Newbie 1656 : Game Over

[Ether]

I mean, my interactions with goodmorning are still going to get embarrassing later, don't get me wrong, and not all of them will be over the power role thing. But yeah.

[Ether]

I was posting once a day in 771 in the wee hours of the morning because I hated even looking at that thread. My style of typing was the same--different from 2015, but close enough not to stand out to people who knew me in 2009--and I could string things that looked like logic together, but that was all I had. Everything under the surface was just gone. The contrast between that and my play here should be blinding.

I think my personality in general is softer than it was in the old days. You can look at Chosen for a comparison, although I was a hydra there. (I did sign everything and post hydralogs at the end, though.)

OceanWind is lying to your face. This isn't crossvoter rhetoric, this is something you can prove. He's not linking to his offsite games because he already knows they'll condemn him. The fact that he doesn't bus in literally all his games doesn't mean he won't take it when he can get credit for it, especially in a constrained setup like Matrix6 where the factors he was talking about like being too obvtown (only one vanilla has been shot all game) don't apply. There are reasons we expect people not to bus--just like there are reasons we expect people not to fakeclaim masons--and OceanWind is someone who knows how to take advantage of them.

[Ether]

Please don't psychoanalyze me again.

I was already an established player by 2009--that was three years on-site--and I had plenty of towngames to compare. Some of them I was a mess in, but overall there was a huge contrast. I won a scummie in 2009, and while I'm not particularly proud of my play in that game--I was inaccurate and kind of pissy--I won it for the passion that shines through in my town games. The fact that I even did as well as I did in 771 was because people who knew me expected me to be

even worse

as scum.

Now I'm supposed to have jumped from that to this, with no scum games in between, with only one completed game in the past four years at all? The bus is the only reason you're ranking OceanWind higher than me.

People bus.

It's a lot more common than them faking all the brain glitches I went through, or even dreaming them up. Seriously, talk to me about that. There is no way in hell that would have even occurred to me as scum.

Threaten to vote him if he doesn't post his offsite games. See what comes out. Seriously, he's withholding them for a reason. If this were just a distraction, he would have posted them already!

[Ether]

I never had the fundamentals of playing as scum down in the first place.

SilverWolf, there's a reason I keep harping on the offsite games thing. This is a way for you to find out for sure what he really is. This is a way for you to know what I know without having to vote him first.

If I were scum, this would all just be spite on my part. I'd know that if he actually posted the links, they'd be evidence against me anyway. From a scum perspective, this would just be me trying to screw over his desire for privacy in a way that actively hurt my win condition.

He's lying about not getting an advantage from withholding them. Or at least, he cares about privacy

and

he also knows that posting the link will lose him the game. The fact that I'm not interested in honoring it probably says bad things about my own moral character too. So...thinking about it, I guess what I'm saying here is that both of us are shitty people, but we are shitty people who

are playing to win.

When I realized he'd used the mason gambit in the blitz game with that "no one would believe scum would do this" line, that was what cemented for me that he was fully capable of orchestrating this bus as scum, while by then I was pretty sure you weren't. But I still asked for the link again before voting him. I was pretty sure by that point that that was how it was going to be, but seeing a site full of him harping on the virtues of never ever bussing would have forced me to keep thinking. But that's not what that site will show you.

Everything I said about not being capable of playing this way as scum, before we crossvoted...he tossed all of that aside, because it was inconvenient and he didn't want to have to townread me. I was more focused on you, I knew reading you would be the easier route, but I

cared

about finding his alignment.

And you can still find it too.

[Ether]

Meh. I'm embarrassed by all of that, but it doesn't change the fact that pre-flip associatives are usually a huge mistake. If you think two people are partners, but you think one of them is more suspicious independently than the other, you go for the more suspicious one. They aren't interchangeable, the odds of them actually being partners on Day 1 of a Matrix6 are 1/28 from a townie's perspective, and treating them that way will usually just end in the scummier one slipping away.

The fact that I even have a vote has been kind of an afterthought for me since I came back. It was true in Chosen, too, and it weirded my other head out. I'm...trying to get better about it.

[Ether]

Spoilering things I've said about this next part for convenience:

Spoiler:

Well. Since my role's out now too, I have more freedom to explain myself, at least.

I thought her behavior toward LoHa, and just generally under the radar play when she apparently makes top poster a lot as scum, implied she was a cop or doctor. That's why I was so frustrated by her play, but could never give her the all-out defense I wanted to. It's also why I made a point of never wavering on LoHa. I wanted to protect her--not just from the lynch, but also to draw the nightkill if LoHa was scum.

That plan got kind of painful as things went on. I told myself that someone had to do this, that I could attack her on Day 2 if she and I were both still alive and she didn't open the day with a counterclaim, that it'd just be a little longer. The plan was in pieces by the time things got down to the wire. Goodmorning's play when wagoned didn't match up to a power role; she'd have counterclaimed if I'd ever been right. But by then I

fucking wanted that nightkill

.

Admitting to myself that it was already way out of my hands was hard. By the end, I didn't really think lordj was scum, after he made that post about thinking goodmorning was town. My heart wasn't in it at all, and goodmorning was blatantly not a power role, but it still didn't feel that simple. So, uh, that's the saga of why I should never lock myself into plans.

I don't know about her play toward you specifically, but my own stance wound up evolving into "she's scum or a power role, just GET HER THROUGH TODAY and you can find out which one," and then her play at deadline was all wrong for a power role but I'd gotten myself invested and it was dumb.

[...]

I literally dont like Ether's GM defense on Day 1, on top of that Ether says that she thought GM was a PR which doesnt connect with her GM is scum only if im scum.

I didn't think that

then

, obviously. I thought that when she was sticking to the LoHa wagon when it didn't make any sense. I thought LoHa was likely to be lying--I thought he was scummy, obviously, and claimed power roles are

more

likely to be scum, not less. The fact that it's suboptimal to lynch them doesn't change the fact that about 24% of town players in a Matrix6 game are power roles, and the odds of a caught scumbag on Day 1 claiming a power role is probably a lot higher, or that the bulletproof claim in particular felt like the most stereotypical scumclaim to me. But the fact that she wasn't even bothering to vote someone else made me wonder, "What the hell? Why is she doing that?" and then it got into my head.

(I was also looking out for MoosyDoosy for the same reason, which was less obvious in some ways and more in others--he didn't have the same kind of heat, but on the other hand there really was no good reason at all to defend him from OceanWind's questioning, while I genuinely did see a few things from goodmorning that I felt were townish.)

The thing with you and goodmorning was just an unpleasant coincidence. I still don't really regret it, it got me a townread on you, and I don't feel like my rationale for going for you over her was wrong. But any refusal to vote goodmorning at that point was 100% natural wrongness on my part, unhampered by any weird gambits.

Oh yeah im pretty sure scum would LOVE to get a PR lynched by stating they dont believe them, if i was a Town PR with a counterclaim i'd still wait until the next day, GM even agreed with my thing about claiming and continued to vote LoHa, why couldn't you see something as simple as that instead of "OH SHE MUST BE A PR!" Sounds like really convoluted reasoning for not voting her.

Because she was blatantly getting nowhere, it was completely obvious that it wasn't going to happen and she was still holding on anyway. And her alignment wasn't as obvious at the time as you're making it out to be. There wasn't a wagon on her yet at the time, there were a few scattered votes and no one else had quite decided where to go next yet either.

Even if I don't get into an argument about how my play would have been different if I was scum--

hers

sure as hell would have been if I'd have a line to her.

OceanWind coming back softened me on him, and also, I started the lordj wagon expressly as a counterwagon. I

wanted

a wagon I thought other people would join, including goodmorning, who sure as hell wasn't doing anything to help herself.

Do you think I made up this whole "I thought she was a power role" line after the fact, or consciously decided to fake it the whole way through?

Because I

know

how stupid it looks, and if I'd actually known she'd flip scum I could have been a hell of a lot more graceful about it.

(Or broken down ages ago, but no one likes selfmeta, so let's just keep pretending I'm a mastermind who can fake this. Whatever.)

And if I'd been daytalking with her, she would have at least had the sense to counterclaim.

I was willing to consider LoHa being town. (Although it took me a while, since I originally decided to play that way in the first place when I was still pretty sure he was scum. And I do still think that waiting a day before letting a cop or doctor counterclaim would have been the correct play--like Sakura said herself.) I wasn't willing to consider it out loud, because if he

was

scum and I waffled on it, then that would make it obvious that I wasn't a power role myself and would have led to goodmorning being shot instead.

Hamstringing myself like that ended in me hating the game more and more and therefore getting more and more invested in drawing that potential nightkill the more it slipped away from me.

And defending someone when my main reason for believing in their innocence at all was that I was scared you were going to out a power role...I didn't really know how to do that. I didn't have a strong townread on her to work with, I had what I thought were breadcrumbs that I certainly wasn't going to be the one to give up. I tried to reach out to goodmorning, and of course I got nothing.

This isn't really a matter of passive or aggressive...I don't even know what I am anymore, my 2015 play has been more passive but I hope that's just a temporary thing while I get a sense of things. It's about conviction. I'll argue for tells I believe in, but I'm not just going to pull something out of my ass, and I couldn't

give

the real reason.

I'm not, like, a perfect power role seeker, but sometimes things just click into place. Like I said, in this case I had that epiphany when I saw she was still voting LoHa when it was obvious that there was no traction on that wagon, and I remembered other things people had said about her being top poster in her scumgames, while she was so under the radar here.

I can say more things too, of course. But that was from when I was closer to the whole seething exasperated "why won't she

take my fucking hand

" slowly realizing I was probably wrong but pushing it to the back of my brain because I just wanted to die experience.

[Ether]

(I was also looking out for MoosyDoosy for the same reason, which was less obvious in some ways and more in others--he didn't have the same kind of heat, but on the other hand there really was no good reason at all to defend him from OceanWind's questioning, while I genuinely did see a few things from goodmorning that I felt were townish.)

It wasn't just thinking goodmorning specifically was a power role that controlled my behavior. I thought LoHa was scum and I was trying to cover for both goodmorning and Moosy--who for all I knew could have been a cop/doctor pair--and when I started having doubts, my brain still went "no just keep going you've already invested so much."

[Ether]

687 is where Ether starts defending GM based on thinking she's a PR. I can sort of see it but not sure.

Also, I was already trying to help her before then. The whole exchange around 656 where I tried to get her on OceanWind was basically me going "Fuck you, LET ME HELP YOU."

[Ether]

739 is HUGE for OceanWind being town. Probably the strongest post in the entire game in favor of OceanWind town. However, how easy would it be for him to state intent to hammer on lordj here as scum when he's been pushing GM all along? I think that would be hard to pull off so it's possible he stuck with GM as a bus and because he couldn't move, therefore needs the towncred to stay where he is since there is still a strong likelihood of a GM lynch here.

I want to be absolutely clear here: OceanWind wasn't trapped into protecting lordj. He didn't have to bus goodmorning, he never had to. He chose to do it anyway.

[Ether]

855 doesn't make sense, if you thought she was a PR or scum then you would of voted her when it became obvious she wasn't a PR-I don't believe this post at all

It's because I'm stupid.

Haven't you ever gotten invested in a theory before? After six days of that, it was hard to just push it away. My brain kept going, "Well WHAT IF LOHA IS SCUM ANYWAY, have you thought of THAT. Don't you want him to nightkill you?" By then, yes, by all evidence I should have turned on her. But I was still fixated on the evidence from a week ago, I was still clinging to any reason I could to stick to it.

I don't know if I could have actually gone through with the lordj lynch if it had turned that way. His expressing doubt about goodmorning being town took away all of my resolve. That's why I wanted your meta opinion. But I was a mess by then.

[Ether]

Mightymandarin's case on me was terrible. There was a reason that no one cared about it at a time.

(For completion's sake, LoHa's case on OceanWind was also terrible.)

[Ether]

And seriously, Mightymandarin's post was a giving up post, and lordj did it better, and I thought everyone else was town.

(On Day 3, I did look into lordj's games on Conquer Club and convinced myself that for him, his consistently trying to attack you and pretend he wasn't getting lynched instead of getting really indignant about being lynched was a scumtell for him. When he was hammered and got mad about it, I knew that he was telling the truth before Malakittens called it. But I just wandered off without posting at that point to go lie down and try not to feel sick.)

[Ether]

1167 I have a hard time seeing coming from scum tbh, why would scum challenge someone to vote them in lylo? If two people crossvote in lylo, it confirms one of them as scum if no one hammers and it confirms the other as town if they don't hammer-not the best move for scum as they'd want to hold the hammer in lylo

It was already over by then. He knew I wasn't going to vote you.

God dammit SilverWolf the reason that we both look town is that he's better at faking it than I am. He looks like town because he's good. I look like town because I don't know how to lie.

[Ether]

His motivation is that bussing goodmorning got him here with no heat at all. If one of us were the gaoler instead of Moosy, he would have won outright.

Look at 771 again. Look at what was there. Look at what

wasn't.

He can say it's dishonest for me to think I'm terrible scum, but how the hell would he expect me to know I'd magically gotten better?

[Ether]

Who would you expect OceanWind to kill?

I don't think I'm playing well at all. My alignment is always going to be a neon sign, that's something I take for granted every game and even that's threatening to fail me here. I fucked up on goodmorning, hopped onto Operation Newbie Genocide knowing full well I was probably next if that failed...as far as I'm concerned, figuring you out was the first worthwhile thing I've done all game.

But I'm not scum.

[Ether]

Anyway, I have to run for a few hours.

[Ether]

Well, I'm feeling pretty goddamn condemned here, and I've been in this spot since Day 2.

An endgame with SilverWolf or me dead would have been stupid. I was an obvious patsy, and Sakura had just attacked SilverWolf, so killing her off would have just looked weird as hell and raised questions. Sakura was the obvious kill no matter who did it.

I still have that table I mentioned, ages back. At the time I didn't post it because I went "Oh god, I went to all this effort to make a table and her activity this game is

in between

her town and scum games, I still think she's town but if I thought she were scum this wouldn't actually change my mind, this is just embarrassing why did I even do this." But the reason I still haven't posted it publicly is the opposite.

Which...I guess is kind of hypocritical, actually. I decided I cared about your privacy, but, like, OceanWind is scum so I didn't care about his.

I don't know. I can post all the notes I made if you want them, if you think I wasn't really trying to figure you out. If I do, the relevance would go beyond this one game. I think it'd be better if I PMed you after the game. But I can.

[Ether]

Just to be clear, not drawing things out is not a favor to me. I can keep going.

So do you think I made up all the things I went through on the goodmorning wagon? Do you think I tried to get him to post those links out of pure spite? Do you think I can play one crappy scumgame in 2009 and then blossom into a mature adult or whatever the fuck OceanWind is on, and suddenly transform into a terrifyingly genuine-sounding monster with no scum experience in between?

[Ether]

First off, there are a ton of strong engaged teenagers and flaky adults on this site, and I have no idea yet if I'm actually stable. This is only my second game since my comeback, and I hydraed in the first. Second, I did not have any clue how to play as scum.

Look. SilverWolf, can you point to the things I said that game that felt genuine? I don't really want to reread that game, I don't even know how well I remember it after six years, but I can try to deconstruct everything right here.

[Ether]

Because here's what I'm thinking right now:

The things you thought were genuine? They probably were. Like...when I vanished because I realized that my vote on Yosarian2 was stupid, that's actually a thing that happened. I thought from the composition of my scumteam that the game was either inadvertent mountainous or multiball, and I voted Yosarian because either he'd be confirmed when the former came out, or he was scum who also thought the setup was inadvertent mountainous and he was taking advantage of it. In the morning, I realized that the latter was completely stupid, and of course he was town, and of course I was getting wagoned for doing something stupidly out of character. I sounded like I genuinely lost my nerve there because that is exactly what happened. I just also happened to be scum.

But things like what happened to me around goodmorning...that's inherently something that would have to be made up as scum. And I'm a terrible liar.

[Ether]

Yeah. I kind of figured, I've talked with Yosarian about that before. Like I said, the thing about voting him but realizing after the fact what a stupid vote it was was true.

The RVS thing gave me something easy to work with. But after that broke down I was lost. Even when I thought the game might be multiball, my scumdar was full of holes that made it that made it hard to keep up with everything going on. Like I said, after the RVS bit, I kept putting the game off until the middle of the night. I was already disappearing long before middle/late game (and "late game" here is early Day 2), it just wasn't on the same scale.

So do you think I made up all the things I went through on the goodmorning wagon? Do you think I tried to get him to post those links out of pure spite? Do you think I can play one crappy scumgame in 2009 and then blossom into a mature adult or whatever the fuck OceanWind is on, and suddenly transform into a terrifyingly genuine-sounding monster with no scum experience in between?

[Ether]

Look, you keep using that line, but it's only town motivated if he's actually town. The only reason he hasn't won yet is that I'm putting up a much stronger fight than anyone was expecting, and the only reason I can do

that

is because I don't have to make any of this up, because I sure as hell wouldn't be able to.

Your track record was worse than his, too. But it doesn't matter, because that's not the most important thing in the end. The important thing is what each player is actually capable of doing as scum--and what they aren't.

You don't need an excuse to doubt him. Process of elimination is enough.

[Ether]

Look.

What in OceanWind's post makes you think I can pull any of this off? How the hell did I magically transform into someone who couldn't lie for shit into a scumbag that plays like

this

without playing a single scum game in the intervening six years, and if I were so goddamn persuasive about things that

weren't

true, then why couldn't I do anything for goodmorning except make myself look like a complete idiot? Why have I pushed so hard to make OceanWind link to games that would supposedly condemn me even further? Could you actually answer those questions first?

[Ether]

He has everything to hide. Go ahead, let him hide it. Fine. But fakeclaiming masons and bussing partners when you don't have to aren't as different as you think.

These are gambits he can pull as scum without breaking a sweat. I couldn't pull any of this off,

I can't lie for shit.

The lordj wagon didn't involve any persuasion whatsoever. All I actually did to start it was vote him. That probably was something I could have done as scum in 2009, honestly, if I hadn't already shut down completely from the fact that the goodmorning wagon even existed.

But actually pushing it? Actually faking the kind of conviction that OceanWind is claiming I can suddenly do brilliantly as scum? I lost my resolve to save goodmorning the moment he said something townish. All the barriers my brain had set up were already crumbling, barriers that no scum would be stupid enough to fake.

[Ether]

If this were fake, if I've been lying all along and still showing you a better Day 5 than he is,

I could have saved her

. If I were scum, I had a line to her in the PT, we could have made something work.

Or at least managed not to make me look like a goddamn idiot.

[Ether]

No shit, I tried to save goodmorning. We get it already. I did it by voting someone and hoping, and gave up trying as soon as he said something townish. He wasn't going to get lynched. If I've blossomed into the well-rounded mature sociopath OceanWind is claiming, I could have kept going, and maybe then lordj would have been lynched over goodmorning.

But I was cracking under the strain of all the fallacies I'd let build up in my head, and his behavior when wagoned just didn't look like scum. I did nothing.

Sure.

If

lordj were lynched, and I were scum with goodmorning, then we'd have won. But he wasn't, because I didn't try the way I am trying now, because that would have required me to be a mafiate and a competent liar.

[Ether]

It does almost always happen that way. (I think that wasn't always true--I know the meta on this site has changed and there was a time when early bussing was a lot more common, but I was gone or on my way out by then and can't really tell you about it.) Here...I think there was momentum against goodmorning, but I do think that OceanWind had the choice to save her and turned it down for the towncred. And that alone has brought him very close to winning the game outright. He likes to do things that town won't expect, he's said it himself, he's

done

it in the blitz game, and he did it here.

Elaborate on "fine." If I were scum, I've been pressuring him to give up links that would crush my argument that he bussed. If I were scum, I've been hurting my ability to win out of sheer spite.

Again, I only know how to play as town. I do not actually draw scum roles, ever. I think my playstyle as town is harder to fake than average, but whether that's true or not, what is true is that I never did learn how. You can read the earlier scumgames, and they're even worse. 771 was the best I've ever managed, not counting my first newbie game on the site, which lasted about a month and a half and was 6 pages in total, which should tell you everything you need to know about 2006.

The next time I draw scum...I hope it'll be better than 771 was. But no matter how much it improves, it'll be nothing like this.

Do you think I'm lying about my belief I'm this bad as scum, or that this came as a surprise? I can link to probably dozens of times I've called my scumplay terrible. In a huge way, knowing that I couldn't be mislynched shaped my playstyle.

[Ether]

If I'm scum, I set up a consistent long-term narrative around all the squishy emotions in my brain that led to me not voting goodmorning, but barely put any effort at all into actually getting her out of the lynch. What the hell do you think was going on in the PT during all that?

I honestly do not understand how you think someone with a historically crappy scumgame and six years' worth of rust could make this much bullshit up. The fact that there's a low sample size and I've barely even played as scum does not make me better at it.

I don't understand how you think I'm physically capable of being that mastermind, and if I was, how I could pull it off now but not save goodmorning when it counted.

180 was a game where you didn't know your scum partners. You had things to focus on, things to look for, and that probably helped you come off as genuine--because to some degree, you were, right? It's not comparable to a straightforward newbie game with a single scum faction.

[Ether]

Elaborate on "fine." If I were scum, I've been pressuring him to give up links that would crush my argument that he bussed. If I were scum, I've been hurting my ability to win out of sheer spite.

I think your reasons for asking for the links were fine/valid.

That's not an answer.

[Ether]

Yes. I'm letting it go. I'm letting him keep his damn games private, because it's not his fault he drew a scum PM here, and because I can't convince you to threaten him into it even if it means winning. I get it. But that doesn't change the fact that he's lying about what's in them.

So why the fuck would I have kept going on about it as scum, if you don't think it was spite? Because if the content of those games contradicts what I've been saying, then he could flatten my case at any time if he had to, and

I'd know that

.

[Ether]

I've made 230 posts in this game so far. The first 200 posts contain one derivative of the word "fuck." The last 30 contain 6.

This is the problem with being an amateur statistician. You start noticing. You start counting.

I'm just...watching myself break down here, punching myself in the face repeatedly for towncred. If I can't convince you here, then I don't think I ever could have stopped him, not after that Day 1. Even if I'd figured it out, I can't see a world where attacking him wouldn't have just destroyed what little credibility I had left.

This isn't a giving up post. I'm not sure what the point of it was, really.

[Ether]

If it can be shown he likes to bus as scum, then you vote him and

you

win. If I were scum, I wouldn't have any reason to think he was lying. I pressured him for those links before I ever voted him, because I was trying to figure out his alignment too.

People bus for towncred, even when they don't have to. It's rare, but it's effective--just like fakeclaiming masons, which he explicitly said he loved the idea of just because town wouldn't see it coming. I don't understand how you can't see that. I don't understand how you can't see that he's lying about this, while everything I've done here is something I could never even start to fake.

[Ether]

If I convinced her to pressure you enough, that would just raise the risk that you'd actually do it. As scum I'd have no reason to think that you'd still refuse to post the links even at the threat of a loss, when posting them would win you the game.

I have used meta in this game. I haven't just asked for it. I went out and saw claims elsewhere on the site that SilverWolf was more active as town, I dug into it, I got results. It took me a little to figure out what to do with them, because they were in between (although closer to her least active towngame that I found) and she kept talking about how her activity was a red herring, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it wasn't. And I was right.

You...asked us for those LyLos, and then never followed up on them at all. You never showed any interest in my lopsided meta, which should have been a potential gamebreaker even if you ultimately concluded that it wasn't enough to overturn your read on SilverWolf. When meta is inconvenient for your narrative, you just toss it aside.

[Ether]

It's not just here. It's not just now. My play was full of dumb mistakes, but it was real. Whatever I might have done as scum around the goodmorning lynch, I assure you that "set things up for six days so that I look like I thought goodmorning was maybe a power role but neglect to actually defend her beyond voting lordj" would have been the last thing that would ever, ever occur to me. Or anyone, frankly, because that's just stupid.

The fact that, as scum, I'd be putting everything on the line by trying to get you to pressure him to give me links that I'd know would just screw me over isn't a distraction. The fact that I meta'd you and he just used it as a prop isn't a distraction. The range of emotions I had across the whole game, not just under pressure, isn't a distraction.

I can bring these things up, because they're what I felt. That's why they're so easy to evoke.

[Ether]

What you'd do to brush me off and what you'd do when SilverWolf threatened to lynch you over it are different things, and as scum I'd have no way of knowing what it would be.

[Ether]

Sorry...

[Ether]

Well.

I successfully managed to be the only vanilla to let goodmorning slide, got two newbies to actively dislike me, and my strategy for the last day was basically just to repeat "Hey SilverWolf, I can't be scum because I'M AN IDIOT" again and again with different inflections.

So that happened.

[Ether]

I don't want to turn this into another thread about it, but NS was arrested for things he said to an FBI agent pretending to be a twelve year old.

[Ether]

Oh. My conclusion on the not-noticing-daytalk thing was that it was a mistake you could make even as scum, because you'd replaced into a slot that hadn't even picked up its PM, so for all I knew the scum PT was gathering tumbleweeds anyway. Geeeeeeeenerally scum are more informed than town, but I've been burned by totally honest slips from scum enough times that I don't trust that sort of thing.

Ether doesn't seem like the type to hard-push a lynch on someone without hearing them out and giving them a chance to defend themselves. The fact that she's not waiting for me to catch up and is insisting that I be voted shows that this isn't about me but is about who does and doesn't vote me.

Nah, I'll totally lynch lurkers without feeling guilty about it. They're like the free space on the bingo card for me. If you don't post, you don't towntell, and I have no time for anyone like that.

Maybe. I think.

I used to be a lot more aggressive. Like...I could do logic just fine, I had absolutely no problem being the voice of reason, but underneath it all I just really wanted to kill somebody. Or at least be really scary. I've...kind of stopped waiting for that to come back at this point, I think. Whatever I am now, it's something new and I'm still trying to figure it out.

Anyway, I'll probably angst more later.

[Ether]

So...

I can't shake this sense that as a newbie game, we failed. That maybe, you know, systematically genociding all the newbies or running them up to claims and letting them get nightkilled was not a great thing to do. Even beyond how badly it backfired.

I realized around the whole six day deadline panic that I was viewing all four of you (and OceanWind at the time, although by this point I have a ton of respect for him) as just a backdrop to learning about this generation of experienced players. I'd decided early on that I didn't care enough to deal with Mightymandarin. There was absolutely nothing to say about his suspicion because it was pulled completely out of thin air, and his reaction to my attacking Sakura after he'd called me/Sakura implied that humoring him on anything at all would just give him confirmation bias. But that didn't change that he needed people to talk to him, and I didn't do it.

And...I can say that. I can consciously recognize that. Honestly, none of the four of you ever clicked with me as individuals, and that still hasn't changed. That epiphany never flipped a switch in my brain.

I don't know. If you have questions or want advice, I can do my best, and the other SEs can too. You can reach me on AIM at CaffieneDeity (spelled wrong) or Skype at unvote, or just drop into SiteChat sometime. (I'll be on the account Telephone Cat there; using it on my main slows my browser down.) If you don't want anything, that's fine too.

Goodmorning, did you have one of those IC rooms?

[Ether]

Meh.

[Ether]

So...at the time I thought I was pretty on top of how Matrix6 worked and all the little implications. I mean, I figured out the jailkeep-LoHa thing; the reason OceanWind shot LoHa was apparently COMPLETELY different but dammit my guess made sense.

In retrospect...the fact that F11 has an average of 1 power role and Matrix6 has an average of 1.66 might be meaningful? I still think that power role claims are more likely to come from scum in a vacuum than from town, but the gulf would be smaller now. Huh.

Also it just occurred to me about an hour ago that the mod switch wouldn't cause anyone to miss a nightkill that they wouldn't otherwise have missed.

Scum use PTs now.

[/old]

[Ether]

Scum use PTs now.

Actually, Malakittens would have needed to go through an admin first to get access to the topic at all, so there'd have been a delay. Never mind.