Mini Normal 2170: Stuff I’m Listening To [Game Over]

[UneducatedGuesser]

VOTE: murdercat

My cat scratched me this morning and I blame your name for giving him ideas.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Dammit guys I thought the shitposting would last longer and I'd be safe to go out drinking last night after work, oh well.

First instincts, hungover pre-caffeinated version.

Blitzo feels kind of ok, honestly. I wouldn't call it a townread but I also don't feel especially bad about that slot. Sometimes people don't jive with the RVS and early game shenanigans and it feels like a reason to push them, other times it feels like an excuse to push them. This feels more the latter than the former.

murdercat did the pushing, actually has some heat generated on himself for it. It might not be penetrating the hangover but I just don't see all that good a reason for the pushback. I found his stance and vote on Blitzo the least problematic and the most likely to be done in good faith.

VOTE: OutWorldER along those lines, I just can't get on board with the reasoning there. I mean, he said Blitzo was troublesome to read so that's a wagon and ok, but acknowledging that you believe something is NAI and voting it anyway isn't for me. If it was I'd be voting for Pooky because she was drinking expensive Bourbon instead of expensive Scotch yesterday. I find that troublesome and weird but I wouldn't try and stick her on a launchpad for it.

TSQ seems alright in his contributions.

The fact that Noraa's one of the quiet ones is bothering me, since she's the only person here I've played a game with and I expected the thread to have 2-3 more pages on account of her by now. Might be nothing, might be something, but feels kind of worth comment even in the first 24 hours.

Still on the fence for anyone I haven't mentioned. D1s take me a bit to get going. I'll come back to this once the coffee and advil are working.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Well, "out" is an overstatement in that I didn't get drunk in my house, myself and one work friend who lives a few blocks from me sat on his back deck with a bottle of rum. Long month.

[UneducatedGuesser]

I mean, I'm from the homeland originally so I'm forced to disagree.

Most scotch that's decently easily obtainable in other countries is overrated, I've found in the past decade I've lived in the US, I'll give you that.

[UneducatedGuesser]

It's also disgustingly overpriced here far more often than not.

We can definitely find common ground on products from Japan, though.

[UneducatedGuesser]

24 hours into the game I feel strongly about Outworld relative to how I feel about everything else, which is not a damning indictment. It's the thing I feel is most worth voting on at this particular moment in time.

[UneducatedGuesser]

VOTE: OutWorldER along those lines, I just can't get on board with the reasoning there. I mean, he said Blitzo was troublesome to read so that's a wagon and ok, but acknowledging that you believe something is NAI and voting it anyway isn't for me.

I feel like you're contradicting yourself here? Yes, I did say my read on Blitzo was neutral at that time, but that I also felt he was going to troubling to read if we didn't try and figure him out early. So it felt like the most worthy early vote at the point in the game. Could you elaborate what exactly you find troublesome in that logic?

I don't like the idea of voting and wagoning based on an NAI premise. If he was active lurking and posting NAI stuff for a couple of days, then your case for obfuscation in 64 might have had merit instead of being something that you yourself said was minor and a stretch, and I might have been okay with it. If you had some real belief that Blitzo's early posts had a decent chance of actually being AI when forced into an exchange about them then I might have been okay with it. As such, I wasn't a fan of your part on the wagon.

That said, I'm far more comfortable with what I've seen from you since that wagon dissipated, and I'm getting a "I believe you believe it" vibe, so this might just be playstyle issues I'm having that are separate from actual reads.

UNVOTE:

This isn't reading like Noraa's town game thus far (I was in her completed town game that she referenced), but then, she was pretty strongly TRed from the jump by mostly everyone there. I know she gets mega defensive when challenged as scum though, based on reading her scum games from the outside. I have no idea if that's a scum-Noraa trait or always-Noraa trait to get into it like this when called out. (The wall stuff is an "always" trait, she was getting salty at me for posts, and I think I only wrote one the entire game that required scrolling.)

Murder still feels consistent here, he's attacking his reads and working his game from my perspective, still not buying the votes on him. If I were having to pick between the two for a vote Noraa would probably be the pick.

VOTE: Kasu instead though, I hate his defensiveness more than Noraa's.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Sorry.

Had to take one of my cats into the vet for emergency surgery yesterday morning, probably going to be ok but I spent yesterday being a mess. Trying to get my head straightened out and not be a waste of a slot. Going to be trying to reread and provide some actual content in the next 12 hours once I’ve gotten things settled at work for the day. If anyone wants my opinion on anything in particular let me know and I’ll make sure to get to it on top of whatever I find to comment on in more general terms.

[UneducatedGuesser]

OK, a few thoughts that I fell asleep halfway through last night.

First up UNVOTE: I don't think I want to vote for Kasu right now.

- At this point, I'm basically looking for ways to TR people and POE things down some right now, on account of not feeling all that good about my reads and concentration levels. I figure I've got roughly half the game on a mental "I would not subscribe to a D1 yeet" list and I'm trying to narrow it down further, so that's kind of how my brain's working.

- Pooky's bothering me, I don't know the exact reason why but it's a thing. This is one of those gut-reads, which occasionally is just me being dumb, but also occasionally means that my lizard brain hates something that the rest of my brain can't articulate yet, so I'm going to stop short of a vote rn, but something feels not right.

- Shea, I don't want to stink up the thread with this and it's more OOG, but remind me later if we're dead-threading together or in postgame to ask you about your theory on policy/liability elims, because I think we probably disagree on this point but it's the type of theoretical thing I like to talk about. However, on a more in game note, I'm curious about your relationship-based reads that you've brought up a few times re: Blitzo/MC/Kasu/Bulge. If you think there's an informative flip in that group as you said in 479 is that where you're most strongly leaning in this phase as it stands and have you considered whether or not you have a preference in that group? Because a couple of those people are on my "no D1 yeet" list right now and I don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing there in its totality.

- I don't know if I'm a fan of Gamma's ro3 logic, but in the spirit of trying to see where things like this are coming from I ask Gamma: based on your ro3, you'd have Panzer as scum and then 1 each from his two groups... so which ones in each of those groups make the most sense to you at this point and why?

- To answer Duppin...

Sorry.

Had to take one of my cats into the vet for emergency surgery yesterday morning, probably going to be ok but I spent yesterday being a mess. Trying to get my head straightened out and not be a waste of a slot. Going to be trying to reread and provide some actual content in the next 12 hours once I’ve gotten things settled at work for the day. If anyone wants my opinion on anything in particular let me know and I’ll make sure to get to it on top of whatever I find to comment on in more general terms.

i am sorry to hear that and i hope everything is okay

as for questions id like to know if anything has changed regarding your noora read?

In Noraa's case... I played one other game with her, we were both town. She was universally town-read and was basically face-up as a TPR to me. She almost talked me out of thinking that about six different times even though I was about 99.9% sure I knew better. I have no clue how I read her at this point and if she would have been this defensive and OMGUS-driven in that game had she been pushed, because it never came up when I was on the inside of the game. I know she HAS been that way as scum, but honestly... this just feels like how she plays and what she does and what might be AI for 90% of the population isn't necessarily going to be AI for her. She isn't on my previously mentioned "no yeet" list, and there's enough things going on there that I've seen her do while scum-aligned that I doubt she'll make it onto said list as it stands, though I also doubt she'll end up top of my SRs either.

[UneducatedGuesser]

VOTE: Gamma

also I made an analysis after two games with Pooky (dumb yes but w/e) that he tends to be more serious as scum than as town, and he's never attempted to contradict me on that. I will however say maybe I oversimplified it when first forming that impression. He's silly as both alignments, but when he's town it seems like it's downright inscrutable and rather distracting, but as scum he does it in a way that feels less invasive. So if you struggle with reading Pooky, there's a bit of a road map on him.

This post is a lot of words that say absolutely nothing. This doesn't really help solve Pooky at all, nor does he even express an opinion on what this makes Pooky. There has been a passivity to his play this game which is just so totally unlike the last time I played with Gamma where we ended up in a big town v town clownfiesta. And no I'm not just talking about the lack of content (meaning not posting a lot) I was mentioning earlier, but rather there isn't any real digging, it's almost all just distanced observations.

There was also a whole lot of general nonsense in the other game that propelled what happened that wasn't on my end, from Tywin not keeping a straight roleclaim to boon being boon. Here nothing has really happened to cause any sort of fiasco that would call me to post like that, and even if something did I'm not the same person I was back then. I'm kinda concerned you think multiple year old meta isn't going to be outdated for someone who's played as much as me. Plus, regarding being passive, I'm not too driven rn when it comes to putting everything I want to say out into the thread, I'm kinda comfortable with just posting a decent amount of stuff and playing around the middle of the pack. So you are correct on paper there but it doesn't make me scum. I will say I have a pretty solid readlist at this point so if anyone wants a better look at what I'm thinking I can post it.

Only tangentially related but I think this brings up part of my earlier mentioned issue with Pooky, this talk of outdated meta made me realize what it was that's bothering me.

This is my second game of mafia on this site since signing up this account, my first games since 2014, but I used to play off-site regularly and I can tell my meta is pretty different now compared to then. A lot of factors are involved in that, but a major one is definitely that I could get hot-headed over things (NAI, it happened no matter what I rolled) and I'm making a distinct effort (not always successfully) to keep my temper in check compared to how I was way back when. If someone who knew where my old games were (I don't even think they exist anymore, pretty sure the site got nuked) and tried to use them to get a read on me it would probably be of minimal use and I'm pretty sure my first instinct would be to question the person doing it as to why they think something that far back has value, irrespective of the read.

Because of that, I just can't quite get my head around the TR of Kasu based on a meta-skim of three year old games, especially when it's coming from someone strong and experienced (Something that's obviously true of Pooky). Whether Kasu's been playing off-site or not isn't known, and even if it was, if the basis of the TR is Kasu's emotional response there's no guarantee it says anything because we don't know the guy or how he emotionally responds now compared to 3 years ago about anything. FWIW I actually am leaning towards believing Kasu is probably more likely to be town than not. What I'm really not sure about is if I trust where that initial read of Pooky's is coming from, and I don't know if it's because my own situation regarding game experience is making me BoP-paranoid about something done in good faith, or if it's because I actually believe Pooky is trying to justify a read to the group that they already privately know is correct because they think there's a later benefit to it.

I don't feel strongly enough about this to vote on, because I'm just not sure enough I'm right about being suspect, but I didn't want to leave a "I don't like Pooky's slot" post floating around unexplained.

[UneducatedGuesser]

UG what is your input on current developments? I notice a few of the people you've expressed opinions on before have become hot topics, what's your take?

I was actually going to ask you something, Gamma, to help me sort my thoughts...

@MCat Because it rose up in response to the Noraa wagon and my meta on him tells me everything (or close to everything) he's being pushed for isn't scum indicative for him. I think Panzer is also perceiving Pooky like I did the first time I played with town!Pooky, which kinda makes me feel better about both of them. It's not enough to erase Panzer's dodging of my questioning earlier from my mind though, so I'd be okay voting there.

Can you go into a little detail with regards to your read on Pooky, please? I've expressed my concerns about Pooky already as you just noted, but it's more tentative than I'd like, more feeling than reasoning on my end in my own opinion, and I'm starting to get slightly weirded out by the wagon on that slot and the way it's happening.

Same question applies to anyone else who thinks they can give me some insight here, actually.

Like, fypov, either pooky is scum or not, and you're always town, so those are literally the only possibilities as you would see it.

is this a scum slip? idk why anyone would know my alignment besides scum

Are you joking?

Also I don't understand why people are discounting the possibility that both pooky and noraa are scum together

. Like, theres plenty of other votes out there for the scum to be on and counterwagons aren't always scum led. If you look at Noraas iso and look at her interactions with pooky you'll see what I'm talking about. Mostly weird jokey interaction with very little substance whenever she mentions him in the context of the game its just to say hes null or hard to read.

This is very little weight also and not related to the previous point but I find that unless players were going after each other anyway, scum is far more likely to down talk the counter wagon than town are, because they know the alignment of the other person. Just a minor probability thing in my experience.

*bolded to show which part of this quote inspired the next thought*

I was considering that same pairing to a point, but at the same time, I'm generally not a fan of leaning too hard into associative reads with no flips and no hard info in the game, and if a strong percentage of what I've got against someone D1 is based on the idea that they make sense as partners for someone else I don't like pushing on that point because it can be a very unsteady house of cards. I'm starting to be put off of MC's push on Pooky a bit because it DOES feel like so much of it is "well if Pooky's scum with x then y makes sense and so on so forth" and that's all well and good but if Pooky flips green then it's just wind. I've actually been decently TRing MC from the opening bell, which I think I've mentioned a few times, but the more I see of this interaction between MC and Pooky the more I feel like it's noise, and I'm not sure if I like the sound of it. Not enough to flip my read outright but it's weakening how I feel about both of them.

As far as Noraa... nothing's changed for me, really, none of this feels like how her town game felt when we played together before, but as was pointed out the first time I said that, there's not a lot of meat on the bone in terms of game volume (post volume's a different story) and experience, but this just feels so much different from the game we played together that I'm having real trouble believing that she could play this way as the same alignment to my previous experiences. if I were being asked to pick my preference to get yeeted between those two I'd prefer Noraa to go. I'm not entirely sure where the VCs are at this stage and I'm not quite 100% on this because I'm still trying to read and sort a few slots and narrow things down some more, but I'm not going to be uncomfortable with Noraa being flipped, even if I end up thinking she's not the best option.

[UneducatedGuesser]

I would like uneducated guesser to be more specific about what he finds different so I can dig into it myself.

I stated some of this already, but this is why I both feel uncomfortable about Noraa, but also slightly uncomfortable about the read and haven't voted it to this point.

In the game we played together, that I'm basing her town game on, it was a game where she was universally town-read, and also, by virtue of actions fairly early in the game around the end of D1, she was basically face-up, to my mind at least, a TPR.

She has stated that her defensiveness and OMGUSsy behaviors when under pressures are NAI and just her style, but I do not have any first hand experience that that is true based on my game with her because she was never in that position. I did, however, read her first two games, where she played as scum. In one of them she very much like she currently is in the face of pressure, and in the other... well, her partner fake-CCed as a doc day 1 in order to push through a miselim and pretty much hung her out to dry and it's hard to read anything from that scenario because she was dealt a very bad hand.

So, that's the major meta point, her behavior in this game is something I have seen her act like as scum, if only second hand, but not as town, to my knowledge. The flailing, the OMGUS, the hyper-defensive language all call back to that. And I have stated, and others have stated, that there is not a huge sample to work with, which is why I'm not trying to push it all that hard, expect to say in response to Gamma's question that if it comes down to Pooky and Noraa I'd rather Noraa be the one to go.

On top of that, there are things going on in this game that I hate, there are reaching efforts to misrep things, like accusing MC of backtracking when he started going through his reads and didn't immediately mention her after their early interaction, or whatever that was a few hours ago with Gamma that Shea brought up. There is not, in my opinion, any great effort to progress the game on her part (and I realize that's pot and kettle coming from me but I'm not backing away from that, I'm having trouble getting my head in the game as much as I'd like, I'm generally not great in early game, which I've long known is major weakness of mine, and that may also be part of the problem here, that my knowledge of Noraa is making sorting her a lazy default to get me started) but on sheer post volume alone the lack of substantive work on her part is surprising, because again, in the game we played she definitely had way more moments of pushing her own reads that were more than OMGUS-inspired deflection.

And her defense of these things is that she's always like this and she's new and meta shouldn't be brought into it... that's not, to my mind, a defense, that to me means she's either scum or, unless she's given the cover of being locktowned by most of the game, she's bait and a distraction, and not really all that helpful because unless she's left alone she's not doing much hunting beyond saying "no u." But again, because there's so little of a sample, I'm giving it some possible credence on the grounds of not wanting to be the guy who's just like "eh, new to the game, yeet 'em 'til they learn", but to be honest, I'm running out of leeway because she's not really doing anything IMO to cover for that. Her point on Bulge in 976 was one of the first decent examples of what I meant by her town play because even if it's not a read I agree with, it's an example of independent thought that I honestly think she could have done a lot more of with the volume she's committed to the thread.

[UneducatedGuesser]

UneducatedGuesser
Phew last one. Not enough here for a meta read, so again all based on iso. I actually really like 165 it feels genuine in that I don’t think it is sheeping anyone else like I would expect from newb scum. UG what is your experience offsite? I actually didn’t realize how little experience you have onsite as your posts read like a more experienced poster IMO. You mentioned that you played off-site, curious about how much? Honestly I don’t think I have a lot of commentary on UG’s iso other than to say I probably should have been town reading him more. I think it’s just the overall low number of posts that prevented me from doing that. The posts that are there just read really genuine and show independent game solving IMO.

Somewhere in the region of about 20-25 games, off the top of my head. First one was in 2005. The vast majority was around 2009-2011. The one game you read that I've played onsite was the first one I'd played since... 2013, maybe 2014, I don't rightly remember, but no later than that. Might be part of my problem so far in this game. This is a talented plist that I've never (with one exception obvs) played with before and I feel woefully out of practice. No idea if ring rust is generally considered to be a thing in mafia but it feels like it.

@UG can you give your thoughts about the me/Pooky/Murdercat debacle, pls and thx.

Thoughts on you - I believe your push is legitimate and I'd like to see the result of the discussion that was promised between Pooky and yourself in 784 because I could see where you were coming from and what Pooky said in response may be useful to helping me finally sort that slot in a more comfortable way than a weird gut read. I started off with a slight SR on you over your Blitzo vote, but I think my issue with you there was more playstyle issue than alignment, and you've generally grown on me throughout the game and I have you more in my town-leans now.

Thoughts on MC - I've had MC in my town-leans since early on, I was ok with his part of the Blitzo wagon, and I think there's been a solid consistency to their game. I've already expressed that some of the case wrt Pooky doesn't do it for me because trying to sort associatives pre-flip on D1 and using the things you come up with as a partial basis for your push isn't really something I'm into, I think it takes people down some very questionable roads if you aren't ironclad in your initial case without it. Also I don't really agree with the people he's putting in there as part of his solve which doesn't help. My read on MC is less firm than it was, but I'm awhile away from switching to a SR.

Thoughts on Pooky - I've expressed my issues on this slot, those are fairly removed from the discussion as regards this topic. As far as the last few pages have gone, honestly, MC and Pooky's back and forth have done more for my comfort levels with Pooky than the other way around. (With minor exceptions, the husband and wife thing with Blitzo in 739 was weirdly put together and felt out of place, and there's some snark laced through Pooky's posts that feel at odds with what seems to be a line of attempts to have good faith discussions in order to clarify the votes on them.) Part of why I asked Gamma and others who know Pooky and aren't convinced by their wagon to speak on it, I'm trying to get a feel if those parts that I consider to be exceptions in tone are natural for Town-Pooky in the face of what they consider to be a shit-push on their slot. I'm hovering null with a slight nudge into scum-lean, but not as much as was there 2-3 days ago.

All things considered, I consider it possible there's scum in this trio, with Outworld being the least likely candidate as of this moment, but if we get to the end and this turns out to be some early game TvTvT nonsense it won't come as a great surprise to me either.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Apologies about being gone EOD last phase, I had a thing come up at work that I forgot to post V/LA for before I took off (My work devices are monitored and I was doing emergency work out of state at kept me away from home overnight. Forgot my personal phone when I left.) I'm starting to get real sick of my weekends getting chewed up by emergency on-call shit. Sig is edited appropriately in case this happens again.

@Blitzo: You seem to have 180ed pretty hard on Gamma since twilight. Going from "he's 100% scum" to "I was being nitpicky" and joining him on the same wagon jarred me a little bit. Curious as to whether you can direct me anywhere in particular in Gamma's ISO that helped you change your mind? I've got some doubts on Gamma's slot right now so I'm wondering if there's something there that works for you that I might have missed.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Do you actually think that? Or is this just the latest progression of your game so far where you advocate for the scumminess of policy-yeet targets, people you seem to personally dislike, low activity players, and other low-hanging fruit? I'm not going to say I don't fit that standard, I very obviously do. I just think it's a pretty questionable standard filled with more things that annoy you than things that are indicative of alignment. If you'd care to engage me on your read of my slot, I'll hold you to your own standards as stated in 1642 and say I expect some receipts to be provided.

I asked you about Gamma because you took a very big flip-reverse on Gamma real fast to the point that I was outright shocked by it. I personally, really dislike Gamma's slot at the moment, so that's my top SR, and here's why.

Even if you take his twilight reaction to the Pooky case out of the equation (which seems to have drawn at least mild interest from elsewhere), the progression of his votes from near the end of D1 through to D2 has me concerned.

First off, I think painting Panzer as a compromise candidate against Noraa and Pooky (and later MC) is kind of disingenuous. The votes on Panzer were basically Gamma and a troll vote from NM and… that was it, really. Maybe more people expressed some amount of interest in it, but as far as I remember the highest amount of unvoted interest expressed in yeeting Panzer came in the context of a discussion about policy-yeeting. It was never all that viable in any real and concerted way and saying otherwise is downright incorrect. Also the Ro3 thing Gamma came up with felt real light, it was a reach, but Panzer had drawn enough irritation that I think it didn't get questioned as much as it should have.

Then, Gamma has a fit of pique and votes for Noraa because he’s had enough of her being… well… her. Understandable to a point but, and no offense intended here, I’ll apologize after the game if I’m wrong on this and it was emotionally genuine, that vote looked like performance art to me. Cover to either flip Noraa green or (potentially, because this grouping is starting to feel very viable to me) cover to distance from Noraa by being on the wagon just long enough to appear to be on the wagon but also be able to do what gets done next.

We’ve got what Gamma says feels like a scum-steered wagon on MC that reaches completion, and I agree on that front, I just also think Gamma's tipping point vote on MC at the time he did so had more to do with steering it than just about anything else that happened. The switch he makes from Noraa to MC is basically the vote that puts all the momentum on the MC wagon (5th vote that puts it clear of Pooky by a couple, and the switch away from Noraa basically derails any chance of her wagon being pushed through.)

Add that to the twilight stuff, and the thing that bugs me… he says the Pooky case actually looks good, after the fact. Forget the assurance in his tone that might or might not be a scumslip that he already knew we were going to see MC flip green. He didn’t see MC’s case until then? Why not? He was active enough, is he not reading the thread properly, is he just skimming? Is he doing any type of real analysis on the posts of the guy he’s about to play a deep part in yeeting before he basically kills every other wagon by switching his vote? Or does he not need to read the thread in that much because he doesn’t have to hunt, he just has to not get caught?

And now… after spending twilight being real mad at Blitzo, and having Blitzo being real questioning of him…. We’re right back to Panzer with nary a comment on that topic, or on the topic of the Pooky case that looked good all of a sudden when it was only noticed too late to make a difference to MC’s day one fate? And Blitzo is right there following him on it, which seems weird, but Blitzo and Panzer have been shitty with each other for the entire game and it fits in with my earlier assessment of Blitzo's method of target accquisition so far, which may not actually be AI.

And of all the wagons during D1, Panzer’s the one that the scum were trying to steer people away from by pushing MC? The guy who was on there first and stayed there to the point where it drew complaints about his play? Not Pooky, who MC actually made a case against that Gamma actually suggested he liked and who was probably in the most danger of anyone else in the game D1 for the consistently longest amount of time without ever actually getting close? Not Noraa, who managed to never get past 3-4 votes without anyone being overly cool with her all day and who hopped on and off the MC wagon a questionable number of times with timing that seemed to coincide with how much steam her own wagon was getting (not even getting into the murky WIFOM-filled NKA waters of pointing out that the only non-Shea vote on her EOD was the one that died at night)? No, not Noraa, nor Pooky, the two actual wagons that got to around 4 votes each and stalled out all of a sudden, but Panzer, the guy who got two, maybe three votes at the absolute max (if I missed one that was on and off in between VCs), one of which was someone throwing a target on Panzer for NM to play along with.

I question the reasoning, the conclusions, and the motivations behind Gamma’s posts, votes and progression in this game. And I question whether he's trying to shift attention to Panzer in order to shift attention away from the other D1 wagons in an effort to shield someone working with him.

VOTE: Gamma

That's my read.

Gamma

One of Noraa or Pooky (or possibly even both but I'm less inclined to that option) just because of how rough their wagons went. Noraa feels more likely than Pooky because it feels like Gamma more actively derailed her wagon, not to mention Noraa's flip-flopping on Gamma so far that could be distancing attempts (remember, Blitzo, those exchanges between you two about how Gamma wasn't happening D1? Noraa was reading that hard when it was vanity, but now she's confused that there's a case on Gamma at all.), whereas Pooky's could have stalled just because MC talked himself into trouble on the grounds of being rather ineffective in making the case, but I can't rule Pooky out.

Any more than that I've yet to come to a strong determination on, but a shortlist to this point includes...
Blitzo (You and Gamma have been on the same page more often than not, and when you haven't been it's been in inconsequential ways, or in twilight snits that miraculously clear up by the time votes start to count again. Plus, I've seen the "attack inactives" line used to buy cheap mis-yeets often enough to mistrust it when I hear it.)
Kasu (this feels unlikely in conjunction with Gamma given the way D2 started and our agreement on his slot, but I have some lingering independent doubts),
NM maybe because who the hell knows with him.
Outworld possibly because I see the "inside baseball" point being made as potentially valid but I'm not overly convinced by it alone and I was generally TRing Outworld D1.
(And obviously as I said already I'm not ruling out both Noraa and Pooky being together and inhabiting scumslots 2 and 3.)

Everyone else I'm either solidly TRing, or I don't think they would, as scum, fit in any sensible way with my stronger reads as they stand. This need to be narrowed down more, obviously, but it's where I'm starting this day off.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Tonal issues between you and Panzer, if I misread you on that front I apologize, though obviously he meets your criteria in other directions. I'll get to the rest of it when I get back home, on my phone now. Just wanted to clarify that part quickly.

[UneducatedGuesser]

I will concede that I called you out without providing much reasoning why in that post, but I think I've actually harped on my current plans for today for the most part back on day 1 - I've stated that I think less actives are a better option for elimination today simply because of how the wagon became an unstoppable mass of votes due to the small number of people who actually showed up for the EoD.
You, due to your lurky nature, are obviously one of those candidates.

I actually don't hate the post you just made, though there are obviously too many scumreads.
Why are your townies town?
If you had to narrow down your scumlist, who would be your top picks?

Ok, now that I'm home and fed...

What this really comes down to is that you think I represent a better than random-fire chance of hitting scum because you think inactivity within the game is at least partially scum-motivated. I can accept that as a fair position to take with regards to me at this time. That said, my absence was legitimate, and trust me, nobody is more aggravated by my lack of availability and contributions during D1 than I am.

Now to answer your questions...

TRs
Shea is, for me, a strong TR. I don't think that's any major surprise, he's been strongly TR for most of the game, by most of the players. He's active, engaging on multiple topics, and attempting to sort and solve.
Panzer is null and possibly even slightly scummy to me in a vacuum, but this is not a vacuum read. He's been a consistent target of my top SR and because of that POE dictates that if I'm right on Gamma then Panzer is probably town. As such, while I feel strongly on Gamma as I currently do, going after Panzer is not a line I'm entertaining.
Bulge is something of a gut-read on my end, but when he has been active I've liked some of his interactions in thread so far (see: his D1 interactions with Shea/Pooky on the subject of Kasu when Kasu was pushing Shea, and also his current interactions with Outworld.) When he's attempting to engage I do think he's earnestly digging, and tbh I'd feel like a hypocrite if I didn't take his statements about his activity levels at face value, at least for now.

--

If I were narrowing down my scumlist, as of right now, I'd probably shave Kasu and Outworld off first. Outworld was one of my stronger TRs on D1, and while his D2 entry has soured that to an extent, I don't think I'm soured enough to completely flip my read there beyond saying he's trending down in my head. Kasu, while there's something nagging me about him, it's again a gut thing. However, as I consider him unlikely to be compatible with Gamma at the moment I'd probably POE him off the list just as I've done with Panzer.

NM, I'm just null because I can't tell a damn thing. Some people who've played with him on occasions seem to have some semblance of an idea, but not me. He was on the list less as a read and more because if we do go the way of policy that's where I'm willing to be politic.

Which leaves Gamma, Noraa, Pooky, and you, in order of most to least problematic for me, though there's a wide gulf between Gamma/Noraa and Pooky/you.

Gamma I've explained.
Noraa I have expressed issue with already, and I think she was the biggest beneficiary of how things collapsed onto MC last dayphase.
Pooky is partially because of the stalled out wagon, combined with the strongest pusher of said wagon flipping green. Add in gut stuff dating back to D1 that I've never quite shaken off. However, Pooky did a far stronger job defensively than MC did offensively during that push, so Pooky's wagon never getting to full momentum makes sense without Pooky having to flip red.
You because you make sense to me with Gamma, tbh, and I think your plan of attack on the low-actives can be used as a way by scum to hide a deliberate mis-yeet of LHF-town. I just don't trust you enough to blindly accept it as a good faith suggestion at this stage of the proceedings.

I'm not happy with the number of scumreads either, while we're on that subject. I'm going against my own habits by thinking of teams without getting at least one red flip to start me off. This is why I don't like doing that, my reads end up being a Fibonacci sequence. Narrowing that down is an ongoing goal for me this phase.

[UneducatedGuesser]

I mean, yeah, but I had the benefit of being able to read multiple completed games of you as scum as well as one where you were town. I had a bigger sample size to work with.

Plus...

I played one game with guesser as town and town!guesser didnt sus everyone or have walls as long as the ones here.

Different setup, different player list, different activity levels across the board, different ability for me to keep up with the thread at various times. My reads on you are not dependent on those things, they were dependent on your established reactions to being put under pressure across multiple games. Not all meta is created equal. Anyway, now I'm SRing you because I'm pretty sure that you never survive D1 from Shea's push on you without getting yeeted if scum didn't want you to survive, so that has nothing to do with anything other than the here and now.

Also the walls part is junk and you know it is, given that you complained about me writing walls on multiple occasions in the other game, most of which were of equal size to the first large post I made today and longer than the second. BTW just lol if you're trying to imply that writing walls is AI I'm not even going to waste my time on that further.

Guesser was also more present and the tone was less .... idk passive?

I was slightly more present. I was significantly more visible because I was willing to fluff-banter with you and I don't have time for that this game.

I also just laid out a case on someone with significant reasoning. If you'd accused me of passivity in D1 you might have had a shot, but I've been more aggressive in five posts of this dayphase than you've been in this entire game. You don't vote (and get snippy when called out about it), you don't solve (and whine about your reads sucking on D1 so you didn't want to say them, but now it's D2 so enough of that), you give one liners when pressed on reads and avoid reasoning even when pressed. You have been, based on your overall non-defensive content in this game, one of the most active active-lurkers I've ever seen play a mafia game so far in this thread.

[UneducatedGuesser]

I still think most of the things she's saying is wrong but I think that even a surface level reading would notice a significant shift in terms of saying people are scummy and pressing on things.

A shift, I suppose. I think describing it as significant is more credit than I'd give it, though.

So far during D2 there's been some lukewarm NKA (which only exists realistically around the concept of whether it frames her and how she'd have killed you, which is just defensive WIFOM.), a SR on Outworld she hasn't voted on that arrived somewhat unprompted, which I guess counts? (With some backdoor shade on you about... OMGUSing Outworld even though she agrees with your read which is just WTF.). Which led into a discussion of whether or not OMGUS and other terms mean what they've been established to mean over decades or whether they mean what Noraa's decided they mean this week and her doing some bickering about it (A discussion that was had about her definition of "sheeping" on D1, in fact, just getting rehashed with different jargon).

And we end with her scumpinging me on some questionable meta reads and nondescript tonal arguments, and that's just a continuation of her typical "no u" defense that gets broken out every other scumread on her as far as I can tell, since she managed to quote this post...

That's no what I'm talking about. What about his posts strikes you as scummy besides your perception of tone?

I don't remember ever doing that?

And not actually answer the question regarding her read on me while responding to you and Bulge both, so I do feel somewhat justified in saying that I really don't think she's pressing much, because if she is and she's legitimately scumreading me she should be able to give at least a rudimentary answer to that question, even if the only answer was something like "it's just the tone" or whatever it's better than ignoring it. As far as I'm concerned she's just shading me in an attempt to discredit me instead of actually trying to make a real read.

If you're seeing something different here I confess I'm missing whatever it is.

[UneducatedGuesser]

If you don't know why I'm voting for Gamma then I just don't think you're reading the game, I explained my vote in detail already.

Anyway, my read on you is not the topic of discussion here, your read on me is the topic of discussion, we're here because you engaged with me, not the other way around.

Have you got an answer to Bulge's question yet, or nah?

[UneducatedGuesser]

btw I do wanna poke something rq
UG, why have you only really started substantially contributing to the game just recently?

Life. Stress about my cat's health. Work problems (My job can involve out-of-state travel on minimal to zero notice). I just didn't feel comfortable in the game, always behind, always trying to play catch-up and something else coming up every time I thought I was getting a handle on things. Over the past week those issues have been more settled and gave me a chance to actually get calibrated. Not quite where I want to be yet, though. Noraa made a good point amongst the bad ones, I'll give her that, I haven't done enough to sort every slot to my satisfaction yet.

[UneducatedGuesser]

Sorry, work stuff again.

Working through reread the game with an eye to this...

I think the scum team is {noraa, OutworldER} + one of {The bulge, panzer}

Though I don't think I can rule out N_M Pooky or blitzo either.

Not because of Shea's opinion in particular, it's just the most recent reference, but there seems to be a prevailing wind where a couple of people I've been townreading to a greater or lesser degree (Bulge, Outworld) aren't being looked at the same way by a decent portion of the plist and I'm trying to see if I see it.

[UneducatedGuesser]

UNVOTE:

No longer think Gamma’s the best option. My issues with his D1 voting record remain, but the hood being outed and the issues springing forth from it happening make things different.

Okay so I am actually going to fully out myself here because I’m super fucking concerned about what just transpired. Me and Blitzo are in a neighborhood together and I’ve been constantly struggling to get him to interact in it, and he doesn’t have any hang-ups about using hoods so it really bothers me that he’s so inactive. This was why I supported Shea’s pressure there super-early, in fact. I thought he might have been trying to use hood contents to push me as scum towards the end of D1, and that’s why I threatened civil war. We managed to work it out overnight where he stayed he wasn’t actually referring to hood contents at all but my actions in the main thread. After we resolved that I collaborated with him to decide a push to work on while I waited for MafiaSunny to end, and we landed on Panzer.

So UG, that should address your concerns about my slot, and it’s funny I do this now because Blitzo has been freaking out about your read on me for some time. I’d been starting to grow concerned that he didn’t want me to go down because I am tied to him and have generally been a benefactor for him, plus since your concern about me involved my Blitzo interactions he might have felt pressured through that.

Anyway, on to the real concern of mine that drives me to post this now. I had spoken of my skepticism that the entire limpool for D2 happened to be all town PRs. While speaking on that I mentioned I recalled Noraa dropping he hint of not being a very important role D1. Li and behold Noraa suddenly remembers to speak on that not 3 minutes later. I’m super concerned Blitzo dropped a line to his buddy Noraa to handle that concern, and her, being new, didn’t really have a grasp on how to do that without drawing the attention of the one who had the best window into that connection.

So I’m super concerned about Blitzo and Noraa being partners now, and if we’re not gonna vote Noraa because she softed a PR can we PLEASE consider voting Blitzo out instead for seemingly feeding Noraa lines to handle my suspicions?

Explains some of what I was feeling, actually. Something about you and Blitzo together kept nagging even after your twilight interactions, as you noted, and did some to inform my leanings on him.

I think force-feeding him the answers doesn't allow him to truly show his work. And I could have said that in the hood but I really didn't see why the hell you needed to know? Fourth time saying this I think, but he was pushing me for the most part, not you. So unless you were worried that the pressure on me would lead into pressure on you, which seems like scummy thing to be worried about, it should not be your problem. And yeah, I did kinda shoot myself in the foot but I was mega-spooked so I wasn't exactly thinking that extra step when I wrote out that part.

I didn't push the issue because I felt okay with my vote as it stood at the time, and since I wasn't particularly confident in my overall grasp of the game beyond it I felt ok parking and using my time to evaluate other players. I actually found myself becoming less interested in your reactions (I’ve started feeling better about you as the day went on, all things considered) and more interested in the fact that Blitzo kept asking other people in the game about their opinions on my case on you.

I think Pooky referenced it too, earlier on during the phase, that when I first dropped the vote on you he was shading me a little on the back and forth then suddenly a few other people expressed approval of the post and he backed off of me and started trying to gather opinions on you instead. The hood existing makes sense of his response, but not really in a good way, for me. See, if Blitzo’s green and thinks Gamma’s red, what exactly is he worried about, right? He can just stop using the hood, push you straight up, out the hood himself, etc… why the push by proxy? Because that’s what it seemed like, when Blitzo kept asking people about my Gamma case, it felt like he was trying it on my behalf while trying to keep himself from really being seen to be a part of it.

So, Biltzo has said he agreed with me, and if that’s the case…
-Why shade me?
-Why back off shading me when people in the game liked my posts?
-Why not actually express agreement on things himself, why spend all of his time trying to gauge the rest of the playerlist about what they thought of Gamma?
-Why only act on his own suspicions on Gamma when Gamma calls him out?

Starting to think Blitzo figured he could push a wagon on one of us, but was more interested in finding out which wagon was easier than picking the right wagon.

Like, Blitzo MIGHT just be paranoid as hell, here, but there’s a few things wrong there for me right now.

HOWEVER….

After everything with Noraa, Blitzo becomes less of a concern for me this day, at least until Noraa claims, there’s just TOO goddamn much at this point from her.

All the people that want the Noraa claim… I nth their motion.
(Also lul she doesn't know how to read me. Same shit again and again, she's done it to Shea, she's done it to me, she's doing it to Gamma now... she knows to SR people talking about her and ignore people that aren't. Stopped actively SRing me when I stopped talking, look how that worked out. Pretty much every goddamn time at this point.)

VOTE: Noraa