Open 843 - Divide & Conquer - Game Over!

[Prism]

I'm sorry. I cannot do this anymore. Other than my spats with Dunnstral this gameday has been fine but I'm burnt out both IRL and here.

VOTE: innocentvillager

I'm sorry IV. I know I promised a response but I'm tired. This does not come without thought. I have worked over your ISO several times. I think your play today is scummy. I think Esther's is very, very clean bordering on perfect if scum. I promise I read every word so if I'm wrong get your shot in and just leave it, I don't want to argue anymore. There is beauty in process and doing things the right way but I'm just done. I'm burnt out. I suck. I'm done. I want out.

I am also especially sorry to Brighter-town if I am wrong. Again.

If people prefer Dwlee instead I can go there but I am not voting Dunnstral today. If he's been doing this on purpose it's fair game and about time I got a taste of my own medicine but our reads match and there's no reason for him to accommodate going in 3 today if he's scum with esther. Dwlee was set to get flipped.

[Prism]

This is like when you go to tell someone you're laying them off and you walk into them crying because their dog just died.

Good luck with your RL, man, and same.

[Prism]

I'm so set on you being scum that I didn't hammer you yesterday, insisted on IV, and had Dunnstral as my top vote yesterday.

You're currently voting in 6 despite acknowledging 3 was better and I just went over why you were scummy to me, just presented why you are the most likely partner for IV, only to have you go "ok but i was unsure"

[Prism]

Im disappointed you’ve incorrectly decided Esther is the town but you’re in an unenviable position. if I get a chance tomorrow I will try to sway you but it seems you’re too far deep somehow

Thank you for being so understanding, regardless of alignment. I'm sorry that I broke my promise.

[Prism]

Honestly especially if you're scum, thank you for not piling on more.

[Prism]

I literally just placed my vote for the night but for some reason it's imperative that you hunt me down specifically over Dragons/Dunnstral who have wanted to flip you all day like jesus christ

[Prism]

Great, I'm not voting you, I'm proud of you if Dunnstral is scum, that still completely ignores all of the substantive reasons I have given and you're still just crossing your arms and shaming me for being wrong.

[Prism]

I'm glad that you can type from your informed perspective but can't put half of that shit into words and expect me to hunt through a million different posts to do all of the work instead right after I just stared at two ISOs for hours and came to the exact opposite conclusion.

My fault for Day 1 but I am absolutely sick of this game.

[Prism]

I get that our styles conflict and we rarely agree, and again same thing as with IV, if I'm wrong, sorry, it is not for lack of reading or effort and what I do give you just blatantly shove to the side and assume that I should see it's genuine. If you think it is so obvious you are town and I am the World's Biggest Moron put together the case for it and present it instead of expecting me to do literally everything

[Prism]

I do accept the apology and appreciate it. I know I have not been the most levelheaded and patient person the last week.

[Prism]

IV is also at E-1 and you can hammer at literally any time.

[Prism]

Dude you have unexpectedly been the best friend I have had all game, it's fine.

I might not respond though, just a heads up, depends on how I feel. I feel slightly better having just vented for a bit but am just making Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny meme progressions to cope.

[Prism]

You have earned enough goodwill that I will fly you out to Disneyworld if you want, all previous sins have been forgiven

[Prism]

By "clean" play, I mean I do not think esther has been even slightly opportunistic today, and has not been hesitant in hunting in 6, selling her case, and ruling out others (eg. on Dunnstral). Her points have all been natural to me, her realtime interactions too, and the only one I thought was out there was the one about me pushing to go in 6. If she hasn't played with me before she also will not understand my scum POV on strategy.

1048 in particular I want to highlight as a very, very good post. I took a very different angle on the IV post that I will discuss in a second, and it definitely has scum incentive in trying to nudge me along, but is more likely just chewing seriously on the partner question and what motivate IV to give that read.

I saw your tonal point, but I didn't find it persuasive. I talked about it earlier. I do similar as scum, but I copied it after losing to town players repeatedly. They're also very open about the approach, which again might just be the next layer of scumplay, but it is again extremely clean if so.

I think IV's day leans on the scum side, too. I again think the cut-off check-in and how little fight in him he has is indicative, and if I am wrong then okay. I read through the wall, and while it may have been the tilt, I did not find it cohesive or convincing, particularly in points like "Why is esther so calm?" when as scum she has more reason to be nervous and struggle to post, while IV's "calm" has been in the form of lost energy at a time when I expect he would have gone harder. He does not like playing scum and gets very demotivated even if he can put up a good fight when needed, and I think the wall lines up with that. His defense of me today, when I was not on the table but IV was, really suggested to me it was an attempt to win my vote back before it slipped.

[Prism]

I have been wary repeatedly of players just playing extremely "clean" scumgames, which to me is largely an intuitive concept just because I have a strong internalized compass for what is the right play as scum and what isn't, but every single time they have been town. There is a very limited sample, and I'm sure it will happen, and maybe it is this game.

I did not actually skim her scumplay as part of that vote but skimming it now it is IMO a step down from her play this game, even with the scum advantage of multiball. The level of play might have been just lower across the board, but again, if she's scum and I'm wrong, OK.

The full list of things wrong is like 1. Pushing in 6 for a bit on Day 1 2. The push on me today is arguably a hail mary. The only other things I see to really criticize are like surface-level reads at the very start of Day 1, which is totally plausible as town, or your inherent distrust of her tone today.

[Prism]

Nothing in his tone really screams scum to me. The most i get is waffling and not commital reads.

He's a very tonal player; I think reading him off of this is a mistake. I think bouncing this off of Norwegian's experience in 912 would go a long way.

I cannot fully elaborate on my townread of IV early because it involves ongoing games, but stepping back to a holistic picture, I expected some degree of early reads (check!) as opposed to questioning, and think he wound up slipping backwards after Day 1. Specifically with esther, I expected a lot more because he typically goes door to door selling his scumreads even when they're off the wall.

[Prism]

I get that "clean"/"sharp" are very vague descriptors. I know there are 2/3 times it has happened, but the most vivid wasHectic in Undertale 2.0, and while I don't think you're concerned about my alignment I want to make it clear that I'm not just pulling random bullshit out of thin air on you. It's not making any "mistakes" day in and day out all week long.

[Prism]

If you make a case on flipping Dunnstral I will look at it in the morning but that is all I have in the tank for tonight.

I'm glad I mustered up some energy and I'm not as dismayed as I was earlier but I'm back to Very Tired

[Prism]

I think you're misconstruing Dunnstral. Dunnstral said he already explained his reads, which he had [in general], even if not specifically to IV. I think this is par for the course for Dunnstral to avoid the restatement. He has discussed his reads, even if they are not that elaborate beyond the one on dwlee.

I think there are issues his play/lack thereof but don't see any indicator of PT-not-main-thread shenanigans.

[Prism]

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence [...]

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!"

Another day in the MafiaScum.net trenches. Fight from it, run from it, disown it, dread it, still it comes.

[Prism]

I am down to vote whatever gets us a flip.

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote in 1168. Simultaneously, Dunnstral shares my current reads and does this null lurkathon virtually every game. I do not think my line of reasoning yesterday on why he's not scum with esther is entirely right but I do not currently think esther is scum regardless. Preflips are again not my favorite.

[Prism]

For Norwegian, I thought several moments qualified as slimy, particularly in the wall. You're more familiar with 9:12 than I am so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fundamentally your critique of esther is purely tonal. I think her tone today is fine, I had some issues Day 1, and I don't put a lot of stock in tone anyway unless I think that specific person would react differently.

I have entertained your solve repeatedly and don't share the reads. If your definition of "give your solve a chance" is to just throw my own judgment out the window it's probably not the worst idea in the world but meh.

[Prism]

If Dragons wants him too then okay, sure, but right now I don't see how this goes through without a blitz.

Only viable votes atm are Dwlee/IV.

[Prism]

While I'm willing to vote in 6 I don't think we currently can get consensus.

[Prism]

Actually if esther/IV vote in 6 we can. If one refuses to vote anybody we can just force them through instead.

Might be worth a shot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Prism]

Me trying to break stalemates only to have people flip around and create new ones.

I don't think we're currently on track to deadlock unless Dunnstral comes back and forces 6 so current path is fine imo.

[Prism]

I'll be around but am just going to let it sit in dwlee/Dragon's court for now and try to go do something else with my life. I'm not going to strongarm a hammer but I think this is our best chance of getting a correct flip today.

Would appreciate more content from Dragons in any case.

[Prism]

[Prism]

do you have any further thoughts on why that might be the case

do you still prefer dwlee in 6

[Prism]

half tempted to just vote dunnstral and build brighter a statue if it flips scum

i'm not at that point yet

but i am close

[Prism]

Careful, don't set the bar too high for yourself.

[Prism]

You were also in 9:12, am I just crazy to think that IV can fake this?

[Prism]

...What specifically am I supposed to be looking at in this game?

Checking it against my own points he gives early reads freely, which is the recent thing I was watching for, and openly admits to struggling to play scum and claims it is his best game on record.

He admittedly did not write a Harry Potter book in reaction to anyone voting him that game but this came after already getting called out for effort so ?_? who knows

[Prism]

Tonally he's probably stronger in that game than this one so ?_?

[Prism]

I love being forced to guess Dunnstral's alignment based off of 2/3 sentences every 48 hours and maybe one strong post a week.

[Prism]

Town or scum the onus is squarely on dwlee here. Either way they go I would like to hear why. I will check in to avoid deadlock but I want my life back and I'm stuck in a holding position atm.

[Prism]

What I'm getting from this is that I just have to look at esther's tone, ignore all of the hunting in 6, all of the motions, not missing a step, etc. and feel in my heart of hearts that she is scum even when I actively hate things from the IV slot.

To be blunt: No.

If you think it's Dunnstral/esther feel free to vote Dunnstral.

[Prism]

VOTE: Dunnstral

I dropped it already. If you're going to refuse to play, then okay.

[Prism]

VOTE: dwlee99

The fact that IV didn't blitz gives me pause but sure.

[Prism]

@Pav I also just swapped.

Seen and updated, Prism's vote came while I was adding the vote count. -Pav

[Prism]

I still don't think it's him and he's giving content now. If it's not to me, understandable.

Dunnstral, I still prefer IV.

[Prism]

I'm getting paranoid

Of me? Of Brighter? Of Dunnstral? Of IV? Of yourself?

Successfully did not spend all day reading. We call it a W.

[Prism]

Not too late to vote in 3!

[Prism]

I'm going to stay out of it for now, but your own work on this would also be appreciated if it is of genuine interest to you.

[Prism]

Will say effort/tone aren't very AI, in contrast strategic choices I hardclaim as town in games regularly and this is one of those.

[Prism]

Not going to be around reading today, have a massive migraine, will check into swap as needed.

Preference list:

IV -> Dwlee -> Dragons -> Dunnstral -> Brighter -> esther

[Prism]

Fact that this game has only been 50 pages and might be over soon is insane. Feels like I've been locked in here for weeks. The ISOs are either long, dense, and discursive or short and sharp.

Day 1 wasn't even that long.

[Prism]

I have worked back over both ISOs repeatedly. Honestly, it is unlikely but you never know. Mafia is often a game of the unexpected.

P-Edit: same

[Prism]

I will find the voting implications today somewhat humorous if it is Dunnstral/IV, because I would have induced Dunnstral to bus only to get it deadlocked back on a VT after I threatened to policy him.

[Prism]

You make me want to not even read these ISOs lmao

Fundamentally it's up to you. I don't blame you if you don't want to as town, and I especially would not want you to if you're mafia because this game is 100% over and you should go to sleep instead.

There's value in concurring with me if I am right, and if I am wrong that will again be on me. I will tell you I don't find tonal arguments on esther persuasive and would be more open to more specific criticism regarding her reads/play.

I have a headache and was just doing a check-in. I apologize but I am cutting my part for the night out here.

[Prism]

While 3 is better absolutely do not selfhammer here IMO.

[Prism]

Arguably it avoids autoloss tomorrow but trying to use the elim correctly is more important

[Prism]

VOTE: Dunnstral

[Prism]

Have the votes for it.

Flips town I expect significant justification for these vote choices.

[Prism]

By that token we should vote you, and I think your scumflip is significantly more likely than Dunnstral.

That said, god do I hope he flips scum.

[Prism]

o k a y

Well Brighter let's see if you get the statue

[Prism]

1295 might seem counterintuitive at first but big difference between voting in 3 and having someone selfhammer in 3.

[Prism]

1285, I accidentally created a circle lmao

[Prism]

Need one of Dragons/dwlee/Brighter to swap in order to get IV, will be checking in sporadically until deadline and will gladly swap.

[Prism]

UNVOTE:

I will revote if Brighter still wants this but until they check in there is still hope

[Prism]

I just realized I should have done Total Eclipse of the Heart

Turn around, bright(er) eyes!

Alas.

[Prism]

VOTE: InnocentVillager

if that is hammer thank god if not ok

[Prism]

IT IS HOLY SHIT THE DAY IS OVER

if I strongarmed a second wrong elim I am fucking retiring lmao

(and esp. sorry to IV+Brighter if so)

[Prism]

I appreciate all of the effort IV but yeah, if I'm wrong I'm fucking wrong (twice ;_;)

[Prism]

day's over dawg

time to see if i get into the Clown Performing Arts PhD program, already got my BA in Clown History from Clown College

[Prism]

She said it it must be true

[Prism]

If I'm wrong you're not allowed to nightkill me, you have to let me go for the legendary 0/3 hat trick

[Prism]

[Prism]

I'm so alone with my fear,
With everything that I hear.
And every single door, that I've walked through
Brings me back here again,
I've got to find my own way.

[Prism]

I honestly don't want to think about all of this right now

Someone drag me out of the dilapidated, zero internet hut in a forgotten forest of Arkansas I will retreat to if needed

[Prism]

My mafia vacation was nice while it lasted, will be around tomorrow.

Still think Dwlee. Busy with several towngames previously, yesterday seemed to just be stalling out hoping town would randomly flip around. Flips on IV read were very random and not elaborated on.

Dunnstral has nothing hard town to him but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ welcome to playing with Dunnstral

While possible I think Dragons bussing yesterday is a huge ????????? snatch defeat from jaws of victory moment.

[Prism]

I do want to revisit Brighter so I expect that to be my main project.

[Prism]

Pretty busy the next few days. Half of me wants to YOLO but the other half of me says finish strong and do it right since this'll be my last game for awhile. I'm super burnt out and the spare time I had today I just spent playing BotW instead.

Anyone reread IV ISO to see what he spewed?

[Prism]

Dwlee can you actually track through how your read on IV progressed over time?

You put BoP on yourself to start, called him town, and then flipped because of esther not hammering something. I've just got whataboutism and a nebulous "We'd act different" in return every time I have brought this up.

I don't think what Dunnstral points out is the critical point for me. It's just a broad statement of the game that didn't have too much thought behind it (otherwise you would have gone indepth). Yeah, the game literally changes if a player flips scum, but what was your the cognition behind the idea there?

[Prism]

Tracking through the context again it's just an argument about why flipping in 3 is better. Dunnstral did it to get you to get the wheels turning to why voting in 6 is better.

Not really sold it's the best point but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Prism]

how did you [IV in 301] get to dwlee town?

is kuriyama god herself?

[Prism]

I glanced through the Chain of Command game overnight and did not find it convincing.

I think the circumstances of this game substantially differ, as has your own schedule and how much time you could commit to this game early.

[Prism]

I haven't been impressed by anything except your wall on Dunnstral. The issue is that Dunnstral does this underexplained lurking as town all the time. I thought your individual posts on IV/esther were wacky even before the flips. I thought you threw in the towel yesterday and just hoped town fucked it up, which to be fair almost happened.

I will review when I have time but I again do not appreciate the ball always being thrown into my court every single time. If you think something proves you town, quote it.

[Prism]

"Minus the associatives" is also a big ???, given again your previous stance on associative and my own.

What about this game is supposed to be unfakable? Your reads have been shallow one liners minus the one wall I pried out of you on Dunnstral. Am I supposed to be tonereading you and seeing that you are town in your heart of hearts just like everyone told me to do with esther?

[Prism]

Well that post to Dunnstral answers my question lmao

[Prism]

I will hopefully be back tomorrow but things are very stressful irl atm and the 2-day vacation reminded me I had to refocus. Mafia is really the last thing I want to do with my spare time atm but I do want to finish strong and GTFO

[Prism]

I do not have a veto and even if I did am definitely not using it to save Dunnstral lmao. I have things to do before I vote and would prefer Dwlee rn but there are 5 players here of equal standing, not me and my 4 retainers

Dragons, what say ye?

[Prism]

And during this time Prism was acting like I was the reason that we couldn't eliminate IV, or something.

My criticism was more nuanced.

I think you could count the votes and see IV didn't have them without you voting there. Combined with how little you said on it, distancing is free and this made me very skeptical of how genuine you were. This stopped when you voted IV and Dwlee stalled instead.

[Prism]

My life is a mess and I am 100% not getting to this in the next two days.

Down to flip either though prefer Dw.

Ultra-rare Dragons content is cool.

[Prism]

If people actively want to wait for me we can but I honestly don't really want to play ATM and would rather just chain it, if game continues I can double-check over night

[Prism]

VOTE: Dwlee

PAVOWSKI HOLD MY ELMER'S

[Prism]

If this continues I am going to be dead inside

[Prism]

Deserved? Probably.

Simultaneously I put in quite a bit of effort circling back on you and dialoguing with you. I read a game I wasn't in looking for nothing specific just because you asked. If I am wrong OK. My projects I didn't get to were reviewing IV and Brighter, not really you.

I will be happy for you if it is Dunnstral.

[Prism]

If you expect me to get on the ground and grovel for being wrong, no. I'm not Superman, your big sibling, or President of the Town. I am sick of playing in general and dealing with the level of expectations put on me to decide everything and want to focus on my interviews and go outside on occasion. I lost 6 lbs across Night 1 & Day 2 out of stress.

I am sorry if I am wrong, I will again keep reading when I can manage to, but that's it, I don't owe you anything else.

[Prism]

If you're just going to spend twilight being vicious I'm out.

Best of luck, again will be happy for you if it is Dunnstral.

[Prism]

If it helps it's not fun even when you get mafia yeeted.

Again I will do my best overnight when I have time, and during the day if someone is Truly Sick.

[Prism]

It's fine, I appreciate the last few posts and sorry again. Maybe Dunnstral had a point when he said I am impossible to convince I am wrong.

Take care yo.

[Prism]

(also please be cruel enough to troll me like this)

[Prism]

[Prism]

I really don't know what to tell you so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I dreaded that this might happen but now that it has I'm just ready to be humiliated and made to slog through more dogshit

If it's not broken don't fix it, just make me be wrong again

[Prism]

Actually I am not entertaining this, I would have hardthrown like 3-4x over as scum.

Day 2 was set to deadlock and town to piledrive itself but I dropped in every fucking 20 minutes to try and get us on the right track. IV making it to Day 3 is instantly winning, and having him blitz Dunnstral is also instantly winning.

[Prism]

By all means if you actually think I am scum take your time and make the case for it.

[Prism]

I put Dunnstral at E-1, IV had literally just posted 12 minutes before.

Perhaps he did not see it and it's null, but I swapped my vote basically immediately afterwards when Dunnstral gave real content again.

[Prism]

The town wouldn't have deadlocked because they

would have gone in 6 by default

. Myself, esther, Dwlee makes 3 votes on IV.

We literally couldn't flip him and he was completely safe, and I specifically called this out.

[Prism]

Spoiler: god fuck this game

Okay I did a bit of skimming over the past few pages - I remember why now I haven't been posting that much in this game. Maybe I'm just too detached from it at this point since I was doing other things on the weekend during that time, but if you actually look at the past few pages as a whole it's just a whole bunch of fucking nothing - arguing over G6 from person X's perspective, or "this person wants to go G3 because Y" - just dumb, super speculative things that you can talk about and fake all day

I could just have zero reading comprehension skills but honestly at this point I'm so done with the "We should go G6" or "We should go G3!" circlejerking that seems to dominate today's discussion - there are so many arguments for each scenario and it's kind of unclear which one's better objectively. I'm back to just wanting to flip whoever the fuck is scummy irregardless of group especially now that it's clear to me that people don't really want to flip esther anymore, and I really think that's the approach we should've taken from the fucking start of D1 and D2 instead of just inviting scum to posture around it forever - maybe I was partly complicit in that discussion with my vote to go G3 but I digress. But my point is partaking in this ridiculous discussion doesn't make you town.

The bottom line is what I see fmpov is scum taking advantage of the fact that I wasn't posting nearly as much as D1 so they felt emboldened to use this for esther to try and spew and pocket people with white noise participation. I'm just reading these posts and a lot of me is just going "what the fuck has esther actually contributed to the gamestate"? Like she's just here sort of loosely in the conversation and giving loose statements here and there totally relaxed. I don't know how you could POSSIBLY be relaxed as town in this case - yes I was the favorite for town going into today and the start of today but even then I was FUCKING NERVOUS about this and ready to go. Esther's demeanor here has NONE of that - it's just her being flat and present because she's already outlasted expectations by getting Todoroki killing early on D1 (which, I know there was a decent amount of discussion around this - NS gets townier as it goes on so I believe it was in scum's best interest to get on this wagon. Could the wagon have been all town? Objectively, like almost no fucking way given how much it benefits scum. Yes fmpov that scum is esther. Yes I was parked on esther during that time - and no I didn't do it because I was trying to chain her elim today, which is a really dumb argument because no scum actually cares about doing that.) so she's literally just freerolling this elim and lucked out that, OH NO, innocentvillager WASN'T HERE for like TWO RL DAYS.

Also the way that esther keeps tiptoeing around/talking to me and asking me questions is really rubbing me off the wrong way - like what is the fucking point? What is she trying to accomplish? To me the explanation is pretty clear - posturing. She's engaging everyone and pretending like this is just some normal day posting as if nothing special's going on, "oh yeah I'm scumhunting here, I'm participating in this discussion, asking everyone questions, etc." She's obviously not trying to discern my alignment so to me she's just going through the motions.

I'll add as an addendum that this 1v1 is fucking with my mind in a weird way, and I think it's not happening to esther because she's scum and/or maybe I'm just a very particular kind of person. I can't remember the last time I've been in this situation as either alignment - specifically, I mean that it's severely coloring my view of the game and how I interpret esther's posts. I'm seeing all the crap in her posting when it's like "oh, it's so fucking obvious she's scum" but in reality/objectively it's probably NAI to maybe slightly scum!indicative at best - even town!indicative stuff at worst. So yes some of this is probably forced/stretchy but that's just the way the fucking cookie crumbles I guess. It's just really tilting to see her be present and keep saying "lmao I'm going to get misflipped/I just get snap voted in melo" when it's very clear she's been continually swaying people to her side just by being present with people at a given time. IT'S FAKE ATE AND SELF DEPRECATION TO SEEM RELAXED GUYS I don't know how else to put this. I don't know why I'm not online with any of you at the same time but I guarantee if I was around with the same presence and times as her it'd be extra easy for me to "be involved" - this is me trying extra hard to try to compensate for that.

But my point about her headspace just being totally wack this game still stands. I'm not sure how many of you have been in an intense 1v1 situation but what esther's doing is NOT it, and I can tell you right now I can't even fathom playing the way she has been - the easy explanation here is that she is scum and in the wrong headspace here.

The other question here I have for people: who is my scumpartner?

It's not Puppies or Faker a) because they are obvtown b) there's no reason I'd be trying this hard here if either of them were scum especially when I HATE being scum. I can point to self meta examples where I just give up at this stage in the game (okay take 2175 Normal as an example) because I think my partner is going to win but wifom etc etc. If in some world you think I'm scum here, I could like maybe see myself going this hard if my partner is actually in danger of getting eliminated.

It's not Dwlee because as I've already mentioned our approach would be way different.

It's not STD because I don't shade him for the Todo hammer like I did. I'd be pretty sussed about hammering in general and doubt I would let STD do that. We'd also try to be way more distanced with each other rather than just me loosely calling him leantown for some dumb reason on D1.

It's not Dunnstral because he's been calling me scum with 0 explanation for the entire game.

I don't see how I'm ever scum with any of these players so if someone would like to posit one of these solves involving me then PLEASE enlighten me.

I wish I had a solve for us but I honestly just don't know. I'm still fairly confident it's in {dwlee, dunnstral, STD} but that's nothing new or surprising. If Prism/Fire aren't the next two nightkills then something really weird is up and I would reconsider them again. I'm GOING TO LOOK more into this on future days I promise but right now my priority is defense against the bullshit that I'm seeing - it's getting late and I'm cutting into my bedtime by the time I'll be done with this post.

Honestly, if there are particular reasons that people do townread esther's posts, can you just quote them my way and I'll explain why scum!esther makes that post? I'm simply not seeing what is towny about her posts

Okay I originally was typing this to respond to random quotes that I saw but now that I've typed all this, this almost feels like somewhat of an afterthought but I think it's going to emphasize my earlier points better.

Although maybe it is not as likely Esther/Dwlee.
Since Esther seems to be really naive about the possibility of bussing here.
Still leaves the option of IV/Dwlee though.

- Norwee

I've mentioned why IV/Dwlee is a bad solve.
But gee, I wonder what scum!esther would do if Dwlee and esther were bussing - she'd totally say that bussing is NAI for them! That totally doesn't defeat the point of it in the first place!

Idk if my sarcasm is getting the point across but what I'm saying is that if they actually were bussing it's very conceivable to me that she would try to push some towncred/antiassociative angle there.

how the fuck does maf!dwlee win if their buddy dies today?

like I'm being nitpicky but this tone is really weird - it's really not that hard to envision a scenario where anyone here endgames.

idk maybe it's just being ignored because, "

why answer questions from maf

", but i'll post it once more

inno, pretending youre town for a sec, when did you start actually believing that the team is me/dunn (as opposed to, merely pushing it for reactions)?

Okay first of all, you literally scumslipped with the bolded - you just called yourself maf. And it's not like you confused it with the other direction because at no point did I ask you a question even remotely like this, so the maf refers to you in your sentence, not me.

Yes ik it's a wording nitpick and last like 3 times I tried to explain to people that these came from scum no one listened to me - maybe fine, because at least one of those times I was wrong. So whatever I won't complain if people don't buy this.

Second see my above argument for why esther's attitude doesn't make sense here.

But I don't know why you think I was ever set on a you/Dunn solve - I might've mentioned it a bit ago on like page 8 but that was largely joking. To put it in context, that was really early in the game when I gave out shotgun reads and had you two in my lowest tiers, and it makes like zero sense to me why you're still bringing that up

Probably by convincing people to go dunn->std

The last few pages have sold me on Esther being town. I will want to meta but the last two pages are very, very sharp if she is scum.

I strongly prefer going in 3.

I know I have things to answer later, will get to them.

Explanation: mc esther scum should probably hammer me there but didn't

I think dunnstral is scum

I'm kind of back and forth on this but reviewing how high esther's wim has been the page 10-15 pages I'm back to thinking this isn't really true. I was kind of gone for a bit/not posting nearly as much on D2 and esther was clearly fighting on D2 - it wasn't at all clear that she was going to get misyeeted at that point in time. Maybe at the start of the day, but not at that point in time. If she's scum with like Dunnstral or STD I think it's really risky for her to hammer you because it could easily just go esther -> Dunnstral/STD for a town win.

I think maybe IV should be flipped

This turnaround is bad because a) completely unexplained b) very convenient timing right when popular opinion was for some magical reason shifting away from esther and onto me. I think dwlee/esther is a real possibility but again I could see the other pairings too atm.

i think iv expected to coast by today lmao

I wouldn't say coast but yeah I wasn't expecting such a big fight from you. Regardless you gave me a challenging 1v1 experience that I'll never forget, so thanks for that at least <3

Brighter can you explain the esther scumread?

Hammering last page isn't guaranteed but is fine play from her point of view depending on partner

I think my previous pages summarizes our scumread of Esther pretty well.
I agree on you that they have levelled up their play considerable in day 2 though. And especially recently.
So i'm not as sold on them being scum anymore, especially since IV has been pretty lacking by comparison.

- Norwee

Again this is kind of a ridiculous attitude to take in terms of reading but I'm not really faulting you in particular for it because I think many people (myself included) have used similar arguments. But it seems like this site is turning into a "whoever's been here more recently gets more townread" meta. Somehow everything that happened before gets like exponentially deweighted and forgotten while the recent posting is the only thing people seem to remember about creating reads. I think it's really easy for mafia to get by - if I were scum here for example I would've been intentionally posting a lot more frequently to remind people that I'm here and contributing shit. So let's stop siding with whoever happens to be "present and posting" in a given moment and actually try to figure who's been scum/town this game

By "clean" play, I mean I do not think esther has been even slightly opportunistic today, and has not been hesitant in hunting in 6, selling her case, and ruling out others (eg. on Dunnstral). Her points have all been natural to me, her realtime interactions too, and the only one I thought was out there was the one about me pushing to go in 6. If she hasn't played with me before she also will not understand my scum POV on strategy.

1048 in particular I want to highlight as a very, very good post. I took a very different angle on the IV post that I will discuss in a second, and it definitely has scum incentive in trying to nudge me along, but is more likely just chewing seriously on the partner question and what motivate IV to give that read.

I saw your tonal point, but I didn't find it persuasive. I talked about it earlier. I do similar as scum, but I copied it after losing to town players repeatedly. They're also very open about the approach, which again might just be the next layer of scumplay, but it is again extremely clean if so.

I think IV's day leans on the scum side, too. I again think the cut-off check-in and how little fight in him he has is indicative, and if I am wrong then okay. I read through the wall, and while it may have been the tilt, I did not find it cohesive or convincing, particularly in points like "Why is esther so calm?" when as scum she has more reason to be nervous and struggle to post, while IV's "calm" has been in the form of lost energy at a time when I expect he would have gone harder. He does not like playing scum and gets very demotivated even if he can put up a good fight when needed, and I think the wall lines up with that. His defense of me today, when I was not on the table but IV was, really suggested to me it was an attempt to win my vote back before it slipped.

She hasn't been outwardly opportunistic, sure, but not all scum play with that "evil opportunistic" mindset. Maybe you do or think that's what good scumplay is, but to me it's clear she's just going through the motions and trying to appear townie - that is a totally plausible scum approach even from an objective standpoint. Her points can be natural because she is just talking about setup spec with everyone else in realtime and that's not too difficult to fake.

I don't know why you think her being more open to hunting in 6 is townie, especially when some people have already made it clear that they think hunting in 6 is better. It's just so much easier to see from my perspective that killing in g3 is better (note that this is now g2 and g5) when I know it's better to just yeet a confirmed scum ASAP, whereas she's more interested in survival and appearing townie/posturing.

I think you like 1048 because it aligns with what you thought was possible I was doing. But why doesn't this come from scum trying to nudge you along as you mentioned (spoiler: it does)?

I thought at that point it was getting increasingly clear that you were emotionally invested in going between us and it seemed like you were really trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. It's maybe not the easiest to describe concretely, but I would be very surprised if you as scum could fake the energy that you have been giving off this day. Also in general I think "opportunistically winning your vote by hard TRing you" randomly is not really a thing scum do, much less me - I don't think it actually does much to pocket the other person because they might just get paranoid.

I don't know why you keep using the word clean - earlier your usage suggests it means non-opportunistic, but to me clean just means consistent. It's not difficult for scum to be consistent, but it is difficult to for scum to be in an appropriate headspace and emotional space at all times - I think scum!esther has the natural white noise participation part down but not the former.

My check-in frequency is a bit reduced lately because of me needed to balance RL better - I even had to go as far as to do a self-imposed ban. I understand that you think my posting timing can be indicative of alignment and I can't fault you for using that - however just keep in mind that there are out of game things influencing that in this instance.

The man literally wrote me the Principia Scumhuntica because scum is actually fucked if they were in the pool of you/Dunn/Dwlee, town gets two guesses.

There is theater and there is making me feel like I am about to put his wife and kids out on the street if I foreclose the house

[Prism]

Maybe now I'll have time to revisit the game from scratch/actually meta, I didn't get much from ISOs so yeet.

Maybe I should have just bluffed and hard scumread someone.

[Prism]

hey fuck nobody vote please

I'm pretty flummoxed that you even think this is possible from me, presumably this is in fact to both of us and not just Dunnstral.

[Prism]

I don't disagree on the strategic points but I'm a scum specialist and have been wanting a scum flip for years. It's unclear to me why I don't get

invested

as scum, especially if esther nails the team Day 2.

I also have a bad habit of outright abandoning games if I feel the town isn't worth playing against, which is arguably what happened the last night and day.

[Prism]

Tracking back through, you haven't been in any games where I flipped scum. You've definitely seen plenty of town games, but I don't recall you ever having an easy time townreading me.

In Warehouse 13, it was actually pretty difficult for you to get a read on me early, even with a hard-townclaim early with the mechanical gambit. When I forced mastina through, your read on me still seemed to be based on that flip rather than anything about my qualitative play/process.

Where does this conception of my scumgame come from?

[Prism]

Bonus quote from Warehouse-13:

I am a sore fucking loser who cannot stand being wrong

And Spiffeh is way up there as most likely to be outplaying me atm, and I am about to pore over every fucking game this dude has ever played onsite to find out.

Ah, to be young again

[Prism]

Not completely sold on that but meh. Will revisit.

[Prism]

I have a bunch of other questions for both slots but I'd rather just see what Dragons comes up with first.

[Prism]

...You literally answered a question esther posited earlier suggesting that it was possible I

knew in advance

I would get universally townread for miselimming Todoroki. These aren't exactly the world's most comparable scenarios but bussing=towncred is not the hardest prediction in the world to make.

[Prism]

I think it'd be a hard throw from Dragons because he can just NK me, and then IV vs. esther becomes a legitimate question. He looks worse for sure but the tradeoff for the chance of winning in 5 way is

absolutely

worth it, which is the entire reason it was better to vote in 3 to begin with.

[Prism]

I do want to see Dragons go down the paranoia rabbit hole.

Here's my ISO. Here's the shovel. If you think I might be scum, go dig.

[Prism]

Do you just, like, not at all remember that you never gave a direct scumread, only a quick vote with "Dunnstral's done nothing all game", and that your recent ordering was comparative to Dwlee?

I didn't answer because I wanted to see what you said but if you're going to play 20Q all day jesus

[Prism]

Either way if Dragons expected me to just guffaw and say aw shucks guess it really is Dunnstral, no.

If you're legitimately worried I'm scum go dig. I am more than happy to skip being given hammer for once.

[Prism]

That is a lie. I do want hammer, and I am going to take my sweet fucking time deciding. If you're going to keep me locked in here with you I am 100% locking you in here with me. My interviews are over, my last day of work is tomorrow, and a storm will have me stuck inside all weekend.

6 hours down, 162 to go. It is going to be a long ass day.

[Prism]

Should be clear but I don't want a vote until Dragons works through my ISO. No mechanical clear bailouts, and no accidentally denying him the process.

[Prism]

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a hero or being paranoid. Like I absolutely do the same shit all the time, it's neurotic.

Simultaneously, I don't know about you, but when I get paranoid of a person I actually try to read them. You didn't the first time around when you were worried it was me/Esther. You entered today then did nothing with it when I called out the flop.

You say you will take a look now, OK, but you haven't had any depth to your read on me and have not followed up on the paranoia to date.

Will be around more after work.

[Prism]

Alrighty then. I got all week so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I will probably want ~2 days to deep dive but nowhere near that point yet.

[Prism]

I don't think it takes a particularly long time to realize IV pulled out all the stops to try to get me to swap back but meh, okay.

[Prism]

...Is there a reason you are taking this so harshly? I am definitely needling you about dodging the substantive points I have already given you but I've also made it clear I'm not voting and 1494 is explicitly saying take your time.

I'm finishing up my last day at work so it's not like I'm rereading right now either.

[Prism]

Reviewing, I don't think I have AtE'd at all this game. I wear my heart on my sleeve but I haven't been survivalistic with it at all, and my most emotional points came when I was wrong on Todoroki, both heads of whom I thought I had on lock, and when Dunnstral told IV there was no point in convincing me I was wrong. I also did not have the heart to go line by line and explain to IV I thought he was spewing bullshit if it was legitimate.

I don't think the second of these has any obvious scum incentive. The first would be an attempt to salvage image when I never had to douse myself in gasoline and toss the match to start. Neither IV nor myself were under threat Day 1. The third takes the world where IV puts on the best distancing performance I have seen in my life and I straight up refuse to engage on my end and therefore torch it.

[Prism]

Again, do not have to respond to that immediately, am just on my lunch break and actually have time to do shit

[Prism]

If you'd rather just lose if I'm scum that's fine with me. It seemed worth investigating the possibility to you. I think it's bizarre to drop it, especially when you didn't seem to find my points persuasive at a glance, I am not going to knock down your door to find reasons to scumread me.

If you'd rather just scumcase Dunnstral that works too, but I think I have the gist and fully expect to be dart throwing off of 6 strong posts between the two of you combined. My plan is basically meta the everloving shit out of both of you and IV instead, have looked at ISOs like 3 times already and all I have left is 3 way interactions and revisiting the game completely from scratch.

[Prism]

Can you go more indepth on either of those, preferably the latter?

[Prism]

Again it feels odd to me that you seem to think them unaligned but don't really circle back like ?_?

Presumably mine are stronger and outweigh those but you're being both visibly uncertain and presumptuous with how far investigating me actually goes and it feels very dissonant.

[Prism]

I am openly skeptical of your posting today.

Dunnstral came prepared, I don't give him free points for that but I am not going to look at paranoia of me and say aw shucks. I have tried to stay the hand after Day 1 but when push comes to shove I am going to fall back on how I best tend to read people: gauging how good of faith their interactions with me are.

I think 1504 is borderline nonsensical because it dismisses a town point for Dunnstral pre-emptively rather than, again, actually following up on paranoia of my slot.

[Prism]

Assuming 1507 is legitimate, what is askew? Do you find my challenging approach scum-indicative or in bad faith?

[Prism]

Literally your two posts of today were about being paranoid about me

Perhaps I should keep pressing but I am going to let you reset. If we are not connecting we again have all week.

[Prism]

Maybe it was the "vote Dunnstral happily" part you were trying to hide but uhhhhh

Yeah

[Prism]

Still taken all week. Someone chose to put me here. They will pay for it, either with a loss or a veil of fear gripping their heart as they spend 7 days straight on the grill.

I leaned Dunnstral overnight, mainly because IV did not blitz my vote. I also think it's marginally less likely to leave me alive, has been on thin ice with me all game long.

Arguably his reaction to me is TMI but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I find it plausible.

[Prism]

I don't buy Dunnstral's point that the vote was actually a good idea, but I have assumed people don't randomly throw the game as scum before and been repeatedly bitten by it. People on this website straight up throw games in the trash like it is their fulltime job.

[Prism]

Alright well that day was absolutely exhausting, so I'm going to try and take a break and play BotW and ignore the thread for the day.

At this point I'm fine with a cross, but it'll be another day or two before I can kick into gear so might as well take the time to dialogue unless people are just eager to confirm thy enemy.

[Prism]

I am now unemployed, my work stress has dissipated, and I only have one interview next week

We are READY TO NO-LIFE IT

CHUGGIN ELMER'S, PLAYIN' VIDEO GAMES, STARIN' AT RANDOM ASS GAMES FROM 2019

[Prism]

literally you're skeptical of me and my play being 100% town, but still think it is dunnstral over me at the end of the day, why do you think this, from the top, however you want it, however you like it, whatever is in that brain

alright if i post again without specifically being asked for slap me

[Prism]

if i were scum i would have been like "obv

dunnstralscum is obv even Brighter Puppy said so

even Prism said so everyone says so must be true"

finally prism, despite being so town read, doesn't die. does things in the PT thread to make brighter puppy look more town so it makes sense for them to be the kill instead

despite their dissonance.

?

This seems to imply you are aware that Brighter was split on the final scum rather than united on Dunnstral.

[Prism]

The reason for her swithback was tucked away at the bottom of the next post, 252, when I pointed out to her that having a clear in 5 is significantly less important than guaranteeing you never wind up in a 5 way ELO at all.

[Prism]

Reviewing the dead is a very split jury.

Kuriyama seemed to lean dwlee, esther seemed to lean dwlee, notsci had me/Dwlee then Dunn, Lukewarm had Dwlee/STD then Dunn but also fearyeet me if town had an extra elim, dwlee had Dunnstral, Norwegian had Dragons, Firebringer seemed pretty set on Dunnstral.

The lesson here is obviously never listen to Kuriyama.

[Prism]

Good catch, I was working off of 508, 530 is actually a big mixup and has you leaning town for the lack of activity and Dragons leaning town for their vote on you in 513. I found neither persuasive at the time and definitely don't now so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Prism]

I've kind of gone back and forth on posting this shit but I spent an hour and it might not ever be relevant again so fuck it it's going up.

Since no one else has much to say, I'll respond to this now.

My apologies for the length-breaking down good/bad scumplay is my favorite topic, and I love talking hypotheticals. I have tried to keep certain sections addressing the actual tangible topic at hand, but others are...more discursive and excessive.

i think someone who railroaded on todoraki could have known it was a mislim and kept it going with a pedantic argument especially with people sheeping them

then comes a calculated bus on D2, being steadfast on IV without even considering esther (actually you both were like that).

I would challenge you to revisit both of these and interrogate whether this makes sense. I would especially recommend tracking my progression on esther, which swapped with a combination of several factors, beginning with their hail mary wall on me that I found an...interesting choice if scum, turning more decisive when I learned it was not Morning Tweet and especially that she did not necessarily have the mechanical prowess I assumed. While I was skeptical of IV falling off and his post at EoD Day 1, the two post check-in was the nail in the coffin. That dude will go door to door to sell the most bizarre scumcases, and while the giant AtE wall put the momentary fear of God in me, I already found the wall of questionable timing and when I actually read through it I found the wall borderline nonsensical. I was already burnt out and demoralized and the thought of going through it line by line only to be wrong again was enough to made me sick to my stomach. Vote it and move on, avert your eyes from the scene if it turns out to cause an accident.

Addressing Todoroki is a bit more complicated, but the short of it it does not make sense to walk straight into a possible BoP vote Day 2. It works out only with the power of hindsight and knowing in advance that I would get townread for forcing through a miselim. I stand by my statement that I do not put Todoroki in the group of 3 ever; I thought (lmao) them both very easy reads and as scum am very confident in my ability to pocket them both and keep them under control. Both are eager to dialogue with me, and I specialize in sending players down conversational deadends as a form of traffic control to prevent connecting with other players. Depending on how many kills I need to make in 6, they are a safe nightkill that will virtually never be questioned, and an easy choice to put in 6 among a smattering of target elims.

Contrast that with the players that wound up in my group: All of your styles are my anathema, most only grudgingly willing to work with me, virtually all reluctant to give extensive reasoning or engage in extended research, all but Dunnstral whimsical, and I am forced to rely on rolling the dice on whatever reads someone's breakfast that morning points them towards. Kuriyama, the only exception and someone I am on record as eagerly pacing the halls waiting for a scumflip against, died N1. The group of 6, in short, is an unpredictable mob that I am never going to be able to steer effectively or bring to heel as scum.

Spoiler: Finally, I have had a blueprint on how to deal with notscience for the better part of a year, and I do not mind outing it without using it.

I have long thought that copying what I did to quiet in Iceland would work against notscience. Realizations about dynamics, or player insecurities, are much more compelling when the other person thinks of it of their own realization. I do not give these relational insights notscience was worried about in 285 for free as scum; I am much more brutal and plan development over the course of multiple dayphases. Specifically, this is what I am very confident would have worked on getting a townread from notscience:

But the most important is the dynamic of putting myself below him for a moment here. Quiet is a talented player, sharp but rough around the edges, and eager to prove himself. You can see him gaining confidence with every post. He wants to work with me on equal terms if he's town, and hold his own against me if I'm scum. This entire angle-that I'm annoyed he called my alignment in a single post, and had a hard time admitting he could see through me so quickly-is playing specifically to that rising confidence and desire to prove himself. It's flattery disguised as annoyance and reluctant recognition.

I am confident that bruteforcing tone, contemptuously challenging his townread on me, then reluctantly "acquiescing" to the struggle, would have won any game against notscience almost singlehandedly. I have waited to do it all year. Contrast this with someone like Firebringer, who when presented similar recognition last night is never going to care, because while he respects my play my opinion of him is not a concern or a medal to hang on the wall.

Reviewing this game, I am more than satisfied that it would have worked as envisioned. I do not mind going back to the drawing board if I wind up rolling scum against him in the future; perhaps the assistance will make the game worthwhile. It is also worth noting that Lukewarm fell victim to smaller scale, very off-the-cuff improvisation of the same theme of inspired realization in a recent mini normal. I had the idea to make

him

figure out why I started with his ISO given my approach, and it worked spectacularly.

While ironic in the context of this huge ass wall, I also do not think it is true that I kept it pedantic; I was actually very concerned by Lukewarm's spiral of questions in the 400s. I thought it both plausibly town and completely unparsable, and commented as such. I took the night to revisit; on waking up, thinking through both what I knew of Lukewarm and notscience, I decided to pull the trigger. I had at some point skimmed Guardians and seen that, while not identical, he handled Pavowski similarly (as scum), and notscience did not line up to what I expected out of his town engagements with me from 2181 and especially Perpetual MELO, where he was confident enough in his alignment to play hardball with me even as he was deferential in my reads on others. At one point I also saw a similarity to Warehouse-13, where he was scum.

seeing an opportunity to ride on town cred, prism hammers innocent dwlee ending discussion and preventing any second thought from those involved.

finally prism, despite being so town read, doesn't die. does things in the PT thread to make brighter puppy look more town so it makes sense for them to be the kill instead despite their dissonance.

Fair enough, with the hammer I would be trying to get scumread to justify living overnight. I dread three ways as scum because the degree of unpredictability is very high. I think the setup with Brighter is plausible, but do you doubt that I take such a transparent and cooperative overnight approach to the PT as town?

As a counterpoint, this is why I hate bussing in games unless required and would have jumped on the chance to get a 5 way ELO when one would have obviously been unexpected. This was achievable even while bussing IV; the votes were set such that even with Dwlee on it actually would have been impossible to flip correctly in 3. This was avoided partly by your whimsical vote but partially because I made the coalition problem, and the fact that the 4 votes in 3 were only enough to guarantee a misflip, to collective attention, made it a centerpiece of discussion, fiercely insisted that we needed to manage it. This would have been great if I used this deadlock point to sell people on going in 6 instead, but I did not do so. It was part of my Dunnstral scumlean and I actually used it to try and compel him to go more aggressive in his read on IV.

I can address blitzing situations but I think it suffices to say that I would have set up a blitz on Dunnstral only to back out immediately; I don't think this contextually makes any fucking sense at all, and him refusing to give content is very beneficial for me as scum who views him as a target elimination. Instead I threatened to policy him if he didn't go to bat and become readable.

This again is not even touching on my interactions with IV themselves, which I could probably write another egotistical book about if I wanted.

[Prism]

Please direct all complaints for my existence to one Peta "catboi" Pan, reachable via email at animecatboylover@mafiascum.net

Imagine if I had spent any of that hour doing literally anything else with my life

[Prism]

Tracking through these interactions I am actually convinced IV is a genius. 1202, 1203, 1204 each address all of Dunnstral, Dragons, and dwlee one at a time briefly.

Page 50. Expresses scumread on Dunnstral, Brighter asks him to vote Dunnstral, doesn't vote Dunnstral. Fully aware he can get flipped if anyone flips over, doesn't blitz when given the chance. Instead just argues about going on esther. Literally spends no time all game advocating for basically anything to Dragons, 1203 is most substantive. Forgetting him because he's too focused on trying to win over votes, or leaving him alone because he's not voting IV?

Galaxy brain shit

[Prism]

VOTE: Dwlee

You see I'm gonna post analysis soon so you put me to E-1? What is this?

why are you so upset about this but you called my callout of prism’s E1 slimy

like comparatively I don’t think STDs E1 is that unreasonable given deadline proximity. Prisms E1 we still had like 6+ days left I think

Mmmm Dragons really isn't in danger here, the three votes on table are IV/Dunn/Dw, I don't think there's a reason to leap to a partner defense here.

If I had to call it I'm voting Dunnstral but god reading Dragons and is like pulling teeth.

[Prism]

Alright I'm calling it here I am putting the mafia game DOWN it is time to SLEEP

[Prism]

I'm trying to steer clear today; wound up spending all of yesterday on this. Once I get started there's basically no stopping the motor.

If anyone has specific questions for me I might swing by late evening

[Prism]

Yes, he correctly identified one problem (easy since he was not steadfast on IV either), and the other was very plausible.

If he's scum he's capitalizing on you refusing to do even the most basic reread or level of analysis. What does it fucking take to get you to reread the game or either of our ISOs, dude? Do I need to lay out pieces of candy? I have tried directly asking, I have tried giving you space, I have tried directly linking you. You give vague one liners and peace.

If Dunnstral is scum he's capitalizing on you refusing to do anything substantive and just aimlessly spitballing garbage. You are beating yourself, and Dunnstral knows not to be asleep at the wheel when I get serious. Yes he read that post, yes he gave a response, yes he actually thought about it.

[Prism]

You came in today with a paranoia panic of me. After we chase you down the block three or four times, you spitball a world where certain reads or stances are strategic and fake. Not a single time have you gone back and reread the reads, posts, progressions in question, even as we beg you to.

You're a tonal player, that's great, but tonal players also reread and do basic backtracking when they get hunches. From this vantage it looks like you are scum that completely expected me to buy the flop and my resurgence and high WIM caught you completely off guard.

P-Edit: Not sure what "do you" is supposed to refer to here. You said we were both steadfast. We weren't. I openly disagreed that I had no scum incentive to hammer Dwlee.

[Prism]

For AT LEAST ONE OF myself and Dunnstral, hard bussing IV made sense.

Perhaps, if you pull out the receipts, you can figure out which it is!

[Prism]

I'm going to step back and do something else.

If you want to snipehunt in spitball conspiracy world where you open palm smash the square block through the round hole, track through my ISO. If you want to actually make a scumcase, flip through Dunnstral. If you want to just keep getting rolled by whichever of us is scum and just hope someone doesn't hammer you out of the kindness of our hearts, keep doing absolutely nothing.

[Prism]

[Prism]

That is exactly the opposite of what I am suggesting.

I again will drop the topic for the day.

[Prism]

If it helps in your endeavors to pretend I am simply not here knocking down your door for content, please do so.

I want to win. I want to be sure of it. Whatever gets you to give something substantive, I will take it.

[Prism]

Thank you, this is definitely more up my alley/speaking my language. While you didn't have to do the explicit wall/analytical style-I was more just looking for evidence of genuine curiosity/follow up with rereading

in whatever form

-it is definitely appreciated. I would encourage you to do the same with my slot if you are paranoid of what you described in 1533.

I have my own thoughts but will wait for Dunnstral, with the exception of 1215. Behind IV not blitzing, my principal concern with your slot is that I did not think the posts with IV moved the needle at all and was curious about your progression on the two slots.

Most of your commentary seemed to be focusing primarily on effort from esther/IV rather than substance. 1215 explains IV retroactively as lower effort, but Day 1 that wasn't really true at all until the end when he flopped when I forced through Todoroki. From what I can piece together it was the vote in 6 progression without much evaluation of esther. 290 was a post that I found curious in retrospect, less because of Dragons' point but more that I don't think it ever crops back up. The next posts were Todoroki was a bad wagon into IV over esther in 649/651.

[Prism]

Something unexpected has come up. I will do ISOs again then read from scratch when I can.

Dunnstral, I'd still like you to track through the actual reads/reasoning on Esther & IV rather than just their existence. See bottom of 1577.

[Prism]

At some point I will have to accept that staring at the same shit over and over will only get me so far but maybe context will help.

[Prism]

Quick response to what I think are the most salient points: 854 comes in the context of Dunn expressing skepticism of IV but expressing a determination to vote in 6 in the immediate preceding posts. Dunnstral is not one of the people voting to, or likely to, vote IV unless someone specifically goes after him for it, as I did.

1137 is the post where I vote IV. Dunnstral at this time is willing to (or is already) voting IV. Dwlee is not, and wants Esther.

The strategic voting implication to this is that Dwlee can survivalistically swap to IV and help me force it through if I put them under threat. Dunnstral cannot. If I want to leave a door open in 6 and protect IV, I go the opposite route and protect Dwlee from Dunnstral.

[Prism]

A lot of these are subjective. They're either legitimate or they're not. I can talk more about what I was thinking if I remember, but fundamentally you have to make the call if you're town.

Spoiler: Response to every single point

This is absolutely the fastest I have ever wanted to selfvote and get out of a game. Record time.

ate i could see it go either way

I really don't like bad mechanics. I thought, and still think voting in 6 is fucking atrocious. Firebringer and I got along later but our playstyles clash greatly and he was the biggest reason I almost didn't sign up for this game; we had just butted heads in Holiday Dance. I thought I had made it clear that I was giving reads next to start (iirc I used something like "qualitatively" in two different senses, which made it ambiguous and his pressure more understandable), and second the idea that he thought I would be stupid enough to talk only mech as scum made me want to vomit on my computer. That's something you learn from month 1 of playing not to do as scum.

I did take a step back and logically know he was right that I needed to not make the game miserable and keep people engaged, which is why I took a more freewheeling attitude towards the fanfic, treating it as a price worth paying to keep you engaged, and had the jocular reachout to notscience. Contrast this with your experience with me in 2085, where I was very strategic to just shut Taly out of the game entirely by a combination of lecturing him+scumreading him with no reachout or legitimate dialogue ever.

Focusing on the three, my current vote is esther. IV I feel I now have some idea how to read and think posts like 170 are very difficult for him to fake. 9:12 he really struggled to give reads like this off the cuff without making them overly convoluted, and the ones that did come were with a high degree of intentionality and thought. Wouldn't shock me if he's scum but yeah.

interesting how this post sets up not to bus on day 1 but leaves the door open to go after IV later

aight

VOTE: Todoroki

I really do not like what Esther has given either, I don't know if she is just annoyed because I've never pushed her before or what, but I feel confident that 391 is a borderline scumclaim.

lacks explanation

I gave a lot, actually. My read was very derivative of what I personally expected from Todoroki, and whether I thought they believed their own arguments. I did not. There's a sequence that starts around 385, gets the vote after 391, which is explained in 392, and continues for the entire next two pages. You should have seen these in the ISO, and quote several from the later exchange.

Do you think me being wrong is scum indicative or motivated? If not, go find scum in the 3 or 6.

reads as TMI almost (being wrong) but i'm having trouble exactly discerning what prism is supposed to be wrong about.

This is talking to Todoroki about my scumread on Todoroki. It's not even close to TMI, and as I have said the reads I have trusted most over the last year+ have been gauging how good of faith discussions with me are. I had a recent terrible miss on ProHawk, was confident that I at least had Todoroki's number, and after that decided to just scrap the approach entirely out of disgust.

It's literally you saying you wouldn't put yourself in the small hood without 4 of 6 as scum. There is blatant scum motivation unless you think you will specifically be called out for it.

I take it back, save the link, I am flipping you, this is absurd and you are not this dense.

i'm missing the argument here

See above. I thought Lukewarm's claim that they would choose 6 hood as scum was absolute trash because Lukewarm had just tried to carry Guardians only to come short, and suffered a great blow of confidence. They are scared of several players in this playerlist, so was notscience, and I did not believe they bet on themselves to solocarry as the group of 6 requires.

As always, it is possible I am wrong but I would be very surprised if I were.

hate this line, looks a little fake, adds to this "wrong townie" persona

This is very rote and routine. As I said in a recent postgame, "Mafia is a story of being very confident and very wrong, but we try to improve anyway." This style of aggression, read on faith, and willingness to be wrong has a very long history with me.

Recent examples are ProHawk in Signs, Gamma in Slaughter Hour, and probably the closest parallels are my reads in Forest Fire.

I initially think Hectic scumclaimed in a single post, which I can't easily quote b/c lock and 3 nested quotes but tl;dr I (wrongly) call a post of his a scumclaim, then say "You have absolutely seen similar displays of confidence, and know very well that I do not mind being wrong." After more dialogue I realize he is town, and then I go on actual scum instead.

I legitimately believe this is flipping scum but years of experience of being Egregiously Fucking Wrong have left me rationally ready to step on stage, accept the L, smile, hold it up to the crowd, and finally try to make room for it among the ocean of others in the display case at my mother's house.

The only player from Forest Fire in this game was Lukewarm, and I think it should be obvious scum-Prism was not trying to pocket Lukewarm. I don't think there's any reason to go out of my way to imitate this here, especially when the stakes are significantly higher.

there's a distinct focus on todoraki and a lack of anything on the other two members of the smaller group towards the end of day 1. Even when unvoting prism doesn't take time to consider the other possibilities

I spent some time on them early. The unvote was specifically to consider Todoroki's interactions and whether or not I thought they made sense. It wasn't a comparative read. esther/IV were not the projects-the project was getting Todoroki nailed down one way or another, and I thought I had the information and ability to do so, especially when combined with a meta record to reference.

If you're busy, okay, but I have given more than enough and from my perspective you're either scum flopping in preparation for tomorrow or are just getting in the way for zero reason.

why would he get in the way for zero reason as town? it almost seems like you're calling him out here as scum because you know it

People flop and get in the way of votes all of the time and it tilts me to no fucking end. I strongly doubt you haven't seen this before. I don't have any reason to castigate my partner here and try to bring him to heel except to distance.

I love the idea of Kuriyama just watching me be aggressively wrong and sipping tea while watching me piledrive the game into the ground.

i dunno if it's self doubt (i've got it in spades) but it almost seems like sometimes you know you're going to be wrong and you're laying the groundwork for it

See above. Kuriyama specifically has seen many, many times that I am very hit/miss and would absolutely let me just me lose us the game as scum.

I can't wait to policy Dunnstral tomorrow and watch him flip green

TMI?

It's a joke because I thought I might have free rein Day 2 if Todoroki was right, and I have never been able to read Dunnstral to save my life because he sits intentionally sits in the nullzone and gives the minimal amount he can get away with until forced otherwise.

(It would also be Dragons)

i dunno if you posted much about me before this, testing the waters? certainly not the easiest target but not a hard one

I was openly spitballing and you cut out the "Ask again later" because I found the group of 6 very difficult to read. I posted my ordered preference in the neighborhood overnight, and it was a response to a question from Brighter that I originally thought was to the whole game.

There's also no testing the waters. I wanted to go in 3.

I think 651 is intellectually dishonest but w/e I'll come back another time

the time is now!

I thought about asking earlier but decided to wait until I got hammer. He recently helped out by referencing the other game earlier, where he argued for something more narrow and niche about starting in 6 and only then going in 3. The reasoning, preserving clears in 3, does not quite transfer given a vote in 3 Day 1.

1. The scum wagon on Todoroki was overwhelmingly beneficial to mafia. The wagon was mafia driven, and more specifically the push was likely a strategic calculation by Prism.

I think this benefits greatly from the power of hindsight and retrospective fitting. I can wax poetic about my scum strategy and meta, but the short of it is this: This depends on me knowing in advance that I would get universally townread for a Todoroki push, or at least not widely scumread. This is not a feasible strategic gameplan for me, who adamantly refuses to entertain even the idea of losing as scum. I am extremely risk averse as scum and do not believe in betting the games on Day 1 gambits. It is very easy to look back and say "Well, nothing went wrong in Prism's push on Todoroki", but a million things could have gone wrong-many of them completely out of my control.

The simplest scenario, and by far the most likely, is Todoroki putting up stiffer resistance and becoming townread, which would be disastrous and put me on the ropes the rest of the game if not out entirely.

I am shocked that Brighter Puppy still says I even have "the most influence" because I mauled any reasonable ability to impose my reads on others with a sledgehammer on Day 1. In contrast, I am very confident in my ability to solo carry so long as there are no PRs or mechanical confirmation of me.

fair point (but also wifom)

aight

lmao maybe i should consider the all-town wagon theory, because at this point i feel more like im being encouraged to spam the thread repeating the same "yes, i did explicitly say im asking from my perspective" points ad nauseum than i am getting a real answer to a question whose basic premises i think ive outlined pretty explicitly.

i think i am town.
i think maf are on the wagon.
the above two makes you and dunn town.
scum!dwlee, knowing my alignment and reasonably assuming i believe maf to be on the wagon, would have the ability to determine this for themself.
scum!dwlee is therefore advocating for clearing puppy and dunn in advocating for a three-group flip day three.
is it more likely that scum!dwlee simply hadnt thought this through, or doesnt care about clearing a player, than that prism is mafia?

again, for i think the eightieth time at this point, from my perspective?

I think this is batshit insane FWIW

1. The entire chain of clearing based off of your flip is ???. Dunnstral literally showed up right after the wagon was hammered, and IV was in no danger. Brighter was committed to voting in 6 and at no point was IV in any danger. This is significantly more persuasive reversed to be about your slot being scum, which was actually a viable wagon.
2. dwlee assuming first that you will come to the two clear conclusion is an even bigger ?????? and second worried that town will buy it,

based off of your play Day 1

, is batshit crazy.
3. dwlee has a 50%+ chance of losing on the spot if we voted in 6 today and knows that from 6hood

i think it's strange this doesn't come with a scumread or a vote, somehow despite this you esther town

This was written for esther's benefit, not to push esther. I was very surprised to see the flurry of posting from a scum Morning Tweet, even though I questioned the intent. In contrast, I have seen a handful of these frequent catch-fire moments from her, and this led me to work through more comprehensively. Learning it was not Morning Tweet was a blow to the activity=AI idea, but it did tell me my thoughts Day 1 were wrong, and the more I thought about the strategic angle from esther, and how intuitively clean their Day 2 was, the more convinced I became. 783 and 792 discuss some of my projects and desire to take it very, very slow.

I think you should have seen some of this progression in my ISO.

Dunnstral, how worried are you about deadlocking?

Specifically, are you aware it is impossible to actually get IV voted out without a drastic shift in the landscape?

don't bother voting IV, it's impossible

See 1583.

The last few pages have sold me on Esther being town. I will want to meta but the last two pages are very, very sharp if she is scum.

not really a strong explanation as to why, could have decided to bus. but no vote on IV or any movement against him yet despite being sure esther is town

If you look at 899 a few hours earlier, you can see I was briefly skimming through the game. I again had several things I wanted to work on first. I have quick phone dialogue with Brighter about esther, promise to response to their scumread later, and do so.

You cut out the part where I am clearly in a hurry and deferring answering questions until I get a computer. Why?

If people prefer Dwlee instead I can go there but I am not voting Dunnstral today. If he's been doing this on purpose it's fair game and about time I got a taste of my own medicine but our reads match and there's no reason for him to accommodate going in 3 today if he's scum with esther. Dwlee was set to get flipped.

leaves the door open to go for dwlee instead of IV

See 1583.

I get that "clean"/"sharp" are very vague descriptors. I know there are 2/3 times it has happened, but the most vivid was Hectic in Undertale 2.0, and while I don't think you're concerned about my alignment I want to make it clear that I'm not just pulling random bullshit out of thin air on you. It's not making any "mistakes" day in and day out all week long.

is very self aware if scum, kind of a defensive post

This is to Brighter, who said I was not scum in any world. There's no reason to be defensive or worried about them flipping their read on me, especially given that IV was in fact scum.

votes on dwlee/dunnstral could be a parachute trying to escape the bus, prism had to hammer to make it look believable that IV was their target all along

This works until you realize I tried to get dwlee to hammer, I unvoted Dunnstral when he gave content, and I only went back on Dunnstral close to deadline. Still, I unvoted him and split the votes 2-2-2 hoping that someone would change their mind.

hammer on dwlee is interesting it is the YOLO as described here:

Half of me wants to YOLO but the other half of me says finish strong and do it right since this'll be my last game for awhile.

Still think Dwlee. Busy with several towngames previously, yesterday seemed to just be stalling out hoping town would randomly flip around. Flips on IV read were very random and not elaborated on.

does give reasoning for known town dwlee but i guess i'm confused what the point of the flip is if dwlee is scum with IV

The point was that Dwlee had IV as town, then flipped to scumreading him, then flipped back. I don't want to track through all of them now but these swaps were very underexplained despite repeated attempts to get them to do so, and they were at the points when scum had to decide whether to followthrough with the bus or punt the ball back in town's court.

[Prism]

290 was a post that I found curious in retrospect, less because of Dragons' point but more that I don't think it ever crops back up. The next posts were Todoroki was a bad wagon into IV over esther in 649/651.

Todoroki dies before I do anything with it. If you're asking me why I didn't press mc esther on it after, read 643 and the posts preceding it again.

I get that you were focused in 6, but my interpretation was that you were skeptical of the vote. It makes sense not to linger, but in the end you wound up weighing in on both and coming down on the side of IV-scum instead.

I've been liking mc esther's posts today and lean towards IV being scum

If you compare mc esther's posts up to this point: I liked mc esther's posts on day 2, and I thought IV's posts from day 1 & 2 were not tonally towny

I saw this in 1215, but my point was that IV high-efforted Day 1 and didn't get the same leeway (Different players? Something bad in his posting? etc.). This looks like you did not like their tone, and I would like elaboration on which posts. I was very impressed Day 1 and thought he meta-matched well.

Finally, I am again curious as to what in his final posts moved it to be more blurry as you referenced in 1215. I read that wall and thought it was all over the place, and arguing that him being nervous made him town. There are a million things to hit on with "questions [from esther] rubbing IV the wrong way", claiming that it was actually IV-town who would be more nervous in this situation as opposed to confident and aggressive, and I thought the worst paragraph was probably the one where the scummy behaviors actually might be town or NAI and he's just biased. When town innocentvillager cooks up some off the wall read he will follow you down the block and back again to talk about it. The response to esther's 1013 was also just so out of left field and different from the tone of the rest of it such that it made me go ???

[Prism]

Also worth noting for your criticism of my 541 that a few minutes later I actually went back and worked through IV's read on Todoroki in order to sell him on my vote. Todoroki pointed out IV was townreading Todoroki right between these two posts, but if you look at the timestamps I had obviously already pulled it up.

[Prism]

if i were scum i would have been like "obv

dunnstralscum is obv even Brighter Puppy said so

even Prism said so everyone says so must be true"

finally prism, despite being so town read, doesn't die. does things in the PT thread to make brighter puppy look more town so it makes sense for them to be the kill instead

despite their dissonance.

?

This seems to imply you are aware that Brighter was split on the final scum rather than united on Dunnstral.

This still bothers me. You knew that they were split and that you couldn't use it as the hypothetical scum point that you're claiming you would. One of the heads thinking Dunnstral doesn't make obvious strong consensus, and I made it clear my only strong read was Brighter town.

[Prism]

I will be working over the game from scratch most of today. I plan to save any questions I have until I have hammer unless the deadline gets in the way.

If someone is opposed to me hammering or still skeptical of my alignment, then okay, we can keep talking about that or I can post thoughts publicly beforehand. I prefer 48 hours for Q&A and simple time to think.

It's 72 hours, still plenty of time to address anything, but otherwise I think we should probably get this show on the road and move on to the main event.

[Prism]

As far as I can tell they're both pure scumcases and not anything from us that was likely town.

Any plans to chew on that half of things?

[Prism]

I'm not actually asking for a written towncase, I know what I am. If I'm having to ask for it I'm not going to get anything from you giving it, just arbitrary work.

My point is that you had just gone through our ISOs and focused on making us both fit the scumworld without considering which parts did not fit. That is only half the picture.

[Prism]

As scum I'm hammer sitting. Of course I am going to entertain your case. I might not chase you up and down the block trying to get you to reread, and instead just let you sleepwalk spitball into a loss, but yeah.

The angle of Dunnstral treating you unfairly and therefore being scum instead of just...weighing in based on our play that you just reread so far is troubling and I am having a very hard time wondering how much you actually care about play on prior days, because it generally looks like zero.

I am fundamentally readable because I sell the farm and put literally every thought and feeling on the table. I can do and do fake it as scum, but it is incredibly difficult and there are hidden Achilles heels that are decisive. Neither of you do the same, which makes the choice significantly harder, because the bulk of what matters are an underexplained vote on IV, IV not blitzing, and a YOLO bus vote on IV after I invited Dunnstral.

[Prism]

After I unvoted Dunnstral*

[Prism]

I am about to get incredibly vicious, so I'm just going to go back to reading.

If you have a specific concern or further point to make on either slot, I will read and address it, though I am rapidly running out of goodwill. I will sort out the faith of the above another time.

[Prism]

1603 makes me feel a bit better. I showed several things were factually untrue, and pulled out receipts showing that much of this is bread and butter for me, so seeing the global rejection was incredibly tilting.

[Prism]

Efforting goes a long way towards proving the legitimacy of your own concerns and ideas.

When I have to hound you for them, and clearly communicate it as a

prerequisite for me not voting you

, it loses much of its effect because you are now forced to give it as scum.

Despite this, I recognize that it still comes from a town place, too, and appreciated the walls on both of us and spent a very good chunk of time last night responding to the one on me. I already responded a bit to the one on Dunnstral and will do so, later, as well.

[Prism]

In that case I don't really know what you expect me to see as town.

Paranoia on me is very foreseeable. I did not like the panic tone of the initial, if I am wrong OK. What I hated was aimlessly spitballing scumworlds without going back and looking.

When I get paranoid, I instantly go check the record and obsess over it. I don't expect everyone to no life it, but I expect this instinct-check/skim the record-to be universal.

[Prism]

I have nothing nice to say at the moment, speaking generally about the game.

If, again, anyone has a specific point or hangup on my alignment, I will engage with it. I cannot engage with a refusal to elaborate or a constant refusal to engage with the most basic points, history wrapped up with a bowtie, or comprehensive analysis I present, only to hypocritically flop when the slightest scrutiny is turned back.

[Prism]

That second part got a lot more specific. Whoops.

[Prism]

Malding slightly less having revisited the actual posts and venting but have been malding all day and needed to be passive aggressive for a second, sorry.

[Prism]

Have an interview today that I am prepping for so will be around later.

i want to look over IV's iso and see if i find anything interacty i'm more likely to do that than towncase both of you tbh but if i have time i can take a look

any update on this idea

[Prism]

You have until 36 hours before deadline before I policy you and let Dunnstral blitz. I am tired of holding your hand and teaching you how to play the game while you put off doing anything indefinitely. You have showed exactly one inkling of good faith, and it came when I spent multiple days begging for it and I had to make clear I would vote you for it otherwise. I literally asked Dunnstral

not to clear me

when it seemed likely he would vote and you still flop and cry fucking conspiracy.

I have thought it was Dunnstral for most of the last 72 hours for the no blitz+bus vote making more sense, and want 48 hours to talk about it and grill both of you on your progressions without him capitalizing on fear or you throwing in the face of it.

I actually did shit yesterday and am ready to hit the gas. Absolutely embarrassing performance and complete deadweight.

[Prism]

Will be back around ~7 EST

[Prism]

I'm not getting further into the gutter with you.

Renew your efforts to convince Dunnstral I am scum or vote Dunnstral.

[Prism]

Cool, I'll take that, will evaluate after ~7p EST.

[Prism]

Doing nothing today and not chasing you up and down the block, poking you with the spurs, is strictly winning as scum. I don't need people to vote at 48 or 36 hours. I can wait, post walls of content and overwhelm the game, and just wait the deadline out. This is not the case if I

actually have to choose a correct vote

. Today's prod specifically came after I saw you posting elsewhere.

I am scrutinizing and prodding you because I don't intend to hand the game to you for free if you are scum. There are no gymnastics, there are no deadends, there are no fancy words or circus tricks. I want real content and stances because I need it to sort. It is that simple.

[Prism]

VOTE: Dunnstral

[Prism]

@Pavowski I will want to make some redactions to my Notes PT, so don't release immediately after all.

Will be around later to comment, have interview in 10 minutes

[Prism]

@Pavowski: My Notes PT redaction requests have been posted, and you may release the thread immediately afterwards.

[Prism]

Spoiler: For Kuriyama only do not click

I'VE SPENT ALL YEAR WAITING FOR THIS



Getting you to piledrive notscience/Lukewarm, the most readable duo in the world, ON THE POOR'S MAN'S BIRTHDAY, and to townread me for it anyway was absolutely the highlight of this game. This game was a lot of fun while you were around, though, and I was sad to kill you N1.

[Prism]

This one's for my boy innocentvillager, thanks for all of the patience, hard work, and fun in the scum PT. I'm very happy I was able to reward it with the win.

[Prism]

So I guess I'll make a few general points on the game, along some of the specific arguments/choices I made and why I made them.

-I did see in advance that shoving a wrong Todoroki elim through would get me widely townread. I actually still thought this was bad for two reasons: 1) It might not go through, which would be disastrous 2) It would get me too townread and I would have to deal with the being alive in 3 way question. It's better to ramp up how town you look over time, rather than start strong.

-Esther's play Day 2 was absolutely gorgeous. I don't think me being wrong about her being Morning Tweet made much of a difference as far as how I felt my interactions with Day 1, I was off in how I interacted with her, I could tell, but holy shit she punished it

brutally

. She was wrong about the pivot but the key insight that everything town about my play was strictly tonal was spot on. I thought later she went off the rails and I was able to punish it accordingly, but just absolutely gorgeous play.

-I knew essentially in pregame that the question of "Why is Prism alive in 3 way?" would be the decisive factor, which is why I thought my play Day 1 was dumb.

-While I'm happy to get the win, as my Notes PT will show...I thought my play this game was awful. Straight bludgeoning out towntells through a combination of metamatching, strategic betting, and rote habit. I think the most artistic points came in my suggestions to IV, both in how to adjust his meta and planning in advance that he would treat me as a vote to be won, and ignore making the same points to Dragons to mislead. And goddamn did that last wall work beautifully.

-I did feel Dunnstral took too much joy in my being wrong & stubborn, despite being literally about the game, and reacted accordingly. I reined this in and tried to recenter the conversation on the game, and felt bad that it could be angleshot as only being from town. When Dunnstral made the oog comment, I brought it to Pavowski for review. That spurt of toxicity is probably my biggest regret for the game.

-No clue where that energy came from Day 4, I was just exhausted and didn't want to look at the game starting N2.

[Prism]

I describe what I thought the keys were to a possible town victory in posts 50 and 51 in my Notes PT.

The key insights I thought town missed were:

1) Dragons' vote on IV was hardtown.
2) esther forced the bus Day 2, because not reacting proactively loses essentially on the spot
3) Dunnstral's entire progression on IV pointed that way, but in particular swapping to Dwlee after I threatened to vote him, while it would be correct, would be

immensely

hard to spot as scum in this position. 4) I go more aggressive on Dunnstral Day 4 if I really think he's scum

[Prism]

Oh, and as for why I shoved Todoroki through despite thinking it was a bad play in the longterm w/ getting too townread: I thought it'd be fun, and it was.

I saw well in advance that the game would likely go to me vs. 2 of dwlee/Dunnstral/Dragons and planned accordingly. A small note is that I actually couldn't afford to let esther go through on Day 2, because that results in two nightkills in the group of 6. I can justify living through one, but no way I can justify living through two. I intentionally gave the extra elim to town instead just to avoid that, knowing I would be completely safe in 5 way.

[Prism]

And this all could have been avoided if we lim in 6 hood on day 1.

Truly.

During Day 1, I felt strongly that that would have lost on the spot; what almost won town the game was the fact that I had to justify living to 3 way. You don't get that by eliminating in 6 first. I think eliminating in 3 was indeed the right call, but butterfly effect & I can't see alternate worlds.

[Prism]

The first post of my Notes PT also has me discussing exactly how I expect to get townread by every slot. I did not wind up using them all, but you may find it valuable anyway.

I was satisfied that my idea on notscience would have worked, my idea on Lukewarm

did

work. I believe my adaptation for Dragons, who had recently seen a scumgame of mine but hadn't seen too much town, worked as well but am not certain. I don't know as much for Dwlee/Dunnstral, obviously I did not successfully adapt to esther and with Kuriyama I settled for a very close metamatch rather than anything artistic.

While not listed, I saw a chance earlygame to get townread by Firebringer with the tilt and took it. From there, if I had to guess I think Norwegian's bias I listed probably carried it.

[Prism]

oh and jesus christ we (me) were such indecisive motherfuckers when it came to blitz/no blitz

IV coming out with the wall was super clutch but left me going ?_?

I actually tried to take advantage of going in 6, if you look back I make an argument to Dunnstral of "don't have the votes [for 3]", only to have the Dragons swaparound slam the door in my face. I wanted to SCREAM

[Prism]

12 in the dead thread was not true, really, though the timing worked out well for me because that would have been a pain to deal with even if not fatal.

I made an unforced error with notscience where he completely misinterpreted the point of my posts, first I had accounted for second was unexpected. That definitely factored in a bit but I really just thought it would be more fun to shove through.

[Prism]

Prism, I've redacted your PT and will give you the night to consider any additional redactions.

You can release it now. I am certain I need no further.

[Prism]

1552's description of how I would have approached notscience if I wanted him to townread me was accurate. I didn't mind burning it here without using it.

I just had free choice of several good options and didn't particularly care about scumreading the first post, because I wanted the "go down the list to get people engaged [after discussion with Brighter]" point for use later, second post he keyed in on was IMO a complete misread and unexpected but if it works it works. Beyond that, after a certain point obviously did not mind the slot having me as scum nor try much to hide it. I suspected it would still be a struggle for them but apparently not!

[Prism]

With that I ~think~ I'm done for my general comments. I'm happy to dialogue with anything someone finds of interest.

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone, and while I am definitely burnt out and done playing I am glad I got a chance to flip scum and push it through.

Time for a very, very long break.

[Prism]

It also made it easy for you to blend in when slots that i literally never read as town (Dunnstral/STD) kept their activity or content-level low.

Though they have their strengths (see: difficulty of prediction/keeping under control in 3 way being my main obstacles), their styles are perpetual thorns in my side as town, so I was very happy for the chance to be on the flip side and exploit them as scum.

As I say in my notes PTs, I think their styles really backfired when it came to what actually mattered: Seeing through to the other as town in 3 way, because they only had 2 or 3 key points to work with.

1552 touches on the anathema/unpredictability point, but there's a piece I left out that I think exists only as an off-handed shard in the notes PT. While it was tough for me to predict where any

single

player would go, it was easy to see and bet on a plurality of them going somewhere in aggregate (Prime example being that more players would townread my Day 1 than scumread it. Who specifically those players would be? Didn't know, didn't care)

[Prism]

You very much hedged your read on me by specifying "before Elo", unfortunately, so that was your fault. If you had gotten to post your case things might have been more difficult, but I likely would have welcomed it as the #1 issue in my mind was being too town.

[Prism]

(I think in conjunction with esther's play Day 2, though, it was very conceivable that it would combine to put me under threat in 5)

[Prism]

I will cede a moral victory to yourself and notscience on whatever grounds or strength of read you had.

[Prism]

I am again very willing to cede any claim to reading me, either specifically this game or broadly across the site. I am proud of yourself and notscience for nailing me as scum in a game where I forced an elimination on both of you for fun rather than for any tangible strategic reason. I did think that you would townread the metamatch/tone at the end, and clearly that was not the case, so congratulations on exceeding my expectations.

[Prism]

Honestly I had a blast this game with you and Firebringer, my favorite was when Firebringer pulled out the receipts on Dwlee and asked if I was blind..because

yeah, I normally pick up on shit like that and instead Firebringer is running circles around me logically.

Felt like I was in opposite land, and it actually did worry me that my inability to process things would flip your read on me. Did not expect to enjoy your hydra nearly as much as I did!

[Prism]

Was essentially how I felt all game long, especially after moments like that, so I'm glad to go on hiatus

[Prism]

People absolutely slept on IV this game; I did not solocarry this. IV was the definition of understanding the assignment, we decided to send me long but he set me up ridiculously well and was rolling Day 1. He also showed a ton of flexibility in the face of me being indecisive-blitz? no blitz? hope town goes in 6 anyway?-and adjusted to all of the possibilities very well.

I also straight up

did not expect everyone to flip on esther like that

, IV blew both his own expectations and my own out with that resurgence.

10/10 partner, he didn't play the three way but make no mistake, I lose every game without him

[Prism]

Since you seem to find the vote on you of particular interest, it might also be valuable to know that the initial decision to power through you (Todoroki) was actually made very early, I believe in the 5 minutes between 387 and 388 but am not 100% sure.

The unvote in 460 was purely performative, and had notscience given more I would have just used it to shove him. When he wound up interpreting that post a different way it definitely confirmed that choice but as I alluded to in the mafia PT I made the strategic decision very, very early when I saw the chance for it to work. It could have backfired but it did not so shrug.

[Prism]

Esther first forced me to commit to voting in 3, which is important. I could swap only if votes were not there.

Second, her play was strong and I read the winds incorrectly. I thought that at least 2/3 townspeople would have her as hardtown. If this was true, it loses scum the game on the spot IMO if IV flips and I don't have a good distance set up. This is likely a loss even if we make it to 5 way ELO (eg. 2 of Dunn, Dragons, Dwlee, and then Esther voting there). Again though I read the winds incorrectly and this was likely a mistake.

Finally, I actually could not afford to let Esther herself get flipped. This is because I no longer have the clear to nightkill. I have to justify living through 2 more nightkills (Brighter+?) instead of just one (Brighter). You saw how bad living through even one was. I preferred to give town the extra elim instead.