Free Love

[The Bulge]

why are quickhammers even being brought up in this setup?

[The Bulge]

what's that

[The Bulge]

three reads or three scum reads?

[The Bulge]

not sure i follow why the setup necessitates crypticness

[The Bulge]

facilitating conversation to sort your partner out? so that they can sort you? to corroborate reads?

[The Bulge]

not sure yet

[The Bulge]

I don't think getting a solid read on my lover is as high on my list of priorities as any other slot at this stage of the game, and I don't know why main thread interactions take a back seat to private chats when only one of those threads decide eliminations.

[The Bulge]

I for one would like to hear from ari

[The Bulge]

Unless Ari is secretly towning it up in his PT?

all the more suspicious, no?

[The Bulge]

I don't like it

[The Bulge]

Klick's town, I'm happy enough to call ns town for now. I know we shouldn't rush but I'd be happy to elim outside of those two pairs today..

big agree

VOTE: aristophanes

[The Bulge]

I think ari is scum and I think auro is town

[The Bulge]

I'm weirded out by bulges vote. Why not vote for the one in the pair who has a wagon on them, no matter the read on the individual, as the slot gets elimed together.

yea but I wanna be right!

[The Bulge]

I think ari is scum and I think auro is town

Talk to me about Auro-town? And Ari-scum I suppose, I'm still feeling basically nothing about him

I don't read auro's response to his wagon as scummy at all. That's it, i suppose.

ari just has to tell me he's town and we'll be cool!

[The Bulge]

are you both still town?

[The Bulge]

I had my eyes on him early but he's probably my second biggest townread behind klick

[The Bulge]

I need to reread now that ari has content. I've felt this void in my reads all game and it was making it really hard to poe

[The Bulge]

what is everyone's take on their partner's views of the ari/auro elimination?

notscience likes ari's posting and, from what I can tell from our pt, leans scum on auro.

[The Bulge]

pls nobody hammer

[The Bulge]

unwnd care to answer 212?

I'll be home in an hour or two

[The Bulge]

VOTE: Klick


I've done a tonne of rereading and ruminating on this and I'm in a tough spot. I've been putting this off but now I really don't want this a&a wagon to go through and I don't think I can justify where I want my vote to be without first explaining what is an extremely "day 2" read.

I'm not sure where exactly the notion that I am townreading notscience came from but I've been kind of coasting on that for a while to not have too many guards put up. I've been isoing his posts with klick and maria which are the only 2 assocs that make sense to me, and reading klick's posts through that lens made me question my original tr to the point where I am now feeling somewhat more confident about klick than ns.

since the start of the game I'd been making a point to not make direct reference to our pt or to my read on ns. I can think of two times where I specifically refused to answer or ignored a question about partners, and both times ns didn't miss a post before giving his answer. he never once questioned my lack of an answer and yet his townread of me has not wavered. this isn't necessarily damning on its own, just weird. but what gets me is the timing of his latest read of me on top of that. unwnd had just posted something similar about maria so it wasn't completely unprompted, but it was right after I said I would be away for the night as well. the progression between 231 and 237 stood out to me as similar to the two cases I previously mentioned, especially on a reread. There he also paints our pt as being very discussion-forward, but most of our interactions in the pt have felt more like leading questions and gauging the plausibility of potential scumpushes. Nothing from his end that feels like real discussion leading to action. All in all I feel like he doesn't want to risk disturbing the fragile bubble of consensus that is "Bulge and notscience townread each other".

Now for Klick, who was originally a major townread of mine. ns has repeatedly made reference to a past game of theirs where klick was scum and pocketed town!ns, vowing to not fall for that again. He has also said that he would prefer to keep Klick alive as when they are both town, ns find klick good to bounce reads off. But have they been doing any of that? in public, at least? imo the two have been interacting just substantially enough for those claims to hold water, but I don't see a lot as far as genuine working-togetheredness in the main thread. Knowing ns, I could see them strategizing to hide their assoc tells in plain sight. At one point he said he was liking klick's posting but wanted more from bella. I said they could both be town. He asked what I was seeing regarding bella. I started by saying "nothing as conclusive as klick, but..." without further mentioning klick at all. ns's reply mainly just restated his desire to leave klick alive, again citing previous games together, and only mentioned bella to the tune of "I might vote the pair in the future if bella starts looking bad". This unwillingness to poke at my klick read too much feels all too similar to his approach to my read of him.

I recommend everybody check out notsci+klick in ISO. Both have had similar agendas this game and have not focused much attention outside of 1) scumreading and subsequently agreeing to townread unwnd and 2) pushing the a&a wagon while both waffling together over the pointless question of ari or auro. Tell me, if there is such little resistance behind a&a, and our two most active posters have been riding it for two thirds of the game, why are we 24 hours to deadline?

[The Bulge]

As for Klick/Bella, imo a RL couple is far more susceptible to wifom when it comes to reading each other

[The Bulge]

forgot to mention how much I hated klick's exit/re-entry on the a&a wagon last night

[The Bulge]

I've been dropping tiny reaction tests and hints the last day or two to ns i wonder if he picked up on that and this is what klick's bizarre bulge/ari theory was preparing for.

inb4 klick doubles down on that either way

[The Bulge]

Does ping me a fair bit that Auro's reaction to the wagon on his pair is to call it uninteresting and then point to the least interesting vote on the wagon and call it interesting
Especially since Ari hasn't done anything

Your response to the wagon feels oddly deflective considering the fact that it's a wagon on both you and Ari.

Tbf I am surprised that Bella hasn't removed her vote from you yet. She's hasn't stated any sort of scumread on either of you and has expressed much more suspicion of unwnd both in-thread and in our PT

Klick care to explain the discrepancy here? You go from uninterested to surprised by bella's vote.

[The Bulge]

Well in case anyone was doubting it bulge is town.

And pushing a case based on preflip associatives/an interaction that’s easily researchable.

Doesn’t really change my reads up any.

not sure what you mean with the last part

and yes obviously any case based on a preflip associative is weak but that is the unfortunate reality of my situation. a 24-hour push on klick would have been fruitless without greater context/pressure, and if I focus you today and you do flip scum then everything in our pt goes up in flames and there are no assocs for anyone tomorrow. of course I understand how circumstantial it all is, but that's all I have to work with at the moment and I couldn't wait any longer.

[The Bulge]

not sure what you mean with the last part

ie "an interaction that’s easily researchable"

[The Bulge]

You could have asked about game history to look up the interactions yourself.

2137 and 2146 in mini normals

TT and TS in those- I was town both

I've done meta reads before in the past, but admittedly I don't think I have ever followed up with a game that somebody else has referenced for me. that being said that's not really relevant to what I'm saying. it's not the content of your meta tells that concerned me, it's the context in which they were brought up.

[The Bulge]

like I said, at this point based on gut my klick read is stronger but it was rooted in my read of you. Ideally I would have kept that one to myself until at least late tomorrow to give me twice as much time to sort you out for good, but my hand was forced. I'm not death-tunneling yet dw just extremely concerned about the deadline and about how hard the game becomes if we miseliminate today

[The Bulge]

I couldn't have just gone in and raw-dogged the lead wagon onto a near-universal town read. with 24 hours I needed as much credibility behind the read as I could get, and that meant spilling the beans about my ns suspicions. especially now that I'm growing less sure we will see klick again before deadline.

[The Bulge]

ns how did you think I was reading you before? were you ever worried that I was leaning scum on you?

[The Bulge]

just don't get all apathetic now because I won't know how to read that

[The Bulge]

I've been isoing his posts with klick and maria which are the only 2 assocs that make sense to me, and reading klick's posts through that lens made me question my original tr to the point where I am now feeling somewhat more confident about klick than ns.

You say this
But the rest of this post seems to be about nothing but notty?

I expected this retort but I wouldn't have put money on it being first. anyway I had something of a case on notty, something largely based in a private thread, so I had no choice but to effort-post to make my point known. When I have a certain read I find it very hard to pull quotes from iso and thread them together into a coherent case without in the process muddying my original thoughts. another reason that post came as late as it did. You on the other hand are a more recent read of mine that I haven't had a lot of interaction with today. I don't have a lot of thoughts that have been building up and that I have been parsing through on my own like I do with notty.

As for Klick/Bella, imo a RL couple is far more susceptible to wifom when it comes to reading each other

That's just like, your opinion man.
I know Bella really well. We talk a lot of Mafia theory and whatnot. This fundamentally doesn't feel like how she'd approach this game as scum.

And before you go 'well wouldn't she know that and play to that?'
My honest opinion is that she wouldn't care enough about this individual game of Mafia to adjust her mindset seamlessly to her town meta (and I have doubts about whether she could actually change her play to that degree). She has a level of not caring that much that I think comes from town-Bella every time.

ok but I'm obviously talking about the other way around here so the "before you go" bit feels ultra mega fake

klick's bizarre bulge/ari theory

So you've called this bizarre twice now, but I haven't heard why.

It's bizarre that you dropped that read out of your pant leg and are now asking me to explain it to you.

was also really bugged by the hop off of and back onto my wagon by Klick but I had entirely forgotten my eyebrow raise when reading that until Bulge brought it back up here.

@Ari and Bulge:

ok but why is it scummy

why the initial unvote?

[The Bulge]

VOTE: Klick

nothing has changed for me

[The Bulge]

As for Klick/Bella, imo a RL couple is far more susceptible to wifom when it comes to reading each other

That's just like, your opinion man.
I know Bella really well. We talk a lot of Mafia theory and whatnot. This fundamentally doesn't feel like how she'd approach this game as scum.

And before you go 'well wouldn't she know that and play to that?'
My honest opinion is that she wouldn't care enough about this individual game of Mafia to adjust her mindset seamlessly to her town meta (and I have doubts about whether she could actually change her play to that degree). She has a level of not caring that much that I think comes from town-Bella every time.

ok but I'm obviously talking about the other way around here so the "before you go" bit feels ultra mega fake

Still seems very relevant to the game at large considering the fact that notty/Maria both have milquetoast scumreads on Bella at this point

idk the "before you go" felt very directed at me

klick's bizarre bulge/ari theory

So you've called this bizarre twice now, but I haven't heard why.

It's bizarre that you dropped that read out of your pant leg and are now asking me to explain it to you.

It made plenty of sense in the context of what Ari was doing; he had a townread on both players in your pair that stayed consistent all day. It's bizarre to me that you still haven't said why it was 'bizarre' in the first place.

fair enough, I was looking at it only from the other angle, ie my constant badgering. Which I stand by being by far the more notable interaction between myself and ari. So I am still questioning why you presented the read as if it were clear as day.

was also really bugged by the hop off of and back onto my wagon by Klick but I had entirely forgotten my eyebrow raise when reading that until Bulge brought it back up here.

@Ari and Bulge:

ok but why is it scummy

why the initial unvote?

I was considering moving my vote over to you/notty, because I didn't feel good about you and some things notty was starting to say weren't vibing with how I was feeling at all. But then notty's 221 felt really genuine and I decided it wasn't worth pushing on a gut scumread of just you in the pair over getting out two fairly likely scum in Auro/Ari.

I'll again ask, why was it scummy

it's the momentum. your exchange with ns felt rehearsed like you didn't care at all about his answer. and afterwards, it was as if you had never stopped pushing auro or ari or whoever you were claiming was the maf it's a little extremely hard to keep track of your read on that pair.


also yak yak yak unflipped associatives but worth noting that notscience was notvoting at the time of klick's "I'm going to bed and can't be held responsible for whoever might hammer!!!" post where he revoted. The reason I requested no hammer like I did in 213 was because I didn't want to tell ns directly in our pt to not hammer.

[The Bulge]

So have you tried to get your own partner off Klick or tried to understand the reasoning behind it? Because they seem pretty confident in it.

what's the point if ns is scumreading bella?

[The Bulge]

I don't see merit in detracting me from klick if one or both are town

[The Bulge]

Would you like me to explain Buldge? I don't know if you'll like the answer though

Wrong! It's because I think my partner is scum and I'm doing the most optimal play given that information.

Hm. That certainly does complicate things between you and me.

If you play today thinking your partner is scum you just need to vote the pair you think is most likely to have there partner in it. If you're right about them being scum the chances of hitting the partner is higher than normal. If you're wrong and your partner is town well you still hit scum regardless. It's a win win.

this is essentially the logical process I came to and am currently playing off of. which if i'm being honest makes me the smallest bit paranoid about ns/maria but eh recent exchanges between the two of them make me thing that is unlikely. the bigger part of me wants to work with you Maria. if we eliminate klick and the game continues on, I will take a long and serious look at unwnd!scum tomorrow if you do the same for ns.

[The Bulge]

have we heard from BELLA aboout any updated klick reads?

[The Bulge]

Bulge I don’t even see that post you’re talking about with going to bed and revoting

Right, gonna sleep now
VOTE: Auro

[The Bulge]

oh it's a reach! but it struck me!

[The Bulge]

makes me the smallest bit paranoid about ns/maria but eh

[The Bulge]

should i just suck it up

[The Bulge]

maria and notsci broke me

i need to sleep on this game

[The Bulge]

i've been waiting so long to be where I'm going

It’s getting near dawn . . .

[The Bulge]

Tomorrow is gonna be the best time for me to really sit down and give this some attention, I don't want to rush this last phase.

[The Bulge]

I like how we all just said "fuck your nightless game"

[The Bulge]

how are my other beautiful people doing

[The Bulge]

well today's really not going how it was fucking supposed to

im sorry. later i hope.

[The Bulge]

ok I may still be free i just need.to chill for a bit

[The Bulge]

I do feel bad for being the one stretching this out so far

tbf I did tell notty I was willing to draw the day out long as need be

there will be more details i guess when the pt is released in endgame but today was a lot for me irl and I really want to be in the right headspace to not fuck this game up.

If you have anything for me, maria or unwnd, that makes sense to put in here before I make real posts then by all means

[The Bulge]

FWIW I was planning on asking the mod to redact that stuff bulge because it wasn’t really relevant to the game.

either way is ok with me

rn I'm reading each of you in iso with klick, looking for posts I can point to that make each pairing

unlikely

last night i read klick/maria and nothing stood out to me at all one way or another, I'll put her as town for now and look more into her individual iso if it comes to that

[The Bulge]

I would however greatly benefit from some new unwnd posts I really have no idea where his head's been at for a while

[The Bulge]

occam's razor has been shaving my ass this whole phase yes

I've been trying to cover all my bases and make sure nothing is missed

[The Bulge]

ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok

unwnd's comments about occam's made me realize there is a good chance I am searching and searching and searching for something that isn't there because im just right

notty hasn't done much to try to prove his towniness to me or win the game which is the angle i might expect from town in this position

the push on unwnd feels even more coordinated in triple iso

let's end this game

VOTE: notscience

[The Bulge]

i feel stronger about maria town than unwnd town but i would be less surprised by maria scum?

this was a very exciting game regardless of the outcome

[The Bulge]

my girlfriend made fun of the extremely corny fist pump i did when the flip was posted

gg yall, had a lot of fun this game. looking forward to reading the pts

notty <3

[The Bulge]

we have to hydra now

[The Bulge]

and thank you mods! loved the flavour and the game ran exceptionally smoothly