mystery box of silver 15: i'm killing hostages (negotiated)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Just declaring our headspace team in case it matters to anyone but me.
Orphee, Coda, Ad, Enu and Curse (that's me). If we don't sign and we talk more or less like this, it's just me, otherwise we should sign. I'm doing very little decision-making, mostly just communication.

Judging by the group composition, I'd say we're probably going to wobble around and shitpost and ask basic socialization questions most of the time, try to do very tricky smart things sometimes (and knowing Enu, act very smug and self-satisfied about them), and rarely ask a two or three word question that everyone goes "oh damn that's a good one" about. That said, I don't know how this group plays well enough yet to promise that for sure. Hooray!

Expect intermittency: I owe someone synth organ still, I'm gearing up to start my own music project, and I'm flirting with cute systems at all hours, while also tackling a massive writing project. Also I probably won't do megaposts like I used to in the olden times (2021 or so).

Going to sit back and watch the RVS right now, because dishes and synth organ call my name.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

synth organ sounds fun by the way

next weekend i'm gonna give synthesizer lessons to someone i just met :0

It's for an extremely deathy nu-metal song with a bunch of gated hard-trance chords (I made those too). The outro is this extremely fun funk-hop deal and I'm going to smoothly fade in the organ synth from the distorted super saw chords, then do those long funk-rock sustained organ notes with soul/heavy psych organ licks that warp into more gated trance chords. This is a ton of work, but it will sound so damn cool.

PEDIT: Snuffed On Sight's album was just so much fun. Hunter did such a good job doing the production.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

VOTE: koba

my only goal in this game is to somehow get to be the first person to be knocked out of the park by my boy Tommy Edman come hell or high water

I support this, but only because schadd_ owes me Riot At The Bat Rack-posting.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Pooky, you cannot pocket me, not least because 3/5ths of me did not exist before late 2022, and Ad (the other one who did) has all the emotional depth of a puddle of concrete.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I might be the one with most of my head in the game, it seems, which is funny because exactly 194/199 of my head is not in the game at all.

PEDIT: No, this is some concrete mixed by a drunk dad who knows that, in theory, concrete is sort of liquidy, and slopped a bit of the resulting rock-soup onto the garage floor by accident.

Also, if you can manipulate Ad, you'll be the first, buddy!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

VOTE: Pooky

If that's what we're doing...

[MUSHSHAGANA]

{Doctor Drew}
{Skygazer}
{Meuh}
{Alisae}
{PookyTheMagicalBear}
{Morning Tweet}
{MUSHSHAGANA}
{DKKoba}
{xyzzy}
{HighPrincessErinys}

Current.

I don't know why I'm so low. I'm waiting on valuable information. There's one and only one player who can post in a meaningful way right now. Might as well shitpost with the rest of the weirdoes while I wait.

Also, if you could explain your thoughts on HPE being bottomed out, I'd appreciate it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

its actually wild that morning tweet has decided to openwolf but no1 will vote for her because we all want to be tommy edman's first home run

we should honestly just not vote at all and let the whimsy of tommy edman's batting hand decide how this game goes

Town loss. Rules say it's specifically scummy townies who get batted out.

Never mind, Ranger, I get you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Making dinner too. This might be the most involved alfredo sauce I've ever made.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Pooky, you cannot pocket me, not least because 3/5ths of me did not exist before late 2022, and Ad (the other one who did) has all the emotional depth of a puddle of concrete.

Did pooky do something that makes you think they're pocketing you?

No, that was just what Pooky was shitposting about. This sounds like it could be either kind of Pooky, according to Enu (headmate).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I cannot believe how much sauce this made. It's concerning.

Anyway, please explain your serious vote, ofrhz.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I want a Koba post addressing their wagon before I make a move there.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I posted, then I was like, did I get Koba's pronoun right or did I do the generalalized-statement-edited-to-individual-without-changing-pronouns thing? I still don't know, but at least I didn't misgender by bad rewriting habits this time.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

also the reason I think koba is town is because they know enough about setup and they are ruthlessly good at abusing setup quirks so the fact they didnt lead off with the speedrun strat is p lolscumclaimy to me

also popping in and claiming they've seen enough from me when im spamming the shit out of this thread is pretty ? like id imagine if they were town they'd at least be fighting me for thread control instead of just popping in saying three words and disappearing on me

You mean you think they're scum righy?

Pedit: I'm playing mafia for fun so that should give you an idea of how bored I am LMAO

Admitting I don't know enough about Koba's play here. Enu says we looked into it at one point, but I have no recollection of that and I disdain meta as a rule anyway.

Pooky being the first to bring up the absurdity of the numbers first could go either way, but early-lock on Koba sounds town-Pooky-ish to me. Granted, that's really thin and meta-based and I hate myself for saying it, but I'm in the middle of developing a new playstyle with the aid of my system, so I'm gonna do some real weak shit in the meantime.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Hi! We’ll do a reread after we wake up and stuff, but we’re kinda thinking, Koba’s fine for now? Dannflor’s weird, not sure if we vibe or not with it? Enu says Pooky and Cakez look town here… and that’s it otherwise!

—Coda

[MUSHSHAGANA]

SirCakez,

I read the posts you make, and they seem in line with what we know of you. It is not a particularly strong opinion, I merely think you are more likely to be town than not right now. This question mildly reinforces that opinion.

--Enu Kashkashshu, Ushdubsar

[MUSHSHAGANA]

who?

HPE is HighPrincessErinys.

Catch up posting follows:

Koba, to be clear, 104 is crap because it just threw a nothing-vote at Pooky and didn't even bring up that you were being wagoned. The stuff after you start being active looks basically fine, though. Big fan of the wording in 199, especially.

Dannflor, what's inconsistent about 78? Koba was the only person who could post anything meaningful at that point for moving the game-state, I didn't have much reason to dig while I waited. I also thought HPE was functionally doing the same as me in the moment, so I was curious how we got placed so differently. It's also not incoherent at all. Thoughts are mostly positive here, but it's pretty thin. Early game and all.

The Bulge is just kind of not there to my brain. Enu says they're plenty present, Coda and Orphee agree with me that they're sliding off of the brain even while we read their posts, Ad has attack-dog face, so it's kind of a wash what's up over there. We're collectively vaguely negative on this slot, but I personally have a positive spin based on past experiences with posting-sliding-off-the-brain. When I find a player whose brain parses cleanly to me, I'll probably follow their lead on this slot specifically.

Enu says Cakez is town, but I really hate 234 and 235. Kind of agreeing with Skygazer's 236 there. I think Enu is (kind of has to be, honestly) working from 249 here, which, okay, that looks like town Cakez, but that's one fucking post and it's preceded with a warning that he'll be shitposty, so it's fakeable.

Vague positive feeling on xyzzy. Stepping up for Ranger in 129 could be scum buddying, if it wasn't Ranger. (Admittedly I don't know lots about Ranger, but eh, I know enough.) Shitposts feel surprisingly revealing.

Skygazer is one of my trademark "not sharing thoughts here" slots. Keep posting!

Not a fan of iamveryhappy's posting style, but it could be NAI. I'm withholding judgement.

Don't like ofhrz! Don't like that posting! I don't have a good word to describe what it feels like in Mafia-jargon, but the word that comes to mind is "slip-streaming". Coasting behind someone else, occasionally shifting who they're keeping ahead of them. It feels like they're trying to be what The Bulge actually is.

Alisae, Meuh, Doctor Drew, Morning Tweet and RCEnigma are just nothing to me. The posting is largely missing and not particularly revealing so far. There's a small split here between "exactly one post that feels slightly AI" and "nothing-posts from front to back", but it's insignificant right now.

0verki11 and sheepsaysmeep are MIA.

Catch-up done, which is a now-unusual megapost. Fun. By prior agreement, the rest of our activity today will be Orphee-posting, unless someone gets specifically asked for.



PEDIT: Oh nice, a votecount! Based on that, yeah. Increasing negative vibe on ofrhz and asking schadd_ what the hell's going on with Skygazer's wagon.

VOTE: ofhrz

[MUSHSHAGANA]

he swung at this slider that went really low and inside twice and so the pitcher just kept throwing it even lower and insider and he didnt swing at it and then it hit him in the foot

Why is he even there? Is he like a defensive specialist?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh. That was Koba. Koba had quite a wagon and hadn't posted since it started rolling. Koba posted, we can pay attention to other things now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I should have signed that.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We were so focused on Koba that the rest of the game was background noise. Once Koba posted, we were able to begin looking at how everyone acted around them.

Unless you thought "we" meant the whole game. Which it didn't. I meant that as we-I, not we-us.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We were bigger on blaseball than baseball before the ILB screamed and died horribly, but we watch enough Jon Bois to have that particular mixed feeling on baseball -- that we think it's boring, but kind of funny. Personally, I like racing sports more than ball sports.

If we're talking about bats as weapons, Ad's more into combat sport.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Not supposed to be playing but it’s my turn in front! Curse was just curious about positioning but doesn’t think there’s any particular value to the list or positions on it right now?

—Samir

PEdit: If Tommy gets incinerated it will imply the existence of necromancy! I’m torn on this!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

we could just speedlim ofrhz

Normally, would be opposed. Don't like to rush. Team says the slot's all bad, though. Burn it.

--Ad.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Tapping out for the day. I glutened myself like a fool because I forgot that Twix contain gluten yesterday, and now I'm hypoglycemic, ornery and literally too weak to walk to the store to get some source of sugar, because I don't have anything high-sugar here and I can't properly break down and absorb normal human food.

Will catch up and post tomorrow.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Rereading stuff on phone starting from p13, glutening yourself fucking sucks holy shit I forgot this used to be an every-other-day thing for me, how the fuck did I survive

[MUSHSHAGANA]

NOTES FROM REREAD:

I'll be spoilering blocks and breaking out questions to particular people. Also things that aren't strictly part of catch-up.

Spoiler:

I don't know Koba so I have no idea if this means anything AI, but the outright prediction of contrarianism on ofrhz gives me scum vibes. It gets walked back which says if it's scum, it's theater, but it goes nowhere so I'm gonna call this "damn, why" town for now.

Hi to BlueSnakelet, I like the energy here for no real noticeable reason.

Alisae, please, if you would be so kind as to explain 327.

Okay, I rescind my town pass on Koba. 334. What a post. Buddy, this sucks. Even if you're town, this looks like trying to deflect pressure on ofrhz, and while I don't remember enough to be sure, I'm predicting that the tunnel-spiral comes after someone maintains pressure on ofrhz's slot. It's a null-read, not a scum read, but just. Look at this post, friend.

(Sidebar: I have thoughts about the whole "reading someone on the optimal-play" thing, because I also thought of that play out of the gate but wanted to sit on it in case someone said something extremely non-optimal. I'll explain after I catch up, if I remember.)

Spoiler:

HPE has the town vibes, and I think I found a legitimate tell. Hard to be sure, but vibes and personal history with similar people say thumbs-up on the tell.

I have no opinions on the Morning Tweet Ranger vote. Well. None that I'm sharing, at least.

I also have no opinions on Ranger, yet. I'm gonna say let that be a Wednesday sort.

Feel negative about Koba casting shade toward Doctor Drew, who otherwise is kind of nothing right now. It's not the point being made in 370, which I basically agree with, but the manner in which it's made when Drew has been consistently a lighthearted shitposting presence so far. Unnecessary levels of sarcastic disdain given the slot being spoken to. Like, Drew's 375 feels proportional to Koba's 370. I don't agree with it, but it's a proportional response.

Ranger's read lists precipitate Koba's slide, huh? The vibes aren't in your favor.

Fuuuuuck the glutening. Holy shit I feel like actual death.

Koba's 383 is illuminating. Bad faith? I see shitposting, mostly, up until 370 sours the vibes. Pooky could be construed as more, but eh, he's not hard-pushing, he's just throwing dirt in typical Pooky fashion. The points on "interactivity" are ??? I don't get it. People are asking questions and getting answers, I don't see what's wanted here.

Koba loses the plot in 396, exactly precipitated by what I predicted: sustained pressure on ofrhz. Koba, tell me: are you at all aware of what this looks like from the outside? Are you really wanting to go down with this garbage ship that even you said you wouldn't miss? Why die on this hill instead of any other? Your 402 was previously explained by Ranger (she's about to be busy) and confirmed by none other than you personally your own self as in line with her meta for those who respect meta.

Spoiler:

416 is wrong, gut-tells are a thing. I've made reads that were entirely vibe based many times, and some of them were among my best reads. More reason to want to burn this slot.

Something about Pooky/Koba vibes wrong compared to Koba/Ranger to me, and past experience says that that's probably TvT -- Pooky TvT shitfights just always feel SvT to me. Reframing off of that, Koba/Ranger is probably TvT. Pages to go, but I'm looking more around the edges now, at players weighing in on Koba/Ranger/Pooky, and players who are getting little sucker punches in.

No, not you, Doctor Drew, you're doing the popcorn thing that gets you even odds of being dragged in personally.

No, not you, Skygazer, that's an attempt at a defusing statement if anything.

iamveryhappy's doing his own weird little thing there, totally disconnected, so not him either.

No.

YOU


ofrhz, tell me, why do you look like scum trying to distract off of Koba? If I wasn't following hard-earned experience on Pooky, I'd say that Koba was the same for you. Could also be my experience doesn't apply with Koba, though. Why do you two look like scumbuddies? Why is Koba using some of your worst posts as evidence of a town mindset? I'm already voting you but I'd do it again if I could.

HPE reading my mind across space-time. I like you. Actually, I tend to get along with dolls in general, but this says I can probably use your brain as a co-processor, which isn't super common (I find on average something like ~0.6 players per game I can do that with, maximum ever was 2 in one game). This doesn't mean you're getting a town-pass from me, just that I'm able to calibrate reality from your posting. Stick around for awhile.

Spoiler:

Okay, it's not just me and Pooky the mental enigma, that's a player whose brain is parsing for me too. Alright, dropping my Koba townpass: Koba/ofrhz smells like 2/5 to me.

493 is crap. Typing thoughts out takes much more time than re-ordering a reads list. Have you ever had to tabulate data? If you have to make a note, it fucks the flow. How long have I been typing my thoughts? Two hours, ish, as of typing this. How many pages have I gotten through? Seven. Pre-Post Edit: it's been 5 hours, and I'm finally done.

Pooky making a clear, well-stated point? Heaven forbid! (I'm joking buddy.) Pooky, smell blood in the water?

Doctor Drew, if you think Ranger/Koba is theater, I'm concerned for your vision. There's no contrivance there, the emotions are very real.

HPE ahead of me once the fuck again. Damn it. I'm going to have to give you a townread, huh? Damn it all.

Okay 505 about saves it. Ranger/Koba isn't SvS, but SvT is a big possibility. Thin ice, Doctor.

506 catches something I nearly missed despite scumreading Koba -- typical Pooky, all ice cream, shitposts and giggles until the thumbscrews and tongs come out. Finding this actually convincing now, rather than a corner I'm driven to by my own logic.

Re: 513 because I'm predicting a lot of banging of pots and pans from the 2 scumreads, Ranger already said that she's about to be extremely busy, so like... and there's 514, right on time.

515! Sincerely like HPE. Let's fucking go.

547 is gaaaaaarbage. 3/5, this looks like a sacrificial play to draw town attention and destroy focus. Scumbucket, xyzzy, get the hell out of here.

556 is spiraling out in the opposite direction from 547 -- current push is momentumless and garnering suspicion, buddy puts a late vote on you with a really wild interpretation behind it, hard-shift to a different player who's been involved on the sidelines. Between shit-reasoning for latest on Koba's wagon, and Koba switching to a different target with also poor reasoning, voting in their own wagon, it's a patently artificial and blatantly coordinated attempt to make the wagon look like trash. Wagon stalled at 6/10 before this says scum to me. Burn Koba.

567 is ehhh. Early Koba was frustrated. Coming back from absence, those posts look legit frustrated rather than just fighty. The past 3+ pages have been ALL teeth and nails and NO seething, though.

574 and 556 do not make sense in the order they're supposed to have occurred in. Or in the order of posting, either.

Aaaaand there's 576. The trajectory here is flail. Like, literally it's just chaotically up and down and all around. There's not an actual trajectory, there's not even a set of fixed points aside from "players pressuring Koba" -- not even Koba themself is a fixed point, because of shit like 547 and the back half of ofhrz's ISO.

Agreeing with Ranger's vibe that Koba's actually trying in the later posts, but I think Ranger gave into her recency bias there, not realizing just now much time was spent with a very unpleasant, scummy Koba, or the other ugliness from e.g. xyzzy, ofrhz, etc. that implicates Koba. I think she should reconsider that Koba could be scum that found their groove through flail, which is, of course, the entire point of flail (whether town or scum).

Fuck, Meuh's catch up goes from "who is this slot, I don't know this slot" to "oh, the fresh clean scent of town".

I might have Ranger's brain parseable too now, though not on the same level as HPE's.

Alright, all done. Let's collect a readslist.

Spoiler: Reads

Koba, xyzzy and ofrhz are all mega-scum to me. Burn these slots. Wagon stall point, the peanut gallery movements around Koba/Ranger, etc all suggest Koba-scum to me. I've had very high success rates reading off of wagon stall-points, 100% to date, so just burn it down. xyzzy is openwolfing so hard I think that might be a green name doing the Pooky/Skygazer "let me go out on the grand slam of G-d" thing except for real rather than for jokes, because WOW. ofrhz is more ratfucky about it, splitting Ranger's focus during the Koba/Ranger 1v1 and generally coming across like a sideways defense/defense by dissolution of Koba.

Doctor Drew, thin ice. The vibes are rancid 'round you, friend. You can do better, I'm sure.

Morning Tweet, RCEnigma, sheepsaysmeep are all nothing. I don't have any opinions here. Content, please.

iamveryhappy, welcome to Nulltown. By which I mean you're just pure null, I understand how that can be confusing. Could we get you engaging with anything meaningful instead of shitposting your way to a 2-3 meatball in the zone? Thanks. By the way, my nulls that are for low signal-noise ratio dip towards scum rapidly over time.

Alisae is also a dweller in Nulltown. One substantive action that could go either way -- going to see if the catchup fixes that.

Cakez: nulltown, but not Nulltown, you know? Slightly towny behavior after a dogshit intro, most posting after the first two is somewhat AI and leans town to Enu, whose judgement I temporarily trust here because the rest of us are just shrugging. One less slot to immediately focus on.

Skygazer is positive, but only barely. I mostly get it from 236, which is the first and only post of real, AI substance in the ISO, and which I agree with.

BlueSnakelet is aware, engaged, and even though I disagree with the Koba read, the reasoning involved at least makes some amount of sense.

The Bulge is doing the slide-off-the-brain thing still. Nonentity, in a particular way I have positive associations with.

Dannflor: I like this. Solid lines of questioning, if thin on the amount of play. Responsive without being reactive, pleasant town block material.

Hey, Pooky! Get this! I'm townreading you!

Ranger: town as hell. The 1v1 and its resolution let me parse past the upfront "this is an enigma, we may never know the truth" and get an actual opinion of alignment on her. It also feels like it gave me a window into her mind, though more play is needed to confirm/deny that.

HPE and Meuh are mega-town. I like these slots. They have my thoughts in them, and that's nice. Also, the headspace team likes them, including Ad (whose spidey-senses apparently detect scum I'm being hoodwinked by like a D&D cleric), and I can parse their reasoning without making decisions of interpretation. It's like reading technical writing: clearly spelled out, unambiguous. Since they're not doing like me and narrating their thought processes blow-for-blow, we have to be thinking the same way.

I'm supposed to be done megaposting! I'm supposed to be out! Help! Help!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Isn't Pooky's scum game.

--Ad.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We miscounted time. Three hours for Curse's big post.

--Ad.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Me? Never actually played with Pooky. Observer only.
Curse? Mistook Pooky for scum in Death Curse. Learned its lesson.
This? Same exact game as Death Curse. Step by step.

--Ad.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Mm. You have a reputation. Don't care much for meta. But, well. Some folks are too consistent. Have to pay attention.

Koba's not scum for inconsistencies. Inconsistencies, NAI. Gravy for whatever meat. Koba's scum for wagon-stoppage. Curse says scum wagons build fast, halt at ~2/3s. Koba's scum for other players' ratfuckery. Curse caught good scum off of that before. Koba's scum for hard defense of a slot they don't like, no one else likes either. Check 396-398.

--Ad.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Koba, I think you're mistaken about how we play things. We don't really use meta unless we have to because of a history of misreading a player as one alignment or another. We know we misread Pooky when he's town, but we have a tendency to paranoia about his slot when he doesn't immediately look like he did the first time we ever played a game with him, even said he should be policied in a game where he was in a hydra with Noraa. (Mountain Dew, right?)

We don't know your usual play. We don't care about it, either. Aside from players who have a reputation for certain behaviors being NAI, like Ranger, we ignore any meta we don't have first hand experience with. We hate even using meta we do have first-hand experience with, unless it's meta that isn't player-specific: finding someone to use as a co-processor, recognizing contemplative back-seat players we can question in the later phases, etc.

We don't care that you gain accuracy over time. If we're wrong this time, we'll keep it in mind. But you have chosen entirely the wrong slot and wrong tactic.

We care about what the game looks like now, in the moment. In the moment, you look like scum. We do not care about your history or your playstyle or your WL% or your EV or your frustration with how other players treat you because of meta that we have never read and will never read. We don't. We are immovable and uninterested. Argue your case by playing through, and if it doesn't work, know that you did the only thing that ever could have worked on us. Because we don't care.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Your effort has nothing to do with your scumread. This early in the game, especially.

We're telling you the same we tell everyone else across all our games, since you like meta. We don't care about meta and meta is not going to convince us of anything. In fact, if we have a read based on meta we're going to treat it as trash and, if anything, be biased to swinging away from it. As with Pooky now, in fact.

If you want to convince us, convince us with current play, not long dead games. There is no other option for you. There is, in fact, no other option for anyone.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

As regards 651: False.

Curse has used these exact sort of reads to catch red in the past.

Also, you're wrong on what we'd do in your position. This early, in Day 1, right now, if someone had a well-reasoned scumread on us, we'd ask them to detail it, see if there are any holes in their argument from their perspective, regardless of our thoughts on that argument's merits, and if there are none, move on. Ignore them. For instance, we hate meta, but would accept a meta scumread as just something we don't understand enough to fix.

We do get tunnelled on low-explanation scumreads of our slot, or ones that attribute specific particular thoughts to us. But if you and we were to swap positions right now, we would genuinely just move on. If there's nothing to be done, there's nothing to be done, and they've done their due diligence from their perspective. All we can do is hope to argue our case to others.

As regards 652:

We find meta absolutely worthless in all but a very few cases. Those cases are always cases we seek to minimize or eliminate from our play, they are only temporary stabilizers for the early game or if we have lost sight of the game-state. Everyone who argues about the merits of meta with us fails to understand that nothing will change that for us, because we could switch to single-member games and have rotations, and then all meta would fail on us. We know people who can convincingly take on the guise of another person for a single conversation, so fully that they become unrecognizable, and they aren't even plural. There are people who even learn from past mistakes.

Meta is useless. We will never be convinced otherwise. This approach has benefitted us in every game that we have had sight of the game-state.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If it was just the wagon-stall, one-dimensional might be correct. There's also the way that other scummy players positioned around you. Players who are scummy independent of you. There's also how you went, unheralded, from "this player is bad and I will not miss them" to a hard-defense of the same slot. There's also the dynamics of the 1v1 with you and Ranger, from frustrated to purely combative to resigned to combative to resigned for real.

The read isn't one-dimensional, you just don't like the dimensions. Fair, but we aren't changing how we play for you anymore than we'd expect you to change how you play for us.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Count again: there are four reasons.

And if we're talking math, yes, two one-dimensional vectors do combine into a two dimensional plane, unless they are the same vector scaled differently. Any two basis vectors that aren't the same vector scaled differently can reach any point on the plane.

Similarly, two reasons that individually would not make us scumread someone may together cover enough ground that we feel comfortable doing so.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

This one still has a few doubts about Koba but it's just gonna park here instead.
VOTE: ofrhz
Not a fan of your vibes, let alone what this one pointed out in 472.

We agree ofrhz is a better option right now. We don't think Koba can get out of this hole and make a dramatic turnaround, and we think they're the winning candidate for an Edman dinger if we're wrong on alignment, which would be a way better way to confirm there.

ofrhz is under-the radar, doing ratfuckery. That's ordinarily my job (out of games, that is), so I'm understandably a bit angry about this.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

...Pretend I put the correct number of dashes there. Under-the-radar. Like that.

I blame the gluten.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I mean, Ad trusts you right now Pooky, so I'm gonna say you've either defeated the danger-sense that we didn't know even existed until it caused a surprise game-winning replace-out a couple months back, or you're provisionally town.

--Curse, signing because Orphee's kinda too close to its voice for its liking right now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Uh, I already did consider why I misread town Pooky? I always do a post-mortem of my play after the end of a game. It's even in all the threads. Each time, I reread the whole game and come to conclusions about how myself and everyone else played, mistakes I made, things I can improve on. Except for Burdened By Secrecy, which was a case where Ad stunned our system and the game was over so fast no one else found their footing, if you check the post-game of any game I've played, I analyze my own play or admit that I lost track of the game and can't really recover enough to be sure. Death Curse was a game I was firing on all cylinders, maximum power.

He's doing exactly as much solving as he did in Death Curse. Go ISO that behemoth game if you don't believe me -- and for the record, using Death Curse as an example since you're fond of meta, you're this game's Noraa.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Next Cardinals series starts tonight, schadd_. I hope you remember to hear the dulcet tones of Cliff Rigano if and when Tommy blows a hole through the bleachers and bulldozes some kid's car in the parking lot.

Or, you know, sigh in relief when he does another infield single that's barely better than a bunt.

TAKE ME OUT

[MUSHSHAGANA]

You never know. He could get lucky. Ever watch the Dorktown Dave Stieb special? Total losers breaking up no-hitters with upper-deck artillery barrages out there. Tommy's got a chance.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

No, he's just normal-bad at the plate. I'm talking guys who had single-digit career home runs.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don't think there's any world where xyzzy's Koba vote comes from town. There's no realistic world where that vote with that explanation is townie. Either scum angling for a mis-elimination, a bus, or (my preferred theory) poisoning the wagon with a really awfully reasoned vote after it's lost momentum. (That last one holds regardless of Koba's alignment, a smarter player would do it to town-Koba, but it's a viable defense of scum-Koba too.)

The town world can't exist, because no one reads the Koba/Ranger 1v1, decides its SvS, and votes Koba without further explanation. They have to elaborate on that, because they have to know they're alone in thinking it -- especially when every active slot says "wow, openwolfing" in response and they STILL have nothing to say.

I'm inclined to let xyzzy coast on it in the hopes that Edman crushes two dingers in this series. If xyzzy doesn't go down from that, there's no way the slot isn't red.

Truthfully, Dannflor, your xyzzy defense is making your own slot drop in my reads. That isn't an ultimatum, I'd drop you further if you immediately about-faced (it'd seem focused on pleasing the crowd over building your own solve-space), it's just a statement.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The town world can't exist, because no one reads the Koba/Ranger 1v1, decides its SvS, and votes Koba without further explanation. They have to elaborate on that, because they have to know they're alone in thinking it -- especially when every active slot says "wow, openwolfing" in response and they STILL have nothing to say.

i don't follow "they have to know they're alone in thinking it" - why is that such a ridiculous thought

what consideration do you have towards a disengaged-town world for xyzzy's vote?

I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here because they have suddenly become a consensus scum read and that seems a disproportionate gamestate reaction to the posts they've actually made

I can accept they might not know at the time of making the post. Not explaining anything, just stating it as if it's an obvious, uncontroversial fact smells like trying to shape the gamestate, but a big part of whether it's actually scum is the posts that follow. Part of making these reads, though, is you have to treat it as scumclaiming or they have no reason to react to it.

When the next post ignores the entire active list's scumreads on them for the post in question, that's when it becomes unrealistic for any town player.

Disengaged town makes one of these mistakes, doesn't make both. I accept that town hoping to get batted past the nosebleeds might, the gimmick is a fun one after all, but that's what makes this a "let's get two dingers, Tommy" situation and not an "eliminate here" situation.

That's also why I want ofhrz over Koba or xyzzy for the elimination. ofhrz isn't openwolfing and isn't a favored contender for consensus scumread on more nuanced grounds, but the play over there has awful vibes that make it feel like a highly-red slot and, if you aren't convinced, I feel like the slot's elimination is great for the Day 2 information space because a lot of slots have weighed in on it. While Koba and xyzzy both also have had a lot of opinions made about them (indeed, Koba might be the most information-rich slot), I feel they're likely to be solved by Tommy, one way or another.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

tommy is on my screen again

eegh

How bad are we talking?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

i know very little about baseball but "struck out looking" in the play by play felt like a roast

Didn't even swing for the last strike. I hope Mr. Edman is just saving his strength.

Does he have another plate appearance left even?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

tommy is on my screen again

eegh

How bad are we talking?

it's sort of like he spent two at bats waiting for the right pitch and when it came he was like "yup, there it was"

The face I made scared the dogs. Amazing. That's what you get for giving your plumber a bastard sword, I guess.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Yeah, have to agree there. It's one thing when it's loudly scummy slots, but if schadd_ is down to the lurkers, either all of town is obving or we got a Matt Olson situation going on and town's in a real bad spot.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

alright this is where i reveal that schadd did indeed give me a PR that lets me for 1 series decrease Tommy Edman's ability to bat. Not sure about the legality of all this, but you're welcome.

The man already can't bat! That's too cruel for words, schadd_. I'm disgusted.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

To be clear about my position on Pooky, I'm not married to my townread there. I'm willing to throw him to the fire. It's waaaaay too early to be making hard townreads. Basically the only player I wouldn't ritually sacrifice if it came down to it right this second is HPE, and that's more of a "let's see what someone whose brain makes sense to me sees" thing. I like having a window into the rest of the player list in the early game.

It's more that I think Koba's reasoning on Pooky is crap and the way it was presented to us made Orphee especially spiteful about it and I wasn't a fan either. Just a "No, actually, just out of pure spite" response, rather than a stubborn willingness to defend Pooky to the death.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It was presented pretty poorly, but seems to be entirely down to… weak, weak meta. “Pooky does this as scum and not as town, except sometimes.” That’s a high level executive summary, and it says very little because very little was said of substance. “Pooky isn’t solving/hunting”, specifically, is the only point I picked out of the meta argument.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have a lot to read here wish me luck see you later etc etc

Don't die! Remember to hydrate! Don't eat strange mushrooms!

--Coda

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Waking up to this. I’ll reread after good and caffeine acquisition, but I have mostly the same reads. Alisae drops to Drew-tier.

Listen to Siliclone Liquid - Excessive Paroxysm, out today.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Food is good, but I was trying to say food there and not to say good.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Skipping the catchup megapost because I'm trying to get out of that mindset/playstyle -- it's not consistent enough for me.

Basic summary: Alisae went from null to kinda scummy because of the xyzzy-town thing after everything. Like if that slot is town it's town trying to ride a homer out of Mystery Box Stadium. If you just "town " that slot right now, I have concerns about your motivations. Questioning the scumminess like Dannflor did is less frustratingly out-of-touch to me.

RCE did not similarly shift because I get the impression that RCE isn't engaged with the game and has no intention of figuring it out right now. Like I think Koba's right, just sheeping effort. And... okay, that's fair, I'll let that coast for now, it's literally Day 1 and there are better leads to dig at.

Nothing else really changed in my reads. Yesterday didn't involve much AI content.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Eww I tr’d xyzzy bro I must be mafia

If it was that strong a read, we'd be pushing your wagon to the point of irritating everyone else. Scummy but not worth pressuring at present, is where we stand.

You also didn't even seem to try to defend or explain your read, which, sure, could be us dealing with hypoglycemia when we reread. Either way, it was the impression we got and assuming we didn't miss something in a haze, it remains true.

You don't have to like it or even be polite about it, of course. We just think this is misleading. Not enough to be intentional, almost certainly just part of the dismissive tone, but still misleading. Dismissiveness and sarcasm is to be expected. When it can be misunderstood, we'll simply correct things.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

doesnt seem like you care about solving bluesnek the way youre just begging people to get more votes and push them over when there is much they have yet to potentially say.

I'm going through a reread right now, and I decided to start catchup posting here, because I wanted to say when I saw this that hey, Koba is right about this. I agree, actually. Good call. Thumbs-up.

My main "why the hell is Alisae pushing Snakelet this hard" is based on the fact that that slot got replaced and is two days behind everyone else. We're also in Day 1, and the posting isn't great, but it's not fucking awful either. There's waaaaay worse. ofrhz is miserable -- oh, but Alisae is townreading that slot and xyzzy.

Alright. Alisae can join them.

Koba's made a pretty good showing of getting out of this hole so far, but I'm making a point of refusing to let these D1 moments slide this game.

I don't agree with HPE on Pooky being scum here. This looks more like my experience with town Pooky in every way right now. I won't say it's good or fun play, but it's in line with his town game. And just to get ahead of Koba's accusations of me being snowed, if 1 is confscum and 5 is conftown, Pooky's a solid 3 right now. HPE is closer to 4.3.

Drew dropping precipitously. This reeks of opportunism -- trying to sink a slot already under fire. Similar to what ofrhz did during Koba/Ranger, as a matter of fact, just direct attacks instead of taking heat. I don't think Drew/Koba is theater, but it's not TvT.

I'm pretty sure I have two town in Drew/Koba/ofrhz/xyzzy/Alisae. Inclined to rule it Koba/xyzzy as the town in my scumbucket based on the D1 dynamics so far. Drew/ofrhz vibe on the same opportunistic dynamic levels, and Alisae's pinging Ad's spidey-sense in addition to poor reads and the baseless/empty Snakelet push. Guess at where the other two are right now -- one in the nulls, one in the townreads. Might be wrong on Pooky, or HPE. It's D1, I'll let it slide for now, I have more value bouncing my brain off of those slots than I do eliminating them up front right now.

My nulls I got no clue, I'll wait for flips to theorize about slot five.

Back to the catchup.

Koba, explain the Meuh vote. Never mind, the no-explanation Drew/ofrhz townreads make me . Null for you, you inexplicable nothing-poster.

Archiving my Drew/Pooky reads because of the replace outs -- want to give the new players a fair chance to sink/save their slots.

Koba's case in 1213 is the first time I have to seriously reconsider my read there. Dannflor was already dropping a bit, the case against Snakelet was (as Koba rightly pointed out) garbage, Alisae has Ad pointing and howling, and Dannflor's ISO indeed fails to bring any other post before 1214 up on searching "Ali". Koba, are you town? Are you actually town? HPE, give me where you started TRing Koba and explain it? Your brain makes sense to me, show me this through your eyes.

Re: 1234: Koba, I've got a very good track record out of ignoring meta, and we agree on Alisae here. Let me have my process, I'll let you have yours, and if we agree on something, it'll be a stronger case for the differences.

Caught up.

Ad wants to kill Alisae right now today, but I'm still target-locked on ofrhz, and Orphee supports me. Enu doesn't care, Coda leans ofrhz, so we're staying where we are for now. If Alisae's wagon needs a hammer vote promise, consider me it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We find Alisae unconvincing. If anything, we're more sour on that slot than we were. Talking about how we don't play often so we don't know what we're doing is actually mostly insulting. I'm inclined to have you out from spite alone, and Ad was already baying for your blood.

But Coda, Enu and Curse still say it's ofrhz, so you coast for now. Unfortunately. However.

Anyone pushing the idea that you cannot decide to agree with scum is someone who doesn't understand how social games work, or is scum themselves, aiming for a spurious clear. We regularly agree with scum we've caught but not yet decided to push to an early grave. Why? It is in scum's interest to be agreed with. It is in scum's interest to make sensible statements that get people townreading them. Bussing is this, one tier higher. Saying truthful, easily-agreed with things is easier for scum than to bus, because it involves no sacrifice.

Does scum bus?

It does.

The argument is misdirection. If we can convince Enu, Coda or Curse, you're today's meat, Alisae.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We find Alisae unconvincing. If anything, we're more sour on that slot than we were. Talking about how we don't play often so we don't know what we're doing is actually mostly insulting. I'm inclined to have you out from spite alone, and Ad was already baying for your blood.

But Coda, Enu and Curse still say it's ofrhz, so you coast for now. Unfortunately.

Consider that it's nightless and you can just immediately go and start getting ofrhz killed after Alisae flips without any delay.

We have rules about how the system operates. If the majority says it's ofrhz, we grit our teeth and push through. I am frustrated that Curse hasn't had the free time or energy for a hard push there yet, though. This should have been over yesterday.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

MT is a nothing slot from our perspective. It was neither town nor scum. Curse was sad to lose The Bulge, though it understood how that happened.

As for why MT survived and The Bulge didn't, presumably schadd_ felt that eliminating a prodded player before they have a chance to post again would be too mean-spirited. This is just our best attempt at being generous and kindhearted, we don't really care too much about the slot in question either way.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'll admit my townreads are thin on the ground at the moment, but I do think Ranger has 3 bad slots in the townlist, which is my number one hesitance with this plan. In particular, Drew is a very red-vibed slot to me, though I don't want to press there before the replacement gets a chance to play.

I have massive doubts about Meuh and Cakez, too. Meuh seems blind to the gamestate starting somewhere around the 20s, page-wise, and Cakez I get strong negative gutpings from right now. Neither of those vibe as SCUM to me yet, but I distrust them.

My actual townreads here are HPE, Ranger, The Bulge (RIP), Koba (?!?! How.). I have two very strong scumreads (Alisae, ofrhz), and 3 "smells of red": Drew, xyzzy, Dannflor. Everyone else is shades of null, and it isn't passing me by that most of those slots are either more shitposty or thinner on content than the ones I have reads on.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

My guess, based on The Bulge going out? There's three possibilities, and you were one of them before you started taking the game seriously, so make that two. The other two are sheep and RCE.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh, STD is someone I have inconsistent history with, so we'll see about this.

Meuh, I've promised a hammer vote on Alisae-slot already, so nah, you only need two.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

i don't know how i made it onto the towncore tbh i've been shitposting

So have more than two-thirds of the player list.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Damn, I was out. I don't care too much about being hammer, though, it was just reassurance if needed.

Anyway, goodbye red slot. Orphee is happy.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Alisae was green, huh?

We have a reread to do. Once we eat and caffeinate.

--Orphee Nuit

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ugh. Think Blue was a town hit. Flashbacks to other early-game green-elimination chains I’ve been in now.

Orphee is right, we’re going to be rereading around Alisae, because that slot got positioned around for sure. I need to eat still (kitchen was in use) but it’s top of the list for today.

—Curse

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Quick “huh I wonder” check on the final Alisae VC makes me have suspicions in a few directions. I’d like Ranger’s brain on that VC, but the whole purge idea seems to have become brain rot for her. I’ll add from past experience with fixed elimination chains that you /need/ to be able to swerve on them.

On the other hand? Post-flip associatives are great for catching scum, but this one moved too fast and had too little analysis, I feel.

STD, HPE, if you could provide thoughts on the Alisae wagon, I’d appreciate it. I trust your brains. Even if we don’t end up agreeing, I think that you both think kind of like I think, so even disagreements are valuable here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We have scanned Alisae's ISO and contemplated the requested thoughts on the Alisae vote-count from Save The Dragons and HighPrincessErinys.

I've been given control over our system team for now, and I agree Morning Tweet is a fine target. VOTE: Morning Tweet

Coda, Orphee and I believe based on our research that Ranger indeed looks very suspect now. Regardless of the flip results of Morning Tweet, which do not help us determine the players in , I recommend eliminating the Ranger slot after this, as such. If you are not convinced of the alignment, permit me to gesture to the information it provides us: simply check the ISO. The associatives are rich and numerous.

I will recommend that for this day phase, off-wagon players vote random slots, so that the voting blocs are split such that the remaining scum cannot simply stay off wagon to gain a large share of power over the outcomes of the next round of voting.

--Enu Kashkashshu, Ushdubsar

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We have scanned Alisae's ISO and contemplated the requested thoughts on the Alisae vote-count from Save The Dragons and HighPrincessErinys.

I've been given control over our system team for now, and I agree Morning Tweet is a fine target. VOTE: Morning Tweet

Coda, Orphee and I believe based on our research that Ranger indeed looks very suspect now. Regardless of the flip results of Morning Tweet, which do not help us determine the alignments of other players in the game, I recommend eliminating the Ranger slot after this, as such. If you are not convinced of the alignment, permit me to gesture to the information it provides us: simply check the ISO. The associatives are rich and numerous.

I will recommend that for this day phase, off-wagon players vote random slots, so that the voting blocs are split such that the remaining scum cannot simply stay off wagon to gain a large share of power over the outcomes of the next round of voting.

--Enu Kashkashshu, Ushdubsar

Forgive me. I have corrected this error above.

--Enu Kashkashshu, Ushdubsar

[MUSHSHAGANA]

My theory?

Matt Olson and Tommy Edman got bodyswapped.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Anyway, I trust anyone schadd_ hits to actually be really enlightening right now. Either it confirms suspicions or gives a lot of info, since we're in the classic "lowposters are scum" mode of town right now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That'll leave us with what, five total dead, four of which are townies?

Grim stuff. Fortunately if it hits outside of the lowposters at all we ought to get solves.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The first dinger took out schadd_ personally.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Woke up to a brand new scum-lim. Yay!

3 red slots left, the group says xyzzy is one for sure. RCE, Ranger, Meuh, Sheep are candidates for the other. I'm only giving two, because I've grown suspicious that we have one (only one) deep wolf, and it's someone I'm strong-TRing. I want to save that for last, don't feel a need to dig it up right now.

PEDIT: schadd_ buddy I'm exhausted don't portabello me you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

blob d

not voting (2):

xyzzy, HighPrincessErinys

Hell yeah, blob.

Also, happy scumday MUSH! It appears to be on my birthday, funnily enough.

Don't worry about it. I'm a nexus of unnerving synchronicity. Also, reality breaks down in my presence. See: the water duplication glitch incident, the vanishing ATM, the extra door on the Heinz Building, the impossible alleyway... Also, the first two involved witnesses.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

blob d

not voting (2):

xyzzy, HighPrincessErinys

Hell yeah, blob.

woops i guess i'll leave it

You could say that you blob'd them. Why would you, though?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

a player from the mafia is eligible to be hostage killed during this day.

does this mean we should let this day go an insanely long time or do we just ignore it

This actually DOES seem to be a good idea. It's a free scum kill if Edman homers AND there's no townie scummier-looking than scum. If we speed-lim here, I think we could lose out on useful information about what's scummy to schadd_ (since it's not alignment-bound for this phase).

If that's not important to people, then sheep's not a bad choice, but I think xyzzy is a better one: guaranteed red.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Deeper explanation of my thoughts on waiting:

The fun part about no deadline is that we don't really lose anything by waiting for a dinger. Day-phase mechanics are likely to be those that don't gain any value as a day goes on, and they seem to be triggered off of homers or lims, so we hould be good waiting for one homer.

Once we get a dinger, there's no value in waiting for a second one, though. We only gain from the first home run, anything subsequent is probably going to dig a hole (even if a shallow one).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don’t trust schadd. He killed one of the towniest slots in the game, for...voting...scum???

Think about that. Bulge wasn’t remotely scum by play, nor was the BlueSnakelet vote bad as it was voting scum.

Do you

really

want to trust schadd's judgment on who's scummy, when there’s only a

chance

to hit scum?

What happens if he thinks a town player like me or MUSH is scummier than scum?

I much prefer we solve by play, rather than rely on a dice roll we've already got evidence is rigged.

Bulge makes sense as a kill, genuinely.

You're panicked about this in a way I'd expect scum to be, funny enough. Why?

It's not because scum WILL die, or even that scum dying would matter. It's that it sheds light on WHY the prior dingers hit the people they did. Would schadd_ have preferred to hit much uglier scum slots, or are all the scum efforting, meaning limming in the lowposter pool is a bad idea? That unlocks the earlier dinger kills as something we can parse through meaningfully, instead of asking empty questions about. It helps us sort.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Highly recommend waiting on a dinger. It's not that big a deal if we don't, but its just writing off an entire category of mod-provided game information.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Let’s wait

Also just in general I think we should breathe a bit

Even if sheep is red, rolling into lim after lim deprived us of some information

And I don’t want to walk into an endgame that is harder than it seems

I fully expect ELo to actually be a loss. I expect scum to have a vig.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We can influence schadd too

schadd, sheepsaysmeep is pretty transparently in his scum meta, he often limps along as scum or if he does effort, tends to fall off hard after an initial burst of effort. Even considering a lack of time, his pop ins have been focused on blending in rather than trying to do any work on the game. I am comparing this to xyzzy, who has at least tried digging their teeth into part of the game and taking a stance

xyzzy's stance was one unexplained assertion tied to a vote. sheep might be low-posting, but xyzzy is even lower-posting, and is coasting in reads from exactly one post. Furthermore, xyzzy is one of the most widely scumread players and has been from jump. Which makes it suspicious he's survived some Edman homers when happy bit one after making a serious effort to engage with others. Bad claim, sure, but let's be honest: his activity backed the claim up even prior to the flip. I was null-town on his slot after that change, which, since he died, makes xyzzy look especially suspect in my eyes in addition to the lack of meaningful play, the suspicious read-coasting, and the combination of consensus scumreads with no wagon formation.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I find it so weirdly bs that it's maybe scummy

I'm not townreading you, and think you're a pretty good bet for red, but Dannflor's been derailing consensus on xyzzy, helped derail consensus on BlueSnakelet before Alisae flipped green, and generally comes across like a ratfucking deepwolf to my brain. I don't feel like it's worth pursuing immediately, because he has little to no sway in this town, but he's one of my best bets on deepwolf. I think you two are probably not aligned, FWIW.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We can influence schadd too

schadd, sheepsaysmeep is pretty transparently in his scum meta, he often limps along as scum or if he does effort, tends to fall off hard after an initial burst of effort. Even considering a lack of time, his pop ins have been focused on blending in rather than trying to do any work on the game. I am comparing this to xyzzy, who has at least tried digging their teeth into part of the game and taking a stance

xyzzy's stance was one unexplained assertion tied to a vote. sheep might be low-posting, but xyzzy is even lower-posting, and is coasting in reads from exactly one post. Furthermore, xyzzy is one of the most widely scumread players and has been from jump. Which makes it suspicious they've survived some Edman homers when happy bit one after making a serious effort to engage with others. Bad claim, sure, but let's be honest: his activity backed the claim up even prior to the flip. I was null-town on his slot after that change, which, since he died, makes xyzzy look especially suspect in my eyes in addition to the lack of meaningful play, the suspicious read-coasting, and the combination of consensus scumreads with no wagon formation.

I also just realized I flubbed pronouns in the mech tag -- sentence rewrites are the death of my ability to gender people correctly in text, I swear.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We can influence schadd too

schadd, sheepsaysmeep is pretty transparently in his scum meta, he often limps along as scum or if he does effort, tends to fall off hard after an initial burst of effort. Even considering a lack of time, his pop ins have been focused on blending in rather than trying to do any work on the game. I am comparing this to xyzzy, who has at least tried digging their teeth into part of the game and taking a stance

xyzzy's stance was one unexplained assertion tied to a vote. sheep might be low-posting, but xyzzy is even lower-posting, and is coasting in reads from exactly one post. Furthermore, xyzzy is one of the most widely scumread players and has been from jump. Which makes it suspicious they've survived some Edman homers when happy bit one after making a serious effort to engage with others. Bad claim, sure, but let's be honest: his activity backed the claim up even prior to the flip. I was null-town on his slot after that change, which, since he died, makes xyzzy look especially suspect in my eyes in addition to the lack of meaningful play, the suspicious read-coasting, and the combination of consensus scumreads with no wagon formation.

I also just realized I flubbed pronouns in the mech tag -- sentence rewrites are the death of my ability to gender people correctly in text, I swear.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Fuck my memory. I remembered you wallposting on Snakelet and went to grab it. You were definitely disrupting consensus -- but it was townread consensus. WOW. Sorry about that! I should maybe take a break.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Skygazer is deadweight town but they're FUN deadweight town so

hopefully

Tommy just murders a mafia instead.

I've spotted a key flaws in your plan.

Bulge was fun. He literally earned a townread from me off an entertaining post he made. His humor was

why

I townread him.

Entertainment won’t stop schadd from shooting town. The Bulge would still be alive if it did.

Ok but this is literally prime time to just LET someone get killed by schadd considering ACTUAL MAFIA is on the table here. if we get more schadd convincing going then we have another mafia bagged easy-peasy.

Also, let's say it's someone who everyone's been side-eyeing for awhile, like xyzzy or ofrhz, getting hit and going red. That tells us the other lowposters are not independently scummy, they're just what schadd_'s working with.

If schadd_ still goes after low-posting town, it tells us that we have deepwolves.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Yep. It's something that gives us a lot of data no matter what. If a hard consensus townread does get hit for green, like Ranger's fearmongering about, that tell us something too: that the scum aren't just deep-wolfing, but are town leaders, and that they're towning it up better than the actual townies. Koba, Ranger, Dannflor (sorry again buddy), myself would be good bets at where to look there. I highly doubt that happens on the next three homers, if I'm reading the playerlist honestly, so I think we wait for one homer, we lose two players in the worst case, and no matter what we know where to point the shovels after.

Now, I admit, Ranger MIGHT go down either way, fearmongering about homers like this, but that's because there's no town-sided reason to worry about town leaders getting taken out by homeruns with so many low-posters AND scum as viable targets.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

By the way, I'm including myself on that list because I'd rather go out in the service of staking a deepwolf than to derail the hunt for efforting scum.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I townread The Bulge too. But The Bulge was low-posting, and I recognized something about the posting that reminded me of another player I misread as scum in another game -- it was an understandable kill.

happy was a consensus nullscum read for a very long time, it's only after he claimed that people started townreading there, and I wouldn't say there was consensus after that, even. He also was a low-poster.

Pooky's slot had a mech argument presented about it just before schadd_ flipped the slots.

All three slots were foreseeable deaths.

This is a chance to see if our consensus scumreads are as scummy as they seem, because they might have been getting passed over specifically because they were in fact red. That tells us something either way. The information is valuable and helps us target our pushes or re-evaluate the gamestate as needed

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think it's not worth waiting because we can probably solve this game and who knows if there are even going to be more home runs

I'm not talking about necessarily waiting until the next homer, no matter when that is, either. I'm not -- well, okay, I /wasn't/ -- deadset on even waiting through the next game, but Ranger's panic makes me want to really make that happen. I don't like that slot on a whole bunch of levels, right now, and I want to see another Edman homer almost entirely because Ranger doesn't.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm not fully convinced those three end this, personally.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I feel like sheep isn't a sure thing, either. Ranger could flip either way right now without too much surprise to me. I also have lingering doubts about Koba and Skygazer being safely town, though not enough to press on.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

i think it's optimal to wait for a homerun bc it looks like ending the day will take scum out of the tommy kill pool based on how schadd worded this day's opening votecount? feel like we're bound to have another homer before the game is over anyways so why not just chill and vibe for the next homer and hope it hits scum

It's optimal right up until it drags shit out too long and no one cares about the game. One or two games is about the limit there -- if he doesn't homer by then, I wouldn't want to wait longer.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ranger being the only one acting this upset about the possibility of a dinger on the one day schadd_ said scum can die makes me deeply suspicious of her.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Damn! I was so busy and mentally exhausted today that this is the first I looked at the thread. Great timing. The best timing, actually.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

poor oaklands, poor watkins. 5 game losing streak and watkins' debut with the team is allowing 4 runs in the 1st inning

I mean, they let Edman hit a dinger. If they don't just flop down and die on the spot, their fans might just kill them.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Fuck, I guess we didn't hit scum, they're green.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

that was funny

I'd hope so, I did research for that one (two seconds of Google).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

so anyway we should talk shop on what we do if this actually flips scum

Very dependent on the slot flipped, I think.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

3/5 scum down. I'll vote sheep if people still think that's the way to go, but my preferred solve right now is Ranger and ofrhz.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That's a WILD fucking solve considering ofrhz voted Ranger and Snakelet voted ofrhz.

I don't think the ofrhz Ranger-vote means anything, Ranger has been functionally a safe never-eliminate-this slot from the first two RL days until very recently. I think ofrhz was someone most players thought was going down hard around the time of the Snakelet vote, because I certainly thought so: attempted bus possible.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

all three flipped scum have interesting associatives with you and ranger

but that might just make y'all town idk. the three scum don't really mention each other that much interestingly

In fairness, that 1v1 is the only one that the whole playerlist weighed in on. I don't think Koba-scum vibes right associatively, but if you take associative reads off the table, there might be something there.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm thinking that between hypoglycemia and distraction yesterday, I was just throwing associatives away in general and hallucinating confbias on vibe-based reads. I am strongly negative on Ranger and ofrhz, but sure, okay, you're right, the associatives don't really support those two.

ofrhz Is one I've been dead-set on for ages now and I'll take that slot gladly. ofrhz is scum both by individual play and by association. I'll give STD reading-time, though.

I'm unconvinced on Meuh for any alignment. There's a lot of really out-there posting, but also some surprisingly decent stuff too. Historically, this sort of player has ended up being a miselimination in my experience, but I don't think it's a bad one for table-clearing to the win.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

i could see MUSHSHAGANA being scum tbh

i mean it looks town on the surface so this is just a thought

but right now im thinking xyzzy's role name could indicate that the scum team may have known xyzzy would possibly explode at some point, and i think that would lead to scum preemptively distancing from them

MUSHSHAGANA pushed xyzzy but never really voted there and i could see its xyzzy read as maybe tmi

but i dont remember blue snake or MT distancing from xyzzy substantially or vice versa, and i think its more likely scum are just frozen in the low posters tbh

My only real defense is that I wasn't the first person to scumread xyzzy for those same posts, nor was I the last. I thought the slot wasn't worth pressing as hard as ofrhz was, but in hindsight, it seems to have had the same amount of resistance, just more passively.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

sorry about my various unnecessary posting this game about the details of tommy edmanship. sometimes i get self conscious about how small my post count is compared to my Seniority & the only way for me to increase it nowadays is as a mod

Oh, schadd_. You got it all wrong. I want to hear more about Tommy Edmanship. See, I'm not a fan of baseball, but I love all the stuff that surrounds it and grows off of it like little tumors.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

i dont think its enough by this point + i found the post bogus at the time wrt the reasoning of sheeping ? it makes sense to me most when its 2 scum in a scumchat trying to bounce off eachother

Have to agree, but it's weak. Preference RCE over sheep, ofrhz is still my top pick.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Exhausting day. Very busy.

Just checking in, nothing to say because it seems the game has stalled. If need be, I will push ofrhz to the finish line myself tomorrow -- yes, I know, I have a whole block to convince. I'll make it work if I have to. Ad might actually post about it. It'll be fun.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

MUSH

I'm struggling to believe your Ranger read

I'm getting paranoid

It's frustrating because I want to agree with that slot, but I cannot let the "let's speedrun! no homers!" thing slide, happening when it did and in the way it did. I keep planting my feet and deciding "okay lets fight about this post, maybe it'll let me unlock the scumminess of the rest of the ISO" and halfway through my reply I find myself nodding along.

I'm struggling to believe that read myself. It's frustrating.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'd really like to just get ofrhz out the door. I've just been busy and exhausted. Whole kitchen needed cleaned and I had to synthesize a cleaning solution (soap and isopropyl) to actually remove the gluten from the pasta pot before I could make more pasta. My vote doesn't mean a whole lot right now, though.

Let's please just get ofrhz dead? No one's been hard-defending the slot, the slot is coasting, the gamestate is stagnant, a flip should help us along.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I mean, my vote's meaningless in my block currently, but... VOTE: ofrhz

In case the other two join while I'm away.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Do I follow my gut or follow my brain? I have two diametrically opposed solves, and the rest of head-team is asleep and has been for the past two days.

If you have to put conditionals in your suggestion of which one I should go with, your opinion will be discarded. Gut or brain.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

My gut, folks said? Alright. No explanation, you get what you get.

VOTE: Meuh

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Gut has a backup too, so if everyone's like "no! no!" the backup comes into play and then everyone will be mad at me.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

RCE is my brainsolve. I think it goes red but feel it goes green.

Anyway, you don't need my vote for RCE.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm not worried about Tommy particularly. He's hitting LHF slots, aside from Pooky-slot, so Mr. Edman and I are, for now, loosely on the same side. A dead hostage, no matter who, probably helps me lean towards gut-solve or brain-solve in the current gamestate.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh, it's not about POE or scum not dying. It's just a matter of clarifying my position, because every slot left in the game either is a safe bet to survive an Edman dinger under any circumstances or falls into the gut/brain camps. It's a terrible decision making process, but I'm torn enough that terrible is better than none.

I don't really care that much. My vote is unimportant right now. Edman isn't going to lose town the game at this point, we have to do that. There's literally one red slot left.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If people want to just crush RCE, they can do that without me.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don't disagree on gamestate. But an Edman dinger-spree is unlikely. And again, if town is dependent on my vote in a 1v10, it means town is fragmented as hell and getting agreement is going to be pulling teeth anyway. I might as well put that weight behind my preference.

A preference that, I will remind you, is what you specifically requested. You said what you wanted and that's what you got, and now you don't like it. That's definitely not my problem.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If the town is fragmented, I want to see evidence of that before I try unifying it. I don't see that evidence, I saw everyone immediately voting RCE when I woke up today.

I see my vote and Dannflor's are off-wagon. That's seven of eleven votes. So, four votes that simply aren't being placed -- okay, sure, sheep isn't here, but there's three players that could still vote. Notably, my vote changing alone would change nothing. You'd be E-1 on RCE, and you'd need to get one of those three or change Dannflor's mind even if you DID convince me. Let me stress: my vote is meaningless regardless of gamestate right now. Why focus so hard on it? What suggests fragmentation to you in such a rapidly unified town? Why didn't you react the same to Dannflor's vote?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think we should just go for elims instead of Tommy Edman kills w only one mafia left

I'm not going for Edman dingers, because they can't even hit scum this dayphase. I'm going for my preferred elimination. If the town is so fragmented it can't hit a different one without me before a dinger comes by, that's a problem, but it's not my problem until I see that become the case, and if it does I'll be able to decide on a solve and probably get motivation to push it.

Right now, I don't see that. I see a wagon on the move. So I'm curious what Meuh's excuse for worrying about my vote but not Dannflor's is.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Damn, I suppose brain-solve is the way to go.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Looking back on this: when my headmates peaced out (this happens, I get front-stuck sometimes and no one else can break in to join me) I was doomed to fuck up. You can see the exact moment that Orphee disappears and I'm left looking around in confusion. So if I'm doing the system teamup thing, it's better to cause havoc and break out of front so the others can take over. I trust Orphee and Ad to not mess up the place, too, so.

This was a seat-of-the-pants game, no particular playstyle. I was trying very hard not to wall-post, and it just didn't work. I think I found the key right at game end, though: obstinance->other-person-driven-interaction->demands. I can probably make that work in the future.

schadd_, I'm not even mad you didn't give us all Riot At The Bat Rack, because let's be honest, it's the credits music for this game. I totally forgot. The game was fun on its own.