and actually understand what they're asking, I may as well wait until I'm being strongly considered (again) as a target for lynching."

and:

"Voltage meters observe Verbose Mafia."

Werebear currently seems like the best lynch to me. His doctor claim doesn't really seem to fit, and lynching masons is something scum would want to do. I'm also suspicious of SpamWise, though, and his death may be somewhat informative. I'd be willing to switch my vote to him.

Vote: Werebear

[Fiasco]

This is just a check-in post, because nothing is happening. I don't understand why a lot of people aren't voting for anyone. That's the same as voting for no-lynch. Include my nuclide. Include another sentence.

[Fiasco]

Jelly, the Tree Stump was a protown role that had the role name as its title. Tree Stumps are rare, but they're a standard role term; Socrates wasn't really a tree.

Mike, that's not Werebear's restriction. Werebear just has restrictions on how often he can vote and nominate. The consonants thing was something imposed by TSS yesterday. Werebear, could you clarify why you're still following that?

I don't see how my restriction is too lenient. It doesn't seem more lenient than, say, yours. It's admittedly possible from your point of view that I'm a scumpope. I don't see what reason there is (from your point of view) to believe that, though.

Random speculation: John Paul II could be a stutterer. Begrudge the marvellous force of the debugger!

[Fiasco]

That boggles my goggles, Mike. There's no point in being cryptic. What sense does it make to vote VitaminR if he's 1) one of the players you trust most, and 2) unlikely to be a viable lynch anyway? Are you advocating that we lynch VitaminR today? Are you advocating that we don't lynch anyone? What reasons do you have to suspect me more than, for example, Werebear and SpamWise?

Antiferromagnet refragmentation.

[Fiasco]

So what are you proposing that we actually

do

today? I don't want to see another mad random deadline rush.

Can't you at least try to explain where your feelings come from about Werebear being innocent and me leading you by the nose? Without logic and evidence, we'll never get anywhere.

Include my nuclide.

[Fiasco]

Town Collective to USS Scumterprise: Lower your shields and power down your termite emitter. Resistance is futile.

I've decided the advantages of claiming the nature of my information now outweigh the risks. As I've said, I've targeted one person each night. (Last night it was VitaminR; I listed my other targets earlier on.) When I get to publish my results, I (and quite possibly the whole town!) will be told, for each of my targets, whether or not "

it moves

". (This is what I was alluding to when I said the ability made sense for Galilei (the Heretic!) to have; "eppur si muove", and so on.) I assume from what I was told that I'll get a "moves" result if my target undertook a significant night action during that night, and I'll get a "does not move" result otherwise. This information is strictly less useful than that of a cop or tracker, but there's still the potential of catching SpamWise, Thok or VitaminR in a lie when the results are actually available.

I'm not quite sure where we should be going today. I do not favor lynching either HalfMan -- welcome to the game, by the way -- or one of the masons. That leaves SpamWise, Thok, and VitaminR. Of these three, I think SpamWise is perhaps the most likely to be scum, though statistically each of them is a good bet. SpamWise's late use of the cop ability bothers me; investigating the masons earlier would have spared us a lot of headaches. It also bothers me slightly that, when claiming, he didn't immediately mention his title of "Prosecutor" as the counterpart to Seol's "Defense Attorney". On the other hand, it makes sense for such a pairing to be in the game, though calling Demosthenes a Prosecutor sounds a bit tenuous.

With the continued lack of nightkills and with my role still gathering some information, I'm almost tempted to suggest taking things slowly and not necessarily lynching, but I have my doubts about the idea that the scum are relying

entirely

on us to do their work. I will follow the town's judgment on VitaminR. This game is just too confusing for me to do much endgame strategy analysis. If we let VitaminR die, we should have Thok use his alleged ability to "analyze" him; if VitaminR then dies anyway, Thok will look quite bad. Let's not put off deciding what to do with VitaminR until it's too late to put him on the block, though.

Tough questions all around, but at least my nominations are easy.

Nominate: SpamWise, Thok

[Fiasco]

Uh, quick check-in post. Haven't had much time to post. Not sure I'd have anything to say if I did. Doing a vote record analysis seems like a lot of work, but I may get around to a quick analysis later. Antiferromagnet Refragmentation.

[Fiasco]

Mike, some examples of physics words I don't recall having used yet: microwave, neutrino, capacitance, refraction. Some examples of anagrams I don't recall having used yet: teardrop and predator, shooting and soothing, untimely and minutely, priest and stripe.

Thok, what exactly makes you think you will be ineffective in saving VitaminR if he is telling the truth? As I understood him, not receiving any nominations will cause him to commit suicide the next night. If you were able to prevent Pooky-induced suicides, it stands to reason you're also able to prevent this one.

More later.

[Fiasco]

Commence the stealing of genitals! Capacitance is futile!

VitaminR not having died yet makes it slightly more likely that he lied. I don't think he ever said in advance exactly when he'd die, and "immediately" was one of the possibilities. But I considered a death the next night to be the main possibility anyway, so I don't think this makes it

much

more likely that he lied.

From the town's point of view, I think it may make sense not to lynch. It's possible Thok, VitaminR, and SpamWise are all scum, for example; in that case, lynching me loses us the game. An additional argument for not lynching me is that the death of any of the other three may open up my information, and, in case the "publishing" is done by Grey himself, confirm my ability.

(From my own point of view, we might as well lynch either SpamWise or Thok, because given that I'm protown both have a good chance to be scum. I'm still leaning toward voting SpamWise, as he seems slightly more scummy, and also slightly less testable due to Thok's potential prevention of VitaminR's potential suicide. CommodoreHalfMazing's list also suggested at least one person in this town is a "Caesar", whatever that means, and excluded Thok (but not me or SpamWise) as a possible Caesar. I'm still making up my mind, though. I won't vote yet.)

[Fiasco]

Sorry, slight miscalculation there. If VitaminR is scum along with SpamWise and Thok, lynching me will not lose us the game unless the scum can nightkill tonight. And if the scum can nightkill tonight, then in theory a Fiasco-SpamWise-Thok scum group would win the game in case of no-lynch. So among other things, it depends on how likely you consider that compared to a VitaminR-SpamWise-Thok scum group. The point against lynching me in specific still stands. Despoil the dipoles.

[Fiasco]

CES, I think you're being a bit cavalier about our chances as town. Let's play this game accurately to the end.

For example, it seems possible to me that VitaminR, SpamWise and Thok are all scum. If so, and if they can nightkill tonight, then lynching me loses the game for the town. Considering how often we've mislynched (at least if my alignment interpretations have been correct), you wouldn't expect the win to be trivial at this point. We need to be careful about unforeseen nasty surprises, though that's always difficult by its nature.

I'm probably the closest to being confirmable among the people up for lynch. If a scum dies and I can publish my information via Grey, that will confirm my ability. If a scum dies and I cannot publish my information via Grey, that will make me look significantly worse. Also, if you lynch me, my information will be lost. It's not clear to me why my being Unlisted outweighs that. The List is, in my opinion, unreliable, and as far as I know, I don't have anything else to defend myself against.

Leave no delusion unsoiled! Antiprotons are scummy!

[Fiasco]

Heh. Yes, that's another way we could theoretically lose without any surprises, if we tried hard enough: we lynch Fiasco; HalfMan pursues Thok as a bear, killing both; one mason is nightkilled; the other two masons are endgamed by VitaminR and SpamWise. It's like suicide chess! On reflection, it strikes me as a very bad idea for HalfMan, a confirmed innocent, to risk his life killing someone we might as well lynch if we're sure enough he's scum.

I'm also not really comfortable with how SpamWise tried to leave a mason lynch open earlier on. I'm still not quite assured about Thok's fake restrictions and insanity stuff, either; it sounds like something an innocent might choose to do, but it also sounds like a possible scum cover. Both roles seem quite plausible, though. I'm just not sure. In the interest of having an alternative to a Fiasco-lynch, I'll vote SpamWise, but I'm willing to switch to Thok if people decide that's a better alternative bandwagon.

There exists at least one sexist in the universe.

Vote: SpamWise

[Fiasco]

You know, if there's a SpamWise-Thok-VitaminR scum group and they get to kill at night, all VitaminR has to do now is jump on the wagon for a scum win. That would be a sucky ending to this game. I'd really like a reason from MBF, and a response to my points from CES.

I still think HalfMan shouldn't pursue anyone as a bear, including SpamWise or Thok. We're not in that much of a rush that we'd want to sacrifice a confirmed townie to be able to kill the nonconfirmeds faster. If he hit the wrong guy, that would place us in a very bad endgame position. Though it may be that both of them are scum.

For a more realistic alternative to a me-lynch, I'll vote Thok, but I'll switch back to SpamWise if people decide to bandwagon him instead. I don't see either SpamWise or Thok as much scummier than the other.

No-lynch still looks like a viable alternative as well, but we'd have to beware of weird surprises.

Ethics itches, gravity sucks. Bears are Catholic.

Unvote: SpamWise, Vote: Thok

[Fiasco]

Since the pursuing-as-bear may actually be a more important issue than my own lynch (since two innocents might die from it), I suppose I should say some more about it. If you do decide to pursue someone as a bear, HalfMan, it's best to do so after we know VitaminR's alignment. If he turns out to be scum, pursuing one of the others as a bear will have a worse chance of hitting scum. If he turns out to be town, pursuing one of the others as a bear will have a better chance of hitting scum, though we'll also be in a more precarious position.

Ethics itches, gravity sucks. Ebwops are edits by way of post.

[Fiasco]

In case of a Fiasco-VitaminR-Thok/SpamWise scum group, no-lynching wouldn't lose the game

unless

VitaminR was telling the truth about his restriction,

and

telling the truth about being punished for his restriction by death. (And frankly, why would he?) I don't see why you're presenting that as an extra argument. If we no-lynch and VitaminR lives next morning, we can lynch him that day and be in a pretty good position.

It's frustrating not having anything to defend myself against here. Do you think a Fiasco-Thok-SpamWise group is more likely than a VitaminR-Thok-SpamWise group, or equally likely? If more likely, why? There's also two-scum scenarios to take into account.

I think it counts against VitaminR somewhat that he didn't start talking about dying next night until after his nomination-starving, by the way. If he knew it would be the next night, why didn't he say so earlier? (It's possible that he did, and I missed that; I did consider it the most likely case anyway.)

You haven't addressed the other reasons for not lynching me today, which is that my information will be lost and we will lose the chance of confirming me through Grey publishing my info.

Finally, I'm sorry, but not wanting to wait another week is a really bad reason to risk a town loss. It's just lazy. We (specifically, you) owe it to all other townies to keep playing in a strategically accurate way.

Antiferromagnet refragmentation?

[Fiasco]

I'm sorry, but no, you're making a mistake.

It would be fair to say that "the reason I'm still alive is I promised information",

if

there had been a good reason for lynching me in the first place, and

if

that reason was still in place, and

if

despite that reason I was getting away with living just on the promise of information. But that is all not true. My near-lynch happened in a matter of hours, with most people just jumping on to avoid a no-lynch. Just the fact that I've been lightningwagoned doesn't make it sensible to lynch me now because I "should have died". And besides, the reason I haven't been lynched since, as far as I can tell from people's reactions, is that they usually believed my claim, and

not

that I promised information. I do agree the information may no longer be that important. Forget that, if you want. There is still the possibility of me being confirmed that you both have ignored.

Saying that I've "conveniently never gotten around to giving my information", or that I've "never delivered", is simply unfair. The reason I haven't been able to give my information is that (as far as I can tell) we haven't lynched any scum since LML. If we had lynched scum that wasn't a pope, or we had lynched popescum but I hadn't been able to give my information, that would certainly have counted against me. But that is not the situation we're in. I've always been clear my information is being suppressed by a scumpope, and if we've just lynched innocents since then, that simply doesn't say anything about whether or not I'm telling the truth. (I do have to agree with you that it's a bit... inelegant that the silencing itself lasted only one day. On the other hand, it makes mechanical sense; being silenced for the whole game would suck, and the information being suppressed for only one day would hardly be a punishment.)

Cogito, even if lynching me is tactically sound for other reasons (which I don't believe for reasons mentioned above), impatience is just not an argument to do so. If you didn't believe it to make the case for lynching stronger than it already was, you shouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

PJ and Thok, a lynch of me will not be telling or informative. All it will tell you is I am who I claim to be, and so there are probably popes among the scum. Does knowing that help the town much at that point? If there still is a town then?

Include my nuclide.

[Fiasco]

PJ, in response to your second-to-last post:

I believe there may be non-pope scum, but I don't believe any of the people we've lynched were it. LML's character was still much more clearly evil than all others that have died. There are none that you would really expect to be in league with popes. Tamuz and TSS as the most likely exceptions, in my view.

I think there are probably one or two scumpopes left. I do believe a significant number of the unconfirmeds are lying about their identity. It's a fair question who I think they are. However, I don't have much reason to suspect anyone of being a scumpope, other than through suspecting them of scumminess in general; and I'm afraid VitaminR, SpamWise, and Thok are more or less equally scummy in my eyes (VitaminR perhaps the least).

One way to find out whether people are popes could be to look at their restrictions. That might be fun.

Googling "screaming pope" turns up a lot of hits about some paintings by Francis Bacon (though not

the

Francis Bacon) portraying screaming popes, most specifically Pope Innocent X (no relation to our friend Turbovolver, I assume). Interesting stuff, but probably just a coincidence.

John Paul II might be seen as stuttering, but probably not.

I couldn't find any popes with a big reputation for being insane, or being psychologists or psychiatrists. Urban VI, maybe. That's not the same pope as Urban VIII, the one that silenced Galilei, unfortunately. (Or actually, it looks like that could also be Paul V.)

HalfMan gave a list earlier that included zero "caesars". That just has to mean

something

, and I think at least one scum may be a caesar rather than a pope. Of those still alive, the caesar-free list included the masons and Thok, leaving SpamWise and VitaminR (and me).

I'm not aware of anyone who could be described as a caesar who has a reputation for loudness or screaming.

SpamWise's stuttering, however, is very interesting in this light, because it could mean he's the Roman Emperor Claudius, a very morally ambiguous character that I could see as scum.

Ethics itches. Gravity sucks.

[Fiasco]

He's still joking. I'm pro-town through and through. I think No Lynch must have been the last remaining scum, but we won't know for sure until he posts the real end scene.

[Fiasco]

...oh, alright. I was scum.

First off, this game was lots of fun. Great ending. Thanks for modding to everyone behind the Grey mask.

(1)The investigation immunities and multiple millers? You might as well have left out the one-shot cops then. They're nearly just as likely to do good as to do bad.

It's amazing how close Seol was to getting a guilty result on CA. I'll give the full details on that later, maybe.

Also, Fiasco, may I ask what made you kill Pooky?

I wanted to use my kill because I'd just been nearly lynched, and I thought I might not survive the next day.

Pooky knew Thok's restriction wasn't real. I had claimed a fake restriction (physics words) by then. I was afraid he was some sort of restriction cop. Hitting the SK was pure luck; I didn't even think there was an SK, because Kelly Chen said she was modkilled on her wiki page. (If you're reading this, Kelly, I'd be interested to know how that happened.)

[Fiasco]

I have some other comments that I may get to later, but first, let me present to you the Saga of how we Didn't Recruit Commodore Amazing:

your group can make the Traitor a full Mafia member (with the ability to kill) by saying "Et tu, PLAYERNAME"

In order for you to join the Mafia, one of the Mafia members must say "Et tu, XXXX", during the day.

We shouldn't recruit the spy yet. You definitely shouldn't recruit the spy- you're the only one of us not to drink scotch yet. I think the plan should be that we should only recruit the spy is we are near a lynch or if somebody claims that role late game.

In fact, mathcam knew all of these party-goers, though he was unsure how many knew him.

"In fact, mathcam knew all of these party-goers, though he was unsure how many knew him."

I think mathcam is our traitor! Let's be careful in recruiting him, though.

I'm not convinced that mathcam is our traitor yet.

I'm convinced that mathcam is either our traitor, or trying to make us believe he's our traitor. The comment that "he knows everyone, but he's not sure everyone knows him" can't be a coincidence; compare with the PM.

I have the mod's permission to recruit our traitor with something like "Consider the set TU, mathcam, consisting of all people mentioned by Turbovolver on day U.". The whole "et tu" thing is case-insensitive.

I would like DrippingGoofball and Fiasco to recite:

"I am gone forever." Exit, pursued by Commodore Amazing.
"Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Commodore Amazing!"

Commodore Amazing seems to be our traitor, but reciting his play wouldn't actually recruit him, because the "et tu" line is slightly wrong.

I still refuse to believe mathcam's comment was a coincidence, so maybe he's the traitor for another mafia.

Do you think it's a good idea for me to recruit Com Am tomorrow with something along the lines of: "I'm not willing to go along with your stuff about more art and bad marriages and et tu, Commodore Amazing, because blah blah", buried in a long paragraph?

I don't think we need to recruit CA tomorrow unless we have to.

There are more important things to address today than whether or not to lynch DrippingGoofball and how many nominations VitaminR will get. Like auditions. And this time, I mean it. I'd really like everyone to recite these lines.

Oh, and, (sigh) why not:

"I am gone forever." Exit, pursued by Commodore Amazing.
"Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Commodore Amazing!"

(recruit failed due to "et tu, playername" format)

Does anyone have anything against me using my NK tonight? My first feeling is CA.

Any reason for the CA nightkill? I still think it's likely that he's the traitor, athough it could be mathcam instead.

I'm afraid that CA is Julius Ceasar, looking to find Brutus.

I may be a good start CA? Et tu, Commodore Amazing? You have seemingly stabbed be in the back.

(this one would have worked, but CA failed his restriction that day)

Et, tu Cogito Ergo Sum?
Et, tu Commodore Amazing?
(...)
Et, tu Werebear?

(failed due to both the comma and CA's restriction)

I think you placed the comma wrong.

Apparently, LML was right about Com Am NOT being our traitor.

I think what happened instead is that the person who was cast as Caesar by Com Am is our traitor. I think it may be CES, because he pushed the "test LML and keep him alive one more day" theory and because he corrected LML's punctuation. (But that didn't work.)

Curious. Mr. Grey must be careful about the placement of the comma. We should doublecheck that LML's comments to CA in post 548 didn't recruit him; if so we could consider killing CA today to verify his info (and to keep him from revealling the number of Caesars in the game).

The four roles cast by CA correspond to each of his quotes; for example, Antigonus was pursued by a bear. I think that means for each of the roles, he chose someone who said the corresponding line in the audition. He also said none were mathcam or SpamWise. That would reduce our list of possible Caesars to:

DrippingGoofball
Pooky
Seol
Tamuz
VitaminR
Werebear

Interesting, no? Specifically CES isn't among these. VitaminR and Werebear seem likely candidates to me.

"Society is part of the absurdity of consciousness. Popity popity pope. Et tu, Fernando Poo? Et tu, Seol, Kelly Chen? Scary and perplexing," says LoudmouthLee.
(...)
in More Et Tu, Werebear, With Less Art, and indeed even in Et Tu, VitaminR? Then Prevent a Bad Marriage, MikeBurnFire

(this was the purpose of that postmodern post; all recruits failed, of course, due to targeting the wrong people)

On the traitor: apparently it's not Julius Caesar. Apparently it's also not Seol, VitaminR or Werebear (Grey would have told us by now). The ones we haven't tried and who are still alive are: Cogito Ergo Sum, DrippingGoofball, MikeBurnFire, PetroleumJelly, Pooky, SpamWise, Tamuz, TSS. I don't see how it could be either CES or MBF. I don't see how it could be Pooky, since he outed your fake restriction. Goofball has nameclaimed Ingersoll and hasn't behaved like our traitor. That leaves PJ, Spam, Tamuz, and TSS.

I don't think it'll hurt much to do a postmodern gibberish post again, but with different names. There are only four serious possibilities left, anyway. If I'm really about to die, I'll do the complete et tu post anyway.

I'm really confused about who the traitor is.

EDIT: SpamWise is Demosthenes, so he's probably not the traitor.

(here, Seol investigated CA, who had not been recruited and therefore came up innocent)

et tu, commodore? et tu, tamuz? et tu, seol? et tu, scooby doo?

(I was convinced CA wasn't the traitor; saying "et tu, commodore" was just intended as noise; I think it'd have worked if I said "et tu, commodore amazing".)

No successful Tamuz recruit message yet. That would mean it's SpamWise or TSS. Now I'm really confused.

Any idea what is up with caesars? There's no way I shouldn't be counted as one; maybe it's giving us information on where our traitor is?

I'm seriously tempted to suggest that you say "Et tu, PLAYERNAME" tomorrow.

Maybe LML's CA recruit failed because he'd broken the rules earlier? Probably not.

("he" referred to LML here, so I was still wrong)

Disturbing thought: what if "my dear" is to them what "et tu" is to us?

Interesting early PJ quote:

Quote:
And just what are you looking at, Pooky my dear? I believe there is somebody looking for you, and yet you have not bothered to look for them." Her eyes of concern turned to eyes of suspicion. "Might it be you already knew who would be attending this party?"

(then there was the following brilliant message from CA: )

@Thok - I have no new information. Any plans? Why were you thinking about claiming? I totally respect the fake posting restrictions, if that's what this is about.

I'm trying to figure out how Lee knew that he had been cast as Caesar, or if that was just a lucky guess. It seems like a pro-town thing to help confirm me like that. For a while, I was very convinced he and I were on the same team.

Or maybe it's just that I feel bad for lynching him. That whole "Et tu, Commodore Amazing" line was pretty awesome. I appreciate the drama from a guy on his way down. I have to remind myself in the afterlife to thank scumbag Lee for not whining on his way to the grave, like I would have done. Scumbags definitely need to say more awesome things as they get lynched. Or just whenever.

I also remember that I thought DrippingGoofball was sending me signals to show that she had received the role the day after I assigned it to her. I'm going to try to find those. Although I don't know why she would have said she didn't know she was cast. Meh.

If we're abandoning the NAGH list, I think we should be looking at either Werebear or one of the masons. I feel that if any ONE of the masons are scum, it's either mikeburnfire or petroleumjelly. PJ has the weirdest name of the three, and mikeburnfire has been saying all sorts of funky stuff.

I'd like to nominate Fiasco anyway. I really think that posting restriction was a little too convenient, and if there were a time for the scum to give it to one of their own, that was it. I want some explanation of some of that garbage from yesterday. Or he could at least say something awesome.

That's right, Fiasco. It's me. I'm coming for you. You know you want a piece of Commodore Amazing. Just say it and you'll get it, punk.

Nominate: Fiasco

Commodore, this is not helpful.

I AM ANGRY! DEATH TO THE SCUM!

I think we should pick between Werebear and mikeburnfire today. And let VitaminR die. We'll probably need a claim from Werebear before the end of the day. Any idea on when is the best time for that? I'd say the sooner the better.

I'll say this to the scum: you're not paying enough attention to me. If you haven't noticed, I'm confirmed. And I'm not messing around anymore. Heed my words and know that Lee made a mistake. And you're making a mistake by not listening to me and daring to leave me just sitting around. I'm not just some chump who's going to help you lynch the wrong guy. No, no, no. I'm Commodore Amazing. How do you like that?

Fiasco - It's true that I did miss some of your defense, but don't you dare call my words "not helpful." Please reread my post; I believe I was very clear in what I asked from you. And there's no need to get so defensive with me.

We're lynching Werebear or mikeburnfire today, right?

Un-nominate: Fiasco, Nominate: Werebear, mikeburnfire

I know how you feel mikeburnfire. I feel like I should be worried about our claimed Shakespear (Shakespeare?) and his desire to have us say mysterious things like "Less Commodore Amazing, with more art" or "Et tu, Commodore Amazing". But then I also know that Seol, who we know to be Perry Mason, has proclaimed CA to be innocent.

(that was where the recruit actually happened; I missed it at first, then I saw CA's earlier request to reread)

On to Commodore Amazing. I'm sorry, I really am, but I don't see what you're asking of me that hasn't already been addressed in today's posts. I've just seen a general request to clarify what I said yesterday. I do apologize for calling you "not helpful"; I suppose we all have our inattentive moments at times.

So there may have been even more fumbling around than you thought.

[Fiasco]

Pooky: he did write Dialogues and stuff. At the beginning of D3, I was still planning to hide the anagrams and claim Feynman (the Lecturer).

Tamuz: your win condition did seem very hard to achieve. Did you have any claims in mind when we lynched you?

PJ: I do still agree with most of what I said in-game; the promises I made were (from D5 on) contingent on scum dying.

Thok: I'm fairly sure we'd also have won if my lynch had gone through today. I planned to do an evil defeated villain speech in that case about how the delayed kills would soon start setting in (so people wouldn't want to no-lynch). The town didn't seem enthusiastic about no-lynching at that point, so I think a SpamWise lynch would have been likely the next day.

It's true what Thok says about night verbosity, I guess; I bombarded my fellow scum with a lot of insane theories. Maybe I'll dig up some examples later. This makes HalfMan's replacing even more impressive: not only did he have to read the whole thread, he had to read all of my drivel too.

[Fiasco]

Every game should have some bloopers at the end:

As far as I can tell ALL players so far (including the three of us) have used the letter combination "le" in each of their posts, often in a hinting sort of way. "la", "li", "lo", "ly" and "lu" too, to some extent: tequila, encephalitic, reflux, etc etc. This can't be a coincidence, and I recommend obeying this in all future posts! This may be a life or death thing!

Pooky uses numbers like "9" in his posts. Petroleumjelly uses numbers like "nine" in his posts. I think they're masons of some kind together.

I've been thinking: mathcam seems to have double "t"s as his post restriction in the same way that LML has double "p"s. Cogito has a word with an "a" and a "y" (in that order) in it in each post. Turns out that Ay was an influential pharaoh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ay

So maybe Cogito is Ay and Mathcam is Tutankhamun, and they're both in the Egyptian mafia.

I still would like to use my NK tonight, but on a sure lynch tomorrow (CES is going down.) I wouldn't want to kill him.

Frankly, I think we're screwed.

[Fiasco]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Thok's comment early in the game about Chinese and Hebrew. That made no sense for Freud (AFAIK), and was perhaps lynch-worthy.

This page was my friend during this game.

[Fiasco]

*slaps forehead*

For some reason I always assumed you were told who we were in your PM. I should probably have given you some sort of hint.

Tamuz, it's interesting that you planned to claim Joan of Arc. Thok and I were convinced that KC was Joan of Arc when she started talking about French-speakers, God, burning, and martyrdom. I even planted a hint in my first post in case it was some sort of searching mason thing:

i

t's

j

ust,

K

elly,

p

lease

b

e

o

pen-minded

IJKPBO, taking the previous letter in the alphabet for every letter, becomes HIJOAN

Nuns: the reason why your lack of pregame PM talk bothered me so much was that we scum

were

allowed to talk in the pregame.

Anyway, thanks, everyone, for a very good game.

[Fiasco]

Wow, even if I had deciphered this, I wouldn't have known what you were getting at.

Apologies, I was unclear. I didn't mean you to decipher it on your own; I just meant to point at it later in case it would help me.

Werebear, I think the setup was actually quite harsh on the mafia (and SK, and neutral). We had a lot of luck during the game to compensate, but due to the setup we really needed that kind of luck. I hadn't expected there to be any cops at all, like in Verbose I. (I also mistakenly expected the night scenes to give hints about the scum's posting restrictions, though there was one in the final scene.)

Earlier and more complete claiming would have helped the town a lot, I think.

[Fiasco]

Yes, but he'd just have gotten in one extra kill.

[Fiasco]

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1787
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2554