Cosmos Mafia (Postgame)

[mastina]

3) one is not actually pushing but instead presenting thoughts on the thread without clear intention to push at that point

k. name a thought the post is presenting.

Frozen Angel was (and probably still is, altho not as 100% anymore) 100% in her meta for her towngame or her scumgame.

I've explained the concept many times already but to do it one more time.

I remembered Frozen Angel having a

very distinct

difference in her play between alignments. Similar to how StD has a night/day difference in his meta, Creature has a night/day difference in his meta, Bell has a night/day difference in his meta, etc. Some players just have one alignment be completely and entirely different to the other alignment. And FA is among them.

I recognized this.

But I didn't remember which was which at the time. (Now, I'm pretty sure it was the scum meta.)

It still was worth mentioning because if there's a player that you have a chance to get a 100% read on--you take it. It's either a free conftown, or a free confscum, and either outcome is good for the town. I believed it to be the scum alignment, and said it as much.

This really isn't that hard of a concept to grasp. I don't see why you can't understand it. A 100% guaranteed to be accurate meta read on a player...if I could remember which alignment was which playstyle. I didn't, but I THOUGHT it was scum--and I still do.

[Radical Rat]

Would I be horribly out of line in thinking this looks kinda like Drapion going "Well, throwing a fit worked for mastina, maybe it'll save me too!"?

While this is not a bad thought, I feel like a town-RR would push it stronger.

Do you think I'm scum WITH professotic?
Because if you think we're not aligned, what incentive does scum!me have to pull their punches?

This is not a real thought from you.

You know why?

Because this isn't a singleball game and you know it isn't.

What reason does a scum player

in a multiball

game have to pull their punches?

I shouldn't need to say that, now, should I?

But just in case you wanna try to spin it, I'll spell it out anyway.

Scum in multiball want to push hard enough to look town and not be eliminated, but not hard enough to get nightkilled by the enemy team. They still want to apply

some

pressure, to prevent their own faction from being the pressured. Whether it's better to pressure town or pressure other-scum is both player-dependent (different players think different things) and situation-dependent (big difference between town being hugely in the lead and one scumteam being unscathed while the other is on the verge of extinction), but applying some pressure, but not too much pressure, is exactly what scum in multiball want to do.

A town-you knows this.
A town-you pushes harder.

But you because you're scum are pretending to not know a Mafia 101 thing. It's literally the first rule of multiball.

I fundamentally disagree with this. Scum want to eliminate AND nightkill other Scum, to remove the threat as fast as possible. So the best defense is to look Town, and the best way to look Town is to just be honest with your reads and pushes, and put behind them the same degree of fervor that you have faith. In singleball, you have to exaggerate confidence because you made up the argument, while also tempering yourself because you know they'll flip Town and you don't want to be the one taking the blame. In multiball the only reason there should ever be a mismatch there is if it's theater with a buddy.


Having said all of that, I do understand your point of view here better, and am willing to concede that on this one particular point, we just have a theory disagreement.

[mastina]

she can explain 304 if she wants to tho.

I have, multiple times.

Spoiler: These are all posts doing exactly that.

Frozen Angel also has a town/scum meta that are night/day different. The asterisk to my read on FA here is that I don't know which is which.

I KNOW that FA has a night/day difference in her town meta and her scum meta.
I'm PRETTY sure that this is the night half, that this is the scum half, that this is FA as scum. But the asterisk on my read is that I might be remembering it backwards. I'm PRETTY sure I'm getting it right that this is the scum half tho.

Maybe mastina would like to finally confirm for us if she thinks FA is in her scum or town meta?

I already did, repeatedly.

My stance on FA I really don't get why y'all don't understand it, I'm being as clear as I can.

Frozen Angel has a night/day difference between her towngame and scumgame.
This is very damn strongly obvious. Her alignments could not be more distinct.

I

know

the differences IN the meta. I can identify the differences between one meta and the other. Just by her entrance into this game, I could tell FA was playing to her standard play as her alignment.
As in, if this is FA as town it is 100% her towngame;
If this is FA as scum it is 100% her scumgame.

If I have seen her towngame recently, I would instantly be able to tell her alignment in every game--because her play in this game is 100% matching to her meta, just by remembering what her towngame is, I'd be able to tell if it were matching that or matching the opposite.

If I had seen her scumgame recently, would instantly be able to tell her alignment in every game--because her play in this game is 100% matching to her meta, just by remembering what her scumgame is, I'd be able to tell if it were matching that or matching the opposite.

FA's metas are distinct enough that I can instantly tell when she is playing to one of them.

But my memory is rusted enough that it's not 100% on which is which.

I am like 90% sure that this is the scum meta.
But I am 100% sure that she is playing 100% to the typical meta for her current alignment.

If I had seen FA more recently, I'd be able to make the 90% into a 100% and that would make me 100% sure on her 100% playing 100% to that alignment.
But the 90% on a 100% is still pretty damn high.

The only thing that keeps it from being the most lockread of lockread is being rusty on FA gameplay.

Her alignment is transparently obvious if you've played with her recently. It is 100% her Xgame, where X = her alignment this game. If you've seen her play, and if you know about the night/day difference, then you should be able to tell what X equals, and therefore have a 100% guaranteed accuracy on FA.

I just haven't played with her recently--thus, I need to look it up.
When I actually do my research and refresh my memory on which meta is which, I will know FA's alignment 100% because she is 100% playing to her meta for her current alignment and I know the differences between her two metas.


OH I JUST FIGURED OUT A MUCH SIMPLER WAY TO EXPLAIN ALL OF THIS.

Imagine that we're talking about Creature.
Say you know that Creature posts a shitload as one alignment, and hardcore lurks as the other.
You see this trait present in the current game, where he is either posting a shitload, or he is hardcore lurking. Not an in-between. 100% posting a shitload, or 100% hardcore lurking.

You know that this stark contrast is alignment-indicative for Creature.

But you don't remember which is which.
You're

pretty

sure that the hardcore lurking meta is the scum one. So, say this is a game where Creature is hardcore lurking. You are thus

pretty

sure that Creature is scum. You KNOW that he has a night/day difference between the town/scum metas, you can SEE the difference in live time by seeing that he is hardcore lurking and know that hardcore lurking is either the brightest of bright days or the darkest of dark nights in being a huge alignment indicators.
But you're rusty on Creature and can't FOR SURE remember it, in spite of being pretty sure it's the scum meta.


...Does that make sense?

That's my read on FA.
I am

pretty

sure that this meta is FA's scum one. So I am

pretty

sure that FA is scum. I KNOW she has a night/day difference between the town/scum metas, can SEE the difference in live time. But I'm rusty on FA and can't FOR SURE remember it, in spite of being pretty sure it's the scum meta.

Frozen Angel I am pretty sure is in her scumgame. It has to do with her opening focus and what she was doing, her tone, her wording, etc. Her areas of thinking are key, and the points she is/isn't raising. FA is definitely in ONE meta.
These are as clear as views get. There's no ambiguity to be had. I've not wavered on the FA read. My read there--scumread--has been quite consistent the entire time; implying otherwise is disingenuous as fuck.

soo why does one make intentionally crappy push?

It wasn't a crappy push?

Frozen Angel is almost 100% scum here (small doubts now keep it from being the 100% I once thought it to be but I still lean as likely scum overall)--but I only have one vote, and Frozen Angel in particular has gotten no votes this game. Did you want me to vanity vote there? FA was not my priority, but I can state scumreads on players that are not my priority.

I have explained the read on FA multiple times, and if you want more people to look at it and give feedback, ask Ydrasse and Titus what they think of my FA stance this game.

3) one is not actually pushing but instead presenting thoughts on the thread without clear intention to push at that point

k. name a thought the post is presenting.

Frozen Angel was (and probably still is, altho not as 100% anymore) 100% in her meta for her towngame or her scumgame.

I've explained the concept many times already but to do it one more time.

I remembered Frozen Angel having a

very distinct

difference in her play between alignments. Similar to how StD has a night/day difference in his meta, Creature has a night/day difference in his meta, Bell has a night/day difference in his meta, etc. Some players just have one alignment be completely and entirely different to the other alignment. And FA is among them.

I recognized this.

But I didn't remember which was which at the time. (Now, I'm pretty sure it was the scum meta.)

It still was worth mentioning because if there's a player that you have a chance to get a 100% read on--you take it. It's either a free conftown, or a free confscum, and either outcome is good for the town. I believed it to be the scum alignment, and said it as much.

This really isn't that hard of a concept to grasp. I don't see why you can't understand it. A 100% guaranteed to be accurate meta read on a player...if I could remember which alignment was which playstyle. I didn't, but I THOUGHT it was scum--and I still do.

why haven't I "updated" my read on FA?

Because my read is fucking accurate, that's why. Why update a read that's right? I know I'm right about my read there.

Why haven't I confirmed my 90% by looking for recent FA games to push it to 100%?

Because I fucking haven't had the time since before Saturday, that's why.
And before that, nobody had asked me to, so being a procrastinator that's highly a reactive player, I simply didn't think to. After people DID ask, I would love to have--but they didn't start asking until around Saturday.

On that note, more about my FA read in this game:
My FA read in this game is very similar to my StD read in the two concurrent games, Pokémon Gen1+2 and Gypyx's AI Upick.
I knew that StD had a night/day difference between his town play and his scumplay, but I didn’t remember which was which.
I could tell that he was playing to his meta, but I initially didn’t have the time to sort which was which. Like FA is this game, I had a fairly high level of confidence in remembering the tell differentiating his towngame and scumgame. But I didn’t have the time to research which was which, until much much later.

So while I knew that there was a night/day difference between his alignments, I didn't know for SURE which was which. My read on him was only about 90%, until I had the time to do the research.

That took weeks for me to find the time to do, but once I finally DID do the research, the 90% jumped to 100%.

Same story here.
I know FA has a night/day difference between her towngame and scumgame, same way StD did back then.
I am pretty sure that I know which is which, at 90%, same as back then for StD.
But I haven't had the time to do the research YET. It took weeks, closer to MONTHS, for me to find the time to do that for StD.

And here, it hasn't been weeks closer to months for FA, now, has it?
So, I WILL do the research. When I have the time. I just haven't yet, because, y'know.
Too much rl shit.

I'm pretty sure that this is the scum half for FA tho.

On the note of StD tho, since those games where I did the research, since then, I've not been wrong on my StD read since then. After I did my homework, my read rate on him became flawless.

Which is why I know that he's town this game.

I am sure that in a future FA game, I'll point to this game and say the same for her then as I'm saying for StD now.

(^This is a big one.)

It's about as clear as can be. I can explain it 20 different times but the read is exactly the same and the reasoning exactly the same: knowing FA's meta but not having it fully fully memorized as to which is which, but being pretty sure it's the scum meta.

I genuinely can't figure out what's so hard for that to be grasped?

Like. It's literally self-explanatory.

And I stand by it.

[mastina]

TicTac saying Wolf!Mastina would know once we claim the votes would go back on her or whatever.

Nah. I didn't stop pushing MathBlade after he claimed, what makes tictac think I'd have stopped after you claimed when I didn't stop after MathBlade claimed?

Your claim means nothing to me. Heck it might have even made me more sure you were scum and double down on that push.

It's the play that's important and the play has pivoted from looking like scum to looking like town.

[mastina]

Why does scum!her change her mind on you when you were a viable wagon?

we are not a viable wagon.

There ain't a claim in the world you could make that could stop you from being a viable wagon. Not even IC/FN/Mason. (And Vig, that claim was taken by MathBlade already, so like. Wouldn't have been that.)

But there is a thing that makes you town and that is the play.

[mastina]

With three people openly defending the wagon it wasn't that viable

T-Bone you might wanna think about your statement here.

You're saying this in relation to professotic, right?

...Which wagon

also

has three people openly defending the wagon, which you are still voting as if it were viable?

Think your logic through and what that implies.

[Radical Rat]

But I didn't remember which was which at the time. (Now, I'm pretty sure it was the scum meta.)

Why wouldn't you just.... check?

[mastina]

I thought your defense of mastina was too confident given the circumstances. Felt like you'd already had your mind made up about her instead of genuinely considering the points against her. A lot like Yume, really.

Alternatively, Nancy and Yume are the two players in this game who have played with me more than any other players in this game--and thusly, have the far far far most accurate read of what my towngames (plural, mind you) are versus what my scumgame (

technically

could be plural but by and large, with occasional exceptions, it just...is literally the same every game) is, and they know that this is my towngame.

Tonally both are fine, tonally both are in

their

towngames, and both are town for like 20 different reasons.

The three of us are effectively masons in this game as far as I'm concerned. Not by role, but by having accurate reads on each other and knowing those reads to be accurate.

[mastina]

My own rule of thumb is that highposting bodes well for more townies barring a highposter having some sort of value beyond just well, posting
I understand this take is without context, but you play enough of these games and you start to notice patterns. Does anyone believe that the notated users have any scum equity? Open question

professotic, Past Present Future, and Yume are all in my scum pool.

If professotic is town (which I am leaning towards now), this is 0/3 guaranteed.

[mastina]

I'm sad to announce that, cause of my newly added real life commitments I will not have the time to continue playing this game so I have to replace out. It was my pleasure to play with you all even if it was for just one phase of a mafia game again.
I'm not going to disappear from website again and wont be leaving for years again though and will join more games/mod games in near future so will see you all again in near future <3

Ah fuck I feel bad about pushing FA now.

Have a good life, FA. <3

Wish you luck and hope to see you again. <3

[mastina]

And PPF - can't remember who said it but all 3 heads in town meta.

That would be me.

So tldr is bad reads from RR, not because they don't make sense but bc they do on a surface level.

This too.

[mastina]

I think the best course of action is to resolve between mastina/MathBlade.

If you mean by reading/sorting, resolving is fine.

If you mean by flipping, fuck no; MathBlade is town.

[Enchant]

What this game? Did i sign up here?

Huh...

[Enchant]

Mastina posts contain less than 20 lines, scum claim.

[mastina]

mastina getting desperate sounds similar to that practice?

Sure would be but unfortunately for Radical Rat my iso will show the truth which disagrees with his assessment of me being desperate.

[mastina]

Don't you think mastina is capable of faking tone?

Well.

Kinda?

But not really.

I can display

snark

as scum.

I can be

deadpan

as scum.

I can

joke

as scum.

I can roll my eyes as scum.

I can display uncertainty as scum. (Heck these days it's usually my default, in spite of uncertainty being something people usually consider town. For me I'd argue it's normally more scum because the idea of mastina is an ideal of conviction, so like--uncertainty just isn't the vibe of mastina, thus this is not something so much faked as much as it is scum default.)

All of those, I can fake.

When it comes to rage, I can't

fake

it but I can feel it and it will be true, 100% of the time, and often be based off of accusations that have no place being made in a mafia game. If people accuse me of things against my moral code, I will NOT take it well.

But like.

Tone is kinda sorta the thing that has been how I've been accurately read for like...my whole career, pretty much? It was what zMuffinman called "whimsy", it's something AngryPidgeon could see, it's something that, well. No. Can't really be faked.

I don't really have a scum tone

per se

(altho tbf this post is the closest I think I have to a scum tone--project this post across an entire game and have this post be the tone in ALL of my posts rather than a one-off and you've got a 90+% scumastina), but I have multiple town tones.

Often swapped between in a game, another biggie. scumastina is usually very very very consistent in town tone the entire game. But as town my tone changes at different times off of different circumstances. So tone is in that sense a

very

reliable tool for reading me.

[mastina]

So in your head is mastina like this scum ringleader and the defenders are associated? I don't know if I can exactly see that, because it begs the question what happens if mastina goes over? All her defenders would be incriminated

(Btw I think it bears mentioning: everything unwnd is saying pretty much looks town, but I don't think it's actually town. I'm not convinced it's town, so much as I think that nothing unwnd has said so far is truly alignment-indicative one way or another.)

[Enchant]

It's 14 lines, not 20 still scum

[mastina]

I shut up for > 48 hours and nothing happened of note.

To the contrary, that 48 hours contained the professotic wagon shooting up to L-2, professotic towning it up, and then RR taking the spot as the top wagon in the game.

That ain't nothing.

That's a shitload of things.

[mastina]

Titus would a 'i told you so' be enough of a reward if mastina was just limmed?

I have a post on this, lemme pull it up.

There's a part of me that believes she's doing it out of spite to get one over on those of us with an incorrect read.

I mean--explicitly so, yes! I've been QUITE clear about my stance on this:

If you can't tell that I am town from what I have posted so far in the game, you don't deserve to. Ever. (Hope that wording's okay.) If you think you have any form of tell on me that comes to the conclusion I am scum--I know I'm town so no fucking duh, I am gonna be smug when you see the townflip.

I've gone through enough shit in one week that I, well and truly, don't give a damn.

There are things that I am obligated to do--share my thoughts on who I think is scum, share my thoughts on who I think is town.
Some stronger than others.

But putting any work into saving myself? Not among the things I'm obligated to do.

Every single vote on me has bullshit reasoning. Literally every single one of them. There are NO valid reasons to vote me, here.

Even the "just end the day" logic, even the "this will continue tomorrow if not resolved today" logic, even the posts about it being content revolving around me making a toxic mindset

?

Bullshit logic.

But while the reasoning used to vote me is absolute shit--literally none of it is worth responding to.
If I have other reasons to engage with a post with bullshit reasoning, I will still engage with the post.

But by default, just not worth the effort. You can't see I'm town, you don't deserve to. You claim you read me as scum, you have no fucking clue what you were talking about. I don't really care to prove it, because the flip does that for me. So, yes. Not bothering to try. And yes, out of spite.

My spite won't stop me from sharing reads.
But I've no interest in defending myself, not in of itself at least.

Your logic is exactly the highlighted logic and it is bullshit.

The town is fully capable of changing the gamestate on their own. Fights with me be damned. I'm a facilitator for activity, sure, and have caused some bitter fights this game, yes. Those are not the death-spirals those who want to push mastina votes are pretending they are. Those are not things that kill the gamestate and even if they did--the conclusion from them is not to remove me. That is all lazy reasoning and explicitly, a breeding room for scum to hide because "voting mastina for the health of the game thread" is not stating an alignment read on me. It is not trying to resolve me. It is not trying to sort me.

It is lazy and it is either bullshit (from the town who should fucking know better) or scum (from those who see the convenience in the narrative).

The actual fact of the matter is that with the extra time granted by the frozen deadline and the benefit of said time and distance, there was a

surge

of productivity in the game.

professotic went from not wagoned, to top wagoned, to not wagoned again, in that time, from people not having them on their radar, putting them on the radar, and then later concluding (mostly at my behest) that they are not actually scum.

And there is a fairly young Radical Rat wagon there, less than 48 hours old, that has had a chance to form/develop--which these voices going back to the "mastina and the toxic gamestate" viewpoint are

actively shutting down

.

That's lazy from town and scum-motivated from scum.

Yes, there was fatigue.
Yes, there was a time where people ran out of time/energy.

But then, we took the time to step back and distance ourselves--and there was a surge of reinvigorated energy.

The narrative of mastina-is-hurting-the-town was, probably (if I am being at my most self-critical), true--

at a time

.
There WAS a time during this day phase where it was true.

It's not anymore, and pretending it is is, explicitly: not updating arguments to reflect the new gamestate.

That's not inherently scum, because lazy town be lazy.
But it is something that scum do because it's convenient and easy to hide behind.

[mastina]

The town is fully capable of changing the gamestate on their own. Fights with me be damned. Those are not the death-spirals those who want to push mastina votes are pretending they are.

That is all lazy reasoning and explicitly, a breeding room for scum to hide because "voting mastina for the health of the game thread" is not stating an alignment read on me. It is not trying to resolve me. It is not trying to sort me.

The actual fact of the matter is that with the extra time granted by the frozen deadline and the benefit of said time and distance, there was a

surge

of productivity in the game.

There is a fairly young Radical Rat wagon there, less than 48 hours old, that has had a chance to form/develop--which these voices going back to the "mastina and the toxic gamestate" viewpoint are

actively shutting down

.

The narrative of mastina-is-hurting-the-town was, probably (if I am being at my most self-critical), true--

at a time

.

It's not anymore, and pretending it is is, explicitly: not updating arguments to reflect the new gamestate.

These parts bear particular reiterating.

The gamestate did NOT stall.
The conclusions did NOT become inevitable.
The game did NOT circle back into the same.
The situation HAS changed, and evolved.

The narrative that the game is still the same as it was a week or two ago is, explicitly, not reflective of reality.

[mastina]

I think the only way out of limbo is to look towards the future

For the record, not because of the vote on me but for the reasoning given--I think that unwnd has a pretty good chance of being scum here. (See also 2320 + 2319.)

The reasoning is either lazy-town or scum, but the reason I think scum over lazy town is, explicitly, because I don't believe that unwnd even as a replacement takes the lazy-town route.

[mastina]

This is fair, it's just frustrating that I can point out all of the ways mastina's actual content is scummy

(None of which are actually scumastina patterns/behaviors and in fact many of which are signature towntells, so.)

Even though I, you, Math, and others have all pointed out that it's fakable, multiball fucks with meta reads

The problem with this argument is that I have a long-standing meta showing what I can and can't fake, and that my meta is so extensive that I have multiball scum meta aplenty. Not just one or two or three games but like. At this stage. Somewhere in the range of 20 multiball scumgames?

You can't do a 1:1 comparison of singleball scumastina games, but I have enough multiball scumastina games to meta read me off of multiball and this is not my multiball scum meta.

and even mastina herself has admitted she isn't playing to either her Town or scum meta since she isn't even really mastina at this point

That isn't what I said and you know it.

I had one specific point where I

broke

. I snapped. I couldn't keep playing as mastina at that point--but

every post I made before then

, was in my mastina ideal. As such,

every post before then

was subject to my mastina meta. The meta that the players who know me best have repeatedly said was town.

You said it yourself, Radical Rat:

Mastina's posting has improved exponentially, to the point where

if the rest of the game hadn't happened

, I'd probably be townreading her now.

But the rest of the game did happen

My more recent contributions do not wipe out the game before that.

Radical Rat is literally showing a logical inconsistency by trying to have his cake and eat it too when these two viewpoints are literally contradictory

.
1888 is specifying that my newer play is townier, but doesn't remove the scummier earlygame.

But now, in 2296, Radical Rat is arguing the

opposite

--that my current play is out of my town/scum meta and therefore should not be treated as town.

The two posts use the exact opposite logic to force the narrative of me being scum.

My more recent posting being not following either of my metas does not wipe out

the entire game before that

where I was town. And my more recent posts are still me as town--just not as mastina.

[mastina]

and even mastina herself has admitted she isn't playing to either her Town or scum meta since she isn't even really mastina at this point

You said it yourself, Radical Rat:

Mastina's posting has improved exponentially, to the point where

if the rest of the game hadn't happened

, I'd probably be townreading her now.

But the rest of the game did happen

My more recent contributions do not wipe out the game before that.

Radical Rat is literally showing a logical inconsistency by trying to have his cake and eat it too when these two viewpoints are literally contradictory

.
1888 is specifying that my newer play is townier, but doesn't remove the scummier earlygame.

But now, in 2296, Radical Rat is arguing the

opposite

--that my current play is out of my town/scum meta and therefore should not be treated as town.

The two posts use the exact opposite logic to force the narrative of me being scum.

I want to reiterate this.

Check the argument in 1888. "mastina's newer posts are better, but her older ones are scum".
Check the argument in 2296. "mastina's newer posts are out of her meta, therefore should not be town".

There is literally a logical inconsistency between the two. (Neither is right btw but that's beside the point.)

[MMR]

I don’t think Prof is scum anymore but I would like to ask tictac why Mastina’s recent posting hasn’t affected his read on her at all.

UNVOTE:

for now

cuz she's mastina.
she's fully capable of looking town if she chooses to.

Nah. She can fake it for a while, but she'll slip up eventually.

Has prof explained what mastina did to be aligned with Bunny, yet?
I'm not unvoting until I know that the push on Bunny wasn't just focused on Bunny's posts.
-Rubella

Maybe try reading instead of faking cause I already stated my opinion on that long before I voted Bunny.
Me and Math were talking about it, where were you for that interaction? Clearly not reading it.

This is overly aggressive and flat out rude.

They say a picture can say a thousand words but MathBlade has already used half of them. Instinct tells me to read that as a positive for him being town but shrug

MathBlade always spam. I don't see how that's a +town thing for him. In fact, I think the opposite.

My own rule of thumb is that highposting bodes well for more townies barring a highposter having some sort of value beyond just well, posting

I understand this take is without context, but you play enough of these games and you start to notice patterns. Does anyone believe that the notated users have any scum equity? Open question

professotic's post count is too low to be town considering they are a hydra.

Yume on the other hand is clearly town given her post count.

Pls don't freeze the deadline again this day has been far too long lol

I don't believe it is fair to a replacement to have less than 2 days to assess the game before coming to a deciscion, in general, especially considering today's length. The freeze at 4 days was only because of a player completely being absent from the game for so long (due to me overlooking their absence on accident). Any future freezes will occur with 2 days left and not before. It's the most fair way I know how to handle it.

Just update the deadline if you get a replacement before it expires. Otherwise, let the deadline keep trickling down.
~Mumps