Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[Duchess]

Woohoo!

VOTE: RLotus

Why is hardly anyone putting out an RVS vote *Thinking Emoji* even if we can't vote someone out? It's never really the point of RVS to vote someone out anyway, so we can look at where people put their votes just like any other game and hopefully get some information out of that. Right now we know one person is town, but I don't think we can ever have two people alive at the same time who we know are both town. There is only one mafia kill for the whole game. We should take advantage of any sources of information we can find because there aren't a lot of the usual ones for us to use.

[Duchess]

WhemeStar. I am curious about if you have a plan for how to decide who to shoot. I would also like to know if you are serious about wanting to get shot at this early in the day.

[Duchess]

I think as long as people are using their votes, we will be able to tell who is thinking what without designing a big official system around it. That might just give the mafia something even more to hide behind, or like you said, an opportunity to take advantage of whatever system we lay out together, since there are so many of them and they will have a significant input. In my opinion, we should pretend like the votes work as normal, just remembering that hammers don't do anything, and it is up to the gunbearer to decide whose opinions and votes to trust and take into consideration. However I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel on this one.

[Duchess]

RLotus. Do you have any thoughts on any other players so far?

[Duchess]

Norfolk's posting just seemed excessively LAMIST to me

Really? I think saying that you don't want the gun is scummy as opposed to towny, on the surface.

Whemstar who is asking to be shot is LAMIST in my mind.

To me Norfolk looks like he is overcompensating for something he did that he knows looks scummy on the surface, so I agree with both of you if that makes any sense. I also agree that Whemestar's eager attitude looks like an act to me.

[Duchess]

Spoiler: Quoted Content

The concern with voting in this setup is that the town has very little agency to begin with. Only one person has /any/ power, and we know they are town, so we should trust them to have town's back. Now, leashing shots to votes sounds great in theory. After all, it just puts us roughly at "ordinary mafia game", with a final adjudicator. In practice, however, it gives the scum team agency they shouldn't have, and takes away one major town-sided element the gunbearer gives us.

The exclusive advantage that the town has in a setup like this over an ordinary Mafia game is that it avoids the ironclad law of committees being absolute hot fucking garbage at actually performing tasks well. (This law is so ironclad that it's a major component of managerial level sabotage: you load important committees with more than IIRC 8 people, and ensure that at least one of them is dead weight, and nothing will ever get done, ever ever ever.)

Instead of /everyone/ simultaneously trying to herd cats in totally different directions oh and by the way some of the cats have rabies, you have a single point of control. No need to get everyone on the same page at all -- in fact, depending on the gunbearer, having literally no agreement could be a net benefit for sorting. (Just by way of example, I would be quite effective in a situation where every single player in the list was arguing with every single other player here.) No Abilene paradox scenarios come up here, because the gunbearer has no incentive to compromise to try and make the other players happy: if they miss their shot they're out, and if they hit then clearly they were right and it's hard to complain. They can use the rest of the town as essentially independent investigators to help them make their decisions, but they are not required to do what everyone else wants them to do.

I think we should lean into the advantage we have of a single guaranteed pro-town controller of the gamestate, even if it means the normal townies have less agency and control. In the process, we deny scum a large part (obviously not /all/, but I think /any/ advantage is important) of the only agency that they have in the setup while a gunbearer is alive: misdirecting the shot.

I don't think we should use a voting system.

I agree, which is why I think we should avoid overthinking and just let the gunbearer have final say and read the room based on what people naturally choose to do. I believe people will most likely use their vote almost as per the usual, as long as the host is keeping track of people's votes. However, if we dwell for too long on it, or have too many detailed posts like yours, Mushshagana, (no offense) then the mafia will have more of an idea of what to do, just as you said.

[Duchess]

Duchess town

Why do you townread #28? I am getting scum vibes from it.

Is there anything else beside just a bad vibe? Is there another way you can describe what you are seeing?

[Duchess]

Duchess town

Why do you townread #28? I am getting scum vibes from it.

Is there anything else beside just a bad vibe? Is there another way you can describe what you are seeing?

It looked like a lot of trying to do something but it was just fluff. Im bad at explaining things sorry.

Well the plan I'm proposing is essentially to...not have a plan. I get why you are seeing that as fluff but I disagree that my posts have not been full of substance.

[Duchess]

Imperium. Do you have any reads or thoughts on any posts so far?

[Duchess]

Mushshagana. I don't have anything against your long-form posts. I was only concerned about having too much of a solidified plan laid out that could interfere with the normal flow of the day. On another note, regarding Whemestar, I believe you look quite trustworthy coming out of your argument, as I myself noticed a lot of what you pointed out about him.

[Duchess]

Guys I was memeing about shooting Norfolk chill...

What do you think of Norfolk now? Has your read on him changed since you said it?

[Duchess]

Decent chance at least one person in that list is scum just due to the large number of scum this game.

Dunno though.

I think this is the closest you've still gotten to saying a read. Can we expect you to look harder once the game gets rolling a little bit more? Has everyone's posts looked okay to you so far?

[Duchess]

ScrewTheTells. Can you please talk about Imperium and especially Dunnstral in more depth? What substance in Imperium's posts made you change your mind?

[Duchess]

UNVOTE: RLotus

VOTE: Whemestar

[Duchess]

UNVOTE: RLotus

VOTE: Whemestar

How do you agree with someone who isn’t voting me and hasn’t called me scum and then vote me?

Sorry, what are you asking me?

[Duchess]

I'm not digging ScrewTheTells jumping in and claiming it's suspicious that i'm not posting when it's Sunday night in the UK.

Anyone suggesting a committee or that votes should decide the shot is a scum candidate for me.

The only confirmed town is Netflix, so Netflix should decide.

Who do you see making that suggestion? Who do you think is scum?

[Duchess]

I don't understand your train of thought. If I agree with something another player says, are you saying I should do everything they do and agree with everything they say?

[Duchess]

I really don't care about who does this (the participants can even do it themselves, I /really/ don't care), but I'd like to get opinions on the Dunn/Imperium interactions in general. There's a couple of them and they have some actual substance to them. I have my own thoughts, but I'd like to see what other people have to say. FTR, I'm not looking for alignment related opinions, just trying to figure out what other people see happening there.

What are you hoping to discuss if not alignment? I see them talking about a past game and about Imperium's level of content. Are you talking about those interactions, or when Imperium shared their read on Dunnstral/STT?

Now that I am looking closer I see that Imperium didn't ask Dunn why he took STT's read personally, even though they said they didn't understand it. This was the first time they said anything substantive about another player, and it seems like a pretty incomplete thought, so I wonder why they did not press Dunnstral any further.

[Duchess]

Imperium. Care to comment on that?

[Duchess]

So far you have had by far the most posts that have made me scratch my head. I agreed with several things Mush said about you, yes. Many of those are reasons for me to scumread you. Why would you assume that Mush and I would come to the same conclusions, or feel the same way about a particular piece of evidence? What makes you so sure that Mush is not scumreading you anyway? She has made it clear that she is not sharing all her reads.

I assume the vote on me is because your agreeing with mush’s stance on me when her stance isn’t a scumread on me .

Why would you make this assumption, instead of that I agree with *one thing Mush said*, and formed my own stance based on that? That is just such a convoluted train of thought that I just don't see it coming from a place of honesty. "I assume you are voting me because you agree I'm not scum" is not a reasonable assumption for someone to make. I think you are ignoring the most obvious answers to discredit my vote against you.

[Duchess]

I will say though that this sort of illogical emotional reaction reminds me somewhat of Whemestar's suspicion of MUSHSHAGANA. I cannot understand scumreading that slot at all, so it could be that some of Whemestar's logic is being clouded by emotion, or certainly that these stances from Wheme are merely political and come from scum.

Can you actually clarify your read on Mushshagana for me please? I realize I am not sure where you stand now.

[Duchess]

. Why would you assume that Mush and I would come to the same conclusions, or feel the same way about a particular piece of evidence? What makes you so sure that Mush is not scumreading you anyway? She has made it clear that she is not sharing all her reads.

Because you never said otherwise.

That is fair, but it is still by no means a reasonable assumption to make, and I think you meant it as some kind of a loaded question.

[Duchess]

Imperium. Care to comment on that?

No, that was more an observation. I don't have a question to ask about that, but I would like you to answer the question I asked you.

I am working my way through the posts I missed today. If you link me to the post, I can get to that right now if you'd like.

[Duchess]

To me Norfolk looks like he is overcompensating for something he did that he knows looks scummy on the surface, so I agree with both of you if that makes any sense. I also agree that Whemestar's eager attitude looks like an act to me.

At first I did think Duchess was towny, but after wheme said the stuff about how Duchess' post was fluffy I kinda saw what he was saying. But, this post is really what freaked me out with them. He directly sheeped the reads I was having at the time which makes them seem disingenuous. Along with the fact that he had all the opportunity to give a read about norfolk but waited until others explained their read of him. With his read on whemestar, I think he was jumping the gun in calling it an act. All he had said at that point was "shoot me" and some nullish things. While saying that you want to be shot is LAMISTy, I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that it is an act based just on that. How Duchess so quickly jumped on that looked very scummy to me. And the way he has focused on Whemestar makes it seem like they are diverting attention away from Norfolk. This association might be a reach, but it feels strange to me anyway.

Duchess + Norfolk is my best guess right now, not supremely confident in that, but yeah. Duchess being the scummier of the two imo.

VOTE: Duchess

There was nothing on the first page that stood out to me at first. When I saw you and Cakez talking about those posts, I looked at them again and formed an opinion. Can you explain why agreeing with you is scummy behaviour? If there is a discussion that piques my interest, relates to something I have been unsure about, or makes me look back at a post I didn't think significant the first time around, I am bound to give my input whether or not I was party to that discussion. As for my opinion of Whemestar, did you disagree at the time? This was the third page of the game, so of course I will not make any convictions or accusations as strong as those I hope to be capable of making later in the game. Do you think the first few pages of a game can be useful in sorting someone's alignment?

[Duchess]

Norfolk Boy has made 4 posts and Whemestar has 46, so your last point about diverting attention definitely does not apply to me. If there is anything diverting attention away from Norfolk, it is Norfolk's own lurking.

[Duchess]

Can you explain why agreeing with you is scummy behaviour?

Agreeing with me is not explicitly scummy no. But the way you did it made it seem like you were jumping onto others' reads instead of forming your own opinions.

As for my opinion of Whemestar, did you disagree at the time? This was the third page of the game, so of course I will not make any convictions or accusations as strong as those I hope to be capable of making later in the game.

Yeah, I disagreed. Whemestar hadn't said enough in my opinion to warrant the read you gave on him about putting up an act.

You said he was being LAMIST. That explicitly implies some kind of an act or show or desire to be seen.

To your first point, and to a great deal of the assumptions you made when you voted me, I say that is simply not how the game of mafia works. If everyone ignored everyone else's opinions except to argue, there would be no consensus. If everyone only ever posted about their own original thoughts, there would be no discussion. You have yet to explain why my behaviour in that scenario was scummy, and the post where you voted me reads to me like justification for scumreading me you found after the fact.

[Duchess]

I'm not digging ScrewTheTells jumping in and claiming it's suspicious that i'm not posting when it's Sunday night in the UK.

Anyone suggesting a committee or that votes should decide the shot is a scum candidate for me.

The only confirmed town is Netflix, so Netflix should decide.

Another bad Norfolk post
They're basically saying don't scumhunt, it's netflix's job.

This is a rather liberal interpretation, in my opinion.

[Duchess]

RLotus. How often do you see players of either alignment committing to any reads in their first post?

[Duchess]

VOTE: ScrewTheTells
VOTE: Norfolk boy
VOTE: Not_Mafia
VOTE: SirCakez

Probably two scum in there

Are there two players here you feel stronger about than the other two? Can you explain any of these reads or your townreads from the post before?

[Duchess]

Norfolk's posting just seemed excessively LAMIST to me

Really? I think saying that you don't want the gun is scummy as opposed to towny, on the surface.

Whemstar who is asking to be shot is LAMIST in my mind.

To me Norfolk looks like he is overcompensating for something he did that he knows looks scummy on the surface, so I agree with both of you if that makes any sense. I also agree that Whemestar's eager attitude looks like an act to me.

Where did he overcompensate and what was scummy on the surface?

Norfolk's first post reads to me almost the same as when scum feigns confusion about a Night Kill upon day start. He is overcompensating in his next post in that he ignores the implication that Whemestar is casting suspicion his way, and instead casually replies as if he is known town. He made his first post, 3 people immediately condemned it, he realized how scummy it was, and then tried to throw in a fake townslip to compensate.

[Duchess]

Albert, Duchess: I'd like your thoughts specifically on the posts between 180 and this post (most likely 205). Do you see what I see? Can you hear what I hear?

I'm not dropping any hints to avoid bias, but it's not information I care about keeping hidden. Either of you can answer openly if you spot it.

Several players seem to be appealing to you (to some degree) all at once, if that is what you are talking about. Otherwise I see Imperium keeping people accountable to their Norfolk Boy reads.

[Duchess]

Norfolk's posting just seemed excessively LAMIST to me

Really? I think saying that you don't want the gun is scummy as opposed to towny, on the surface.

Whemstar who is asking to be shot is LAMIST in my mind.

To me Norfolk looks like he is overcompensating for something he did that he knows looks scummy on the surface, so I agree with both of you if that makes any sense. I also agree that Whemestar's eager attitude looks like an act to me.

Where did he overcompensate and what was scummy on the surface?

Norfolk's first post reads to me almost the same as when scum feigns confusion about a Night Kill upon day start. He is overcompensating in his next post in that he ignores the implication that Whemestar is casting suspicion his way, and instead casually replies as if he is known town. He made his first post, 3 people immediately condemned it, he realized how scummy it was, and then tried to throw in a fake townslip to compensate.

I can understand your line of thinking here, sort of, but I don't agree.

Which part do you disagree with; the comparison I made of his first post, or my interpretation of his second?

[Duchess]

I disagree heavily with that take. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that most mafiosi write their own posts.

[Duchess]

At least I have your other head with me on the first one.

Imperium I want to believe you are town for your interactions with MUSHSHAGANA who I believe to be town. However I am not townreading you from your posting.

[Duchess]

I disagree heavily with that take. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that most mafiosi write their own posts.

And then there's people like Gypyx in Tenet who are so heavily coached and have their posts approved by their scum team that they escape notice because they don't look anything like they usually look as scum.

But I don't think he was saying that he wouldn't be writing his own posts, but that the scum team would probably heavily advise against such an opening.

Even then, I do not expect anyone to announce in their Private thread before making their first post in the game.

[Duchess]

The way you explained his first post was much better than how I did, actually.

"hey guys oh boy am I glad I didn't get shot don't shoot me haha!!".

This is the exact sentiment I was getting at with "feigning confusion about a Night Kill" as an example.

On the townslip, we can agree to disagree. You are basically understanding my meaning. I am essentially reading the second post like "I'm not afraid of getting KILLED by the gun, by the way, I only don't want the responsibility".

[Duchess]

Let’s play a game.

Everyone can save three people who do you save and why?

If I had 3 vetoes I would most likely use them on myself or MUSHSHAGANA, I'm not sure if there is another player at this time for whom I would stick my neck out if you decided to shoot them.

[Duchess]

I think if I shoot duchess I die

She flips red though

How do you expect the Godfather's play to differ from the Goons? I know you are trying not to interject more than what is necessary, but I would appreciate if you could answer this whenever possible and to whatever extent you would be comfortable.

[Duchess]

Well that's not a strong read but it seems like unwnd may be bussing

I don't understand what the next step is in this line of thinking. This response was very quick, but I fail to see how it connects to your conclusion.

[Duchess]

As for my reasoning

Very "giving" start in terms of information. Lot of conjecture-based tone. The way I described it to myself is that her sentences were hand-picked. I don't like it at face value because I don't expect town to process their words so carefully, especially not this damn early. Her reads are all pretty safe in a vacuum as well (such as her saying Wheme is faking the whole 'i wanna be shot' deal). That actually remains to be her strongest read I could pick up on if I think about it, which is pretty bare. I might've agreed with it 9 pages ago but Wheme has displayed a bit of individuality besides the whole shoot me shoot me deal by now.

I like to be precise in my choice of words, yes, but this is true regardless of my alignment or of whether I am playing forum mafia. Do you think Whemestar is town?

[Duchess]

unwnd. You say you might have agreed "9 pages ago", but that is roughly when I made that post. The game has indeed progressed since then, as have my thoughts on other players including Whemestar. Have you read the whole game?

[Duchess]

Voting isn’t going to give the scumteam information that’s dangerous to town any more than using townreads gives the scumteam information.

Vote if you want. Don’t vote if you want.

It doesn’t really matter.

I agree with this logic (no this is not townreading Imperium)

[snip]

Your playstyle and tone is extremely obnoxious. This is not a read on you but a comment.

I don't like this one bit. Cakez seems way too concerned about how his reads are perceived, like he doesn't want to risk knocking over something he has carefully constructed.

[Duchess]

MUSH: I don't get it, we both write walls, so you think my walls are suspicious even though you also explain your actions in no fewer words? This inconsistency is scummy.

Did MUSH say she was suspicious of you because of the length of your posts?

[Duchess]

Sir cakez why do you not like rockhopper's iso when you agree with his scum reads???

This seems dishonestly obtuse, much like some of our earlier interactions.

[Duchess]

UNVOTE: Whemestar

VOTE: RLotus

Next time I am on I would like to put together an ordered list of my reads. There are also a number of questions I've asked that have gone unanswered. Some of the guilty parties have not posted since, but I will be collecting responses by the end of today.

[Duchess]

I am more concerned about the first instance, personally. I don't see how saying you agree with one mechanics post could be construed as a townread.

[Duchess]

unwnd. Whemestar has hardly been posting since our last interaction. There are at least two posts I addressed to him on my list of pursuits tonight that he ignored, so I will be following up on those later. Last night I was mainly distracted by my interactions with Mushshagana and Imperium, and this morning I only had a short window of time to finish catching up.

[Duchess]

RLotus. You say I am scummy for saying Whemestar's early play was an act. You yourself said he was being LAMIST. These are the same thing. Please explain yourself.

I have absolutely given original thoughts. If someone has a similar thought to me, I would not simply state my own opinion without trying to collaborate or brainstorm with that person. But to say that I have not given any original thoughts when you are the one who seems to have the biggest problem with them is a scummy push.

[Duchess]

RLotus. How often do you see players of either alignment committing to any reads in their first post?

Not usually. I never said or thought that you were committed to your reads, if that is what you are implying.

I haven't seen anyone but you and Wheme talk about Duchess posting fluff. I'm seeing the opposite there. You'll need to explain how it's fluffy.

I'm mainly referring to their first post about how everyone should vote. It looks meant to appear as if they are invested in the game without actually committing to any reads.

You do not believe this push. What you are saying does not make sense.

[Duchess]

I don't like this one bit. Cakez seems way too concerned about how his reads are perceived, like he doesn't want to risk knocking over something he has carefully constructed.

Another read on the back of mush.

I don't understand what the next step is in this line of thinking. This response was very quick, but I fail to see how it connects to your conclusion.

Another vague/half hearted read in an attempt to OMGUS. It really just looks like you are pushing where is convenient as opposed to having your own convictions.

Where did Mush talk about that post or present any of the same specific thoughts regarding it? I'd like you to show me please.

That is not a read at all, I am obviously prompting you to explain yourself. I would still like an explanation as to why unwnd's entry gave you the idea that I am the Godfather?

[Duchess]

RLotus. You say I am scummy for saying Whemestar's early play was an act. You yourself said he was being LAMIST. These are the same thing. Please explain yourself.

I just explained this to you

You are missing what I am saying. I saw your explanation. I am not near satisfied. Read my words. You called him LAMIST. I called it an act. These are the same thing. This makes me scummy, and it makes you...?

[Duchess]

Mushshagana. I'll look at the Imperium/SirCakez interactions more closely another day, as my time tonight is limited.

[Duchess]

You do not believe this push. What you are saying does not make sense.

another empty read

If you had paid attention to the quotes you snipped out, you'd see exactly what I am saying. Your push on me is full of these inconsistencies and outright false claims.

[Duchess]

Where did Mush talk about that post or present any of the same specific thoughts regarding it? I'd like you to show me please.

He did not mention that post in particular but he said that he scum reads cakez. And then you come in to give a generic uninspired read about cakez, like how you did with every scum read you have given, well except the one on me.

That is not a read at all, I am obviously prompting you to explain yourself. I would still like an explanation as to why unwnd's entry gave you the idea that I am the Godfather?

I explained it to netflix when they questioned me about it. It is like you aren't actually trying to evaluate the things I've said but trying to push back on me to defend yourself.

She didn't mention that post, so you are pushing me on my original thoughts, correct?

You said this was a read "on the back of mush". Now you are doubling back and claiming it's still scummy that we both scumread him despite having different reasons, all while claiming that I am piggybacking people's reads without contributing anything of my own? It's like Imperium said, you can't have your cake and eat it too. There are so many logical holes in your read of me that I struggle to see it coming from an honest approach to the game, and rather from a tactical positioning against a potential town leader.

[Duchess]

You are missing what I am saying. I saw your explanation. I am not near satisfied. Read my words. You called him LAMIST. I called it an act. These are the same thing. This makes me scummy, and it makes you...?

These are not the same thing at all. I said that the things that he said are what I would consider LAMIST, but not that he had scummy intentions behind them or that he is being deceitful in some way. You said that he is specifically saying these things as if he is faking something. I seriously doubt that you can't see a difference after I already explained.

If that's so then I think that is an incredibly scummy early stance to take on a player with as much LHF potential as Wheme. I also think your incredulity at my disapproval towards your answers is completely overblown.

[Duchess]

I'm sorry I will try to include those types of responses all in one post from now on.

[Duchess]

MUSHSHAGANA

unwnd
Dunnstral
ScrewTheTells

Imperium

Not_Mafia
Rockhopper

Norfolk Boy1
SirCakez
WhemeStar
RLotus

[Duchess]

Apologies, I meant to be here yesterday as it was my day off, but I had something come up. I've mostly read everything to this point, and I'll share some thoughts I've had once I am home. Mush if you're around later I would love to talk about Cakez and Imperium.

[Duchess]

Sorry if I missed you, Imperium. I don't know if I have any questions for you at the moment as my townread has only been strengthening. Some of the things I didn't like about your early posting do not rub me the wrong way now within the current game context. I get the impression that you (at least the Tammy half) tend to play according to the momentum of the game, if that makes sense, and the fluffposting really saturated your ISO before you had delivered much in the way of game content (or before you felt you had much to deliver, I suppose). However I do hope that you'll weigh in on what I have to say about Cakez because there are some pretty glaring things I'm seeing now that I've gone back and taken a closer look at your interactions, and I'm wondering how close to the front of your mind those things are, assuming you saw them as well.

[Duchess]

I took your advice and read page 19 through several times without stopping to try and pick at any of the individual posts, and I went back and read their earlier interactions in the same way. Far and away the most glaring issue I have with page 19 in particular is how many times Cakez completely changes his stance while keeping the exact same energy in his push. I know Imperium commented on his moving of the goalposts which I assume is referring to the same habit I'm seeing.

[Duchess]

Imperium did mention having seen Cakez act similarly as town before, so they might be writing it off as stubbornness, but I don't see how you can completely alter the very foundation of an argument and keep pushing it without even a pause or an acknowledgment that a different road is being explored. I understand how you can see that as stubborn town, or a personality trait (bullheaded, simply refusing to admit when wrong), but it reads to me as if losing the argument has much more significance in Cakez' mind than simply letting a scumread loose, if you catch my drift. The fact too that Cakez, if I am recalling correctly, reignited the argument several times, leads me to believe he may see it as an inevitable 1v1.

[Duchess]

Nasty rogue comma there.

[Duchess]

These are the two long posts Imperium has made about Norfolk, for context.

Spoiler: The more recent, onset of the page 19 exchange

sigh you guys are completely missing my point. So either I'm being unclear or you guys are just not actually comprehending what I'm saying. I think Lotus is the only one that has interacted with what I'm saying and catching what I'm meaning.

I'm not arguing that norfolk is town. I'm saying that his original posts were not that scummy to warrant being on everyone's scum lists and to get the type of pushes that cakez/unwnd/ducchess gave. So far Not Mafia has called norfolk town, Mush hasn't given a read I don't think, and then remove Norfolk himself. That leaves 8 players who have called him scum, some with reasoning that I don't buy/I think is odd.

If he is town, then he is being pushed/scumread by scum as an easy push. If not_mafia and Mush are scum, we're looking at 2 in that pool of 8. I don't currently think both of them are scum, which means more in that pool of 8.

If he is scum, there are bussers/distancers about and I'm trying to make sense of the pushes and reasoning there to try to determine who's being genuine and who's going along because it looks good. And unwnd being like yeah shoot him he's a slanker, but not taking about other ones who have as many or fewer posts than norfolk feels wrong on so many levels. Cakez pushing him in ways that make no sense whatsoever and trying to tie me to Norfolk when he's seen me push against reads and try to make sense of them in previous games is really weird as well, and I don't buy that his read is coming from a genuine place. It just feels all kinds of wrong.

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Regardless of Norfolk's alignment, the reads on him are weird. I'm trying to read the people who are reading Norfolk who's reads don't read genuine to me.

Spoiler: And this is the earlier post to which they both make reference

ATTACK ON TITAN!

So Norfolk has a handful of games in the newbie queue and exactly no completed games out of the newbie queue. He doesn't appear to be a lurker as either alignment, and he's stated in one of his newbie games that he doesn't like the pressure of being scum or a power role.

Which means his opening posts here quite frankly are either or. They could easily come from inexperienced town who doesn't want the pressure of having a gun early because they lack confidence. It could also yes come from nervous scum.

I don't think his opening posts are all that scummy because they can as easily come from town who doesn't want the responsibility of fucking up early as it can from scum who's afraid of getting shot, but I don't think there's any real way to tell the difference right this minute. I just find the super push there from his first two posts pretty scummy, and if he is scum I bet there's some bussing in there because scum love to find their partners scummy for not very scummy stuff.

I don't like unwnd's posts regarding this at all. We're two days in the start of a two-week deadline with not even 20 pages in. It's super misguided and kinda scummy to be advocating for a shot here right now for slanker shot. We have no idea whether or not norfolk will start actually posting, but based on previous games he should regardless of alignment. If he's scum, we get oh look everyone thought he was scum but no associatives to speak of, and we potentially go right into one of us eating a night kill before any impact can be made, which means we're not too far ahead.

That's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is he's actually town, given a power he doesn't want and is uncomfortable with AND we lose netflix.

Acting like it's misguided not to just go for the slanker when you can't be a slanker at the beginning of the game is really weird.

This is so disingenuous
You literally wrote a wall defending Norfolk
For you to backpedal here and go "whoa I wasn't actually townreading them" feels like a lie

This is obviously an extremely poor interpretation of the wall in question. It is not possible that Cakez (regardless of alignment) actually read 334 before posting this, and yet the language he uses is strong and persuasive (backpedal, lie), like he has no reservations against pushing Imperium on a false premise.

This is why Imperium's defense is so bizarre to me.

What about our defense did you dislike?
What part of it was unreasonable?

It feels very unearned
Why are you going in to save someone so hard who (at the time) had made four posts?

[quotes 334]
Where did I call him town Cakez?

At this point it's not even about the Norfolk read
It feels like your play around them is incredibly posturey and setting yourself up to look good whether it flips town or scum

Now that he has been directly faced with the post he is deliberately misrepresenting, it's not about the Norfolk read anymore. Not because Imperium forced Cakez to actually read what he was talking about, mind you. "At this point" does not at all imply "now that you have pointed that out". It implies that it hasn't been about Imperium's Norfolk read itself for some time now, not even 4 posts ago when his problem was very explicitly about Imperium supposedly backpedaling on their read of Norfolk.

From SirCakez' point of view at this time, it does not logically add up for him to keep pushing that they have backpedaled (which he is still doing in this post by saying Imperium have been deliberately shifting their posture). The whole reason Cakez has shifted to his "it's not about the read anymore" stance is because Imperium just showed they never townread him in the first place. How can you acknowledge 456 ("it's not about that" implies "your point is technically correct but doesn't matter right now"), and in that very same breath keep pushing that they've been artificially posturing around Norfolk?

You never did actually call him town directly yes that's my point
The impression of anyone reading that wall without context would be that you townread the slot
Because why would you go so out of your way to defend someone who is null?

This is getting confusing. 7 posts ago, the "point" was their flipfloppy read of Norfolk, and then it wasn't about their read of Norfolk anymore it was about looking good no matter the flip, and now it turns out this whole time the point was actually that they are fencesitting. How do you get from "It's scummy that you called him town and then backpedaled" to "It's scummy that you haven't made a stance on him" in such a short span? And without even acknowledging your own shift in position too ("yes that's my point" very much implies "that is what I have been saying").

While I'm thinking of it, by the way, even if Cakez wants to come and tell me I'm somehow wrong about what his intentions were behind his words when I keep saying (x implies y), it is obvious from the language he is using that he is at least ok with them being widely interpreted that way.

That wall is a giant fencesit basically if you're not committing to call Norfolk town

6 posts ago, Imperium was "going in to save someone so hard". Literally the post before this, Cakez calls it a hard defense ("you go so out of your way to defend someone"). Now it's a giant fencesit.

That's like saying "I don't understand townreads on Joe Schmo"
And then later going "Actually by the way I'm not declaring a read on Joe Schmo at all."

It doesn't connect logically.

This is a post that somebody who has not properly read what they are talking about makes. The first line is a vast oversimplification, almost definitely maliciously so. Continuing with this kind of interpretation of Imperium's stances at this stage in the discussion is way too far from the realm of believability for a townie, in my opinion. I haven't reread and re-evaluated the whole game since being wrong about Lotus, but at this point I would be extremely confident in shooting SirCakez.

[Duchess]

Imperium did mention having seen Cakez act similarly as town before, so they might be writing it off as stubbornness, but I don't see how you can completely alter the very foundation of an argument and keep pushing it without even a pause or an acknowledgment that a different road is being explored. I understand how you can see that as stubborn town, or a personality trait (bullheaded, simply refusing to admit when wrong), but it reads to me as if losing the argument has much more significance in Cakez' mind than simply letting a scumread loose, if you catch my drift. The fact too that Cakez, if I am recalling correctly, reignited the argument several times, leads me to believe he may see it as an inevitable 1v1.

With Imperium? Could you explain this thought further?

Do you guys know what I realized I've been missing my past few games. It's actually talking to people instead of shading them from afar and pretending they're not listening. I have a scumread on you Duchess and I'd like to sort it out. I'm not sure where I started to think being all haughty with my reads was fun or even engaging for others.

It's possible that part of what's fuelling Cakez' illogical persistence is the belief that if Imperium doesn't go down, he does. Scum who have argued themselves into a corner are I think likely to have a disproportionate amount of paranoia.

You originally said a lot of what pinged you about me was my tone and word choice feeling fabricated. Is that still true?

[Duchess]

Mush the issues you have seem to be mostly semantic or stylistic. Yes, "it is not possible" is an exaggeration, however Cakez' continued representation of that post as a "hard defense" of Norfolk (Dunnstral is another person who has categorized it as such, I've noticed) is just so massively off-base that I would rather believe he didn't read it at all (or at least very selectively) than that his reading comprehension is so hopelessly poor. Imperium goes out of their way every time to make it abundantly clear that they are not taking a town stance on Norfolk. Any time they've mentioned a possible scenario where Norfolk is town, they consider the opposite as well, and that his early pushers were bussing.

I disagree with your assertion that I'm projecting nonexistant connotations. I'm not sure how to explain myself properly to you in that regard, but looking for dictionary definitions mean you are looking at the words too literally.

My hope when presenting a case on a scumread is that players will read it in full and take away whatever impression they get out of it. If you agree with many of my points but disagree with others, then for me I don't really care about accidentally weakening my argument by oversaturating the "good" points with the "bad". I've shown what I saw to come to that conclusion, and I can't reasonably expect everyone to follow every single train of thought I had when reading. I of course cannot stop you or anyone from changing your read of

me

based on my posts, but I hope that disagreeing with some of my points doesn't make people completely disregard the parts they do like.

I've never heard of those concepts by name but they seem to align with my own views of separate perceived realities. I am always aware of the language I'm using. I don't claim to be some expert communicator, and I'll take my own stylistic preference over clarity and precision in most cases. I am not a college-educated person. If you feel the language I used was too assertive then there's usually a good chance I had originally typed something along the lines of "I feel like..." before consciously deciding to go with language that is more persuasive and sure of itself.

[Duchess]

I will say I think Duchess drafting up this old argument between Imp and me and developing an "extremely confident" scumread after just having a mega fail on their Lotus read seems very unnatural

Should I slink away and give up on scumhunting after just one wrong read then? What is unnatural about it? What does a natural progression look like to you in this case? Did you want me to bumble around aimlessly for a bit before continuing to play the game?

[Duchess]

If you feel the language I used was too assertive then there's usually a good chance I had originally typed something along the lines of "I feel like..." before consciously deciding to go with language that is more persuasive and sure of itself.

Forgot to mention, I also spent a decent amount of time during the day yesterday reading the passages in question and convincing myself more and more of Cakez being scum, so the forceful language could also be indicative of my potentially biased mindset going into typing that post.

[Duchess]

I will say I think Duchess drafting up this old argument between Imp and me and developing an "extremely confident" scumread after just having a mega fail on their Lotus read seems very unnatural

Should I slink away and give up on scumhunting after just one wrong read then? What is unnatural about it? What does a natural progression look like to you in this case? Did you want me to bumble around aimlessly for a bit before continuing to play the game?

You seem extremely confident for someone who just completely missed on another read you were very confident on
I'd expect you to take a step back and reevaluate because obviously you were off-track
Instead you just moved on to the next SR in your old pool.

I'm sorry that I don't allow my confidence to be shook so easily?

Is there a particular reason why you think being wrong about Lotus should affect my read of you? What ties you two together?

You are missing what I am saying. I saw your explanation. I am not near satisfied. Read my words. You called him LAMIST. I called it an act. These are the same thing. This makes me scummy, and it makes you...?

These are not the same thing at all. I said that the things that he said are what I would consider LAMIST, but not that he had scummy intentions behind them or that he is being deceitful in some way. You said that he is specifically saying these things as if he is faking something. I seriously doubt that you can't see a difference after I already explained.

If that's so then I think that is an incredibly scummy early stance to take on a player with as much LHF potential as Wheme. I also think your incredulity at my disapproval towards your answers is completely overblown.

???

Saying that somebody isn't really being scummy or deceitful but still choosing to apply a term like LAMIST which usually connotes a scumread is an easy way to posture yourself early on that leaves the door open for that read to evolve either way.

Listen.

I really do think Cakez is town. The argumentative process he gets in with people is at such a slight that I can't imagine he wouldn't at least be self-aware as scum. The lack of care in that department makes me think he's a townie who is just strongly defiant, getting into a back+forth like Imperium because of his beliefs. Even the minor squabble with Duchess/MUSH as well. I struggle to see ulterior motive with pushing the issue so incessantly that Tammycho breaks out

THIS TEXT

and tells him to stop misrepping. I mean, at that point..what have you exactly won? What does Cakez gain as scum to keep pushing and pushing and pushing at this point. The read he has on Imperium feels almost personable at this point. Like it's gone beyond merely 'I scumread you' and more like Cakez wanting to convince Imperium that they're scum lol. A foolhardy choice, but this itself makes me think the intent is pure. Let me get it clear: I don't think Cakez is incapable of faking this or even building a narrative around his own absurdity. I just believe he'd be more precise with it and if it

did

come at the expense of himself (and how others read him), he'd be using that to greater effect. We've seen it before and I've seen a defiant scum cakez, where as scum the issue is not disagreement of (read), rather disagreement of (himself).

What do you think of my theory that Cakez feels locked in? Maybe he doesn't see an out at this point, or like I said, feels vulnerable with Imperium left alone. Right now you're looking at what scum would want to do in this situation to their benefit, while I'm looking more at how scum might react to the situation, wittingly or not.

-- Duchess. There's something there but my most confident takes on Duchess isn't that confident unfortunately. I think the biggest tell is that their activity seems to suspiciously coincide with what other players want. When other players cast suspicion on them, they make a flurry of posts. Otherwise they don't say much. At least that's the impression of the timing I get. When Imperium called them out vocally they responded and made a huge wall. I don't see any strong indicators in the content of the wall itself. No great towntells anyway. But the manner and timing of delivering what people asked just seems like scum covering their ass. This goes with what Lotus said before about Duchess seeming to regurgitate other people's reads. It would be a similar mentality.

I can assure you the timing and volume of my posting has absolutely nothing to do with the gamestate. I post for as long as I am available whenever I am online. Aside from one day when I had personal things going on, I have been fairly consistent with my activity. Where exactly are you seeing me kick up my activity when there is mounting suspicion against me? Or rather, show where I have been avoiding the thread?

[Duchess]

I won't be here at all for the rest of today after this, for all your information.

Imperium. I understand that you have meta reasons for believing Cakez would act this way as town, but I have looked at your joint ISO again and I cannot see any justification to approach your slot in such bad faith. Cakez even admits to engaging in bad faith when you called him out on it and claims it's because he thinks you are scum. I assume Cakez is familiar with your play and possibly has some idea of how to catch you as scum. Do you believe he would emotionally manipulate you the way he continually has if he were town chasing a scumread?

[Duchess]

RLotus. Why do you think I would have pushed so hard for your shot on Day 1 if I didn't think you would have been killed? You've made it quite obvious for most of the game that you will shoot me, and don't take this the wrong way, but you strike me as a stubborn person. I will admit I was nervous about how to approach you this game day compared to the first when I expected you to shoot me almost immediately, which would have put a potentially game-losing shot into my hands in a time when I didn't quite have my full bearings. At this point, my shot is far from set in stone but I at least feel better about my understanding of the gamestate. But I urge you to reconsider before putting us in a sudden death situation.

[Duchess]

Imperium, this is what I was referencing.

i feel like you're interaction with me in total bad faith cakez.

How is this any different from the way I grilled gamma on his diamond sentinel read, while thinking diamond sentinel was likely to be scum, but that I thought gamma's read on him was pushing him disingenuously?

How is it?

I think you are scum so yeah this is not good faith
I don't remember what you're referring to, something in Smoke right?

[Duchess]

I think the wave of Duchess SRs happened because they spent all Day 1 1v1ing Lotus and then Lotus flipped town

I hope you can see the disconnect between this sentence and the rest of your stance right now.

[Duchess]

Why would there be a sudden wave of scumreads against me as soon as Lotus received the gun if not to try and ensure that Lotus's mind would not change about shooting me?

[Duchess]

I think a smart place to look right now would be before Netflix took their shot. If there is evidence of somebody other than me trying to urge the shot towards Lotus, that could mean they were trying to set up a double misfire from the beginning.

[Duchess]

Lotus would be an interesting shot, the reason I wanted to kill Duchess was actually to resolve my thought on Lotus and the potential of bussing

RLotus if you get the gun are you just shooting Duchess immediately? That'd be pretty worthless and I'd like to hear your other thoughts as you've made the majority of your content around Duchess being obvscum and I guess Norfolk

I'm not really seeing a progression from Unwnd here, for example.

Where in any of my posts did it say that I thought he was scum, all I mentioned that is that the shot would be 'interesting'

I don't even know what that means Dunn, you tried to say 'oh, people were egging on the shot on RLotus' like...okay? Two people by your accord, with one of them who made an idle comment and the other who was basically going through the motions. I just am not a fan of you trying to spin a narrative that people were pressuring Netflix into a shot because that's just not even remotely true

This comes to mind. There is an exchange with Dunnstral about this same subject around that time I'll sit down and look over once I'm at a computer.

[Duchess]

This is not an avenue I thought to explore until Cakez brought it up. It's possible that I didn't see it because I myself am "part of the equation" so to speak, but I don't really have an answer for you besides that I simply didn't see it, and that unwnd/some of ABR's posts have given me townpings.

[Duchess]

Duchess who are you going to shoot when lotus shoots you?

I'm not answering this.

Don't like the cherry picking of this argument again. Again understand Dunnstral's point about it in the heat of the moment, and Peta using Dunnstral's point probably points to them being unaligned, but if you go back to the conversation before that, you will see that that was part of an actual conversation.

Unwnd had actually not long before stated he would shoot you if he had a gun.

Netflix didn't pop in and mention Lotus and then there were people egging on. There was an actual conversation that was happening. We were all talking, Lotus himself responded with "exciting". We were all supposed to say nothing in the midst of a conversation.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I didn't cherry-pick from any argument, I found these in unwnd's ISO because it occurred to me that he was the one who had called Netflix's choice "interesting". I've since gone and looked and I don't have much else to comment on at moment besides what I did highlight, and I still don't know what you're getting at.

Unwnd said he would shoot me right before Netflix revealed they would be shooting lotus. He then immediately called the lotus shot "interesting" (non-committal, doesn't imply anything really about how he feels about the shot or about how he felt before), and justified it by relating back to his read on me. When there is a relatively isolated TvT in this kind of setup, I would expect scum to want to take advantage of that either way they can.

The problem with Dunn's interruption is that he looked at what me and Imperium were doing, not necessarily what was being said. Him implying that either me or Tammycho wanting you to be shot was again, not even remotely true. That shot form Netflix was of their own volition

I never implied anyone convinced Netflix of anything. It's about posturing for the flip and for subsequent shots being predicted by the scumteam.

[Duchess]

Well played, everyone! I thoroughly enjoyed my time in this game and it was fun to follow afterward. I am very proud of our team's play. Thank you Syryana for modding!