Open 879: Fire and More Fire [game over]

[Datisi]

vote count 3.03

with 9 votes in play, it takes 5 to make a decision. day 3 ends in (expired on 2023-07-18 14:00:00).

yeet

Meryln [3]:

sheepsaysmeep, Invisibility, Umlaut

Doctor Drew [2]:

Radical Rat, Firebringer

Umlaut [1]:

Bingle

not voting [3]:

Ausuka, Doctor Drew, Merlyn

mod notes

this is a mod note.

flavour

[Radical Rat]

Alright, my house is only 82 degrees instead of 95 now, I can actually stand to be in this room, so let's get to business

[Invisibility]

I intend to finish my homework tomorrow. I don't have a good reason for not being done I just uhhh didn't

[sheepsaysmeep]

I regret not declaring a v/la im sorry

[sheepsaysmeep]

I do have a reason to not finish but I'll try to lol

[sheepsaysmeep]

currently I think best guess is merlyn

merlyn is like wow I love this idea!! and then doesnt seem to have had motivation to do it

umlaut is still poe but I think this thing was really something he believes is protown and could possibly stabbed him in the back

[sheepsaysmeep]

I probably should be taking higher quality guesses at this stage of the game

but still, based on the thinking ive done merlyn is definitely like the best guess seeming rn

[Merlyn]

I've got COVID (no, not AtE, I would have COVID whether I was scum or town) and I don't know know how to solve the game anyway. VOTE: Dr. Drew and maybe I'll come back later.

[sheepsaysmeep]

ah sorry u got covid

[Radical Rat]

I've got COVID (no, not AtE, I would have COVID whether I was scum or town) and I don't know know how to solve the game anyway. VOTE: Dr. Drew and maybe I'll come back later.

I've had it twice, and it sucks. I hope you feel better soon.

[Radical Rat]

I'm working on the big post with all the homework. Estimated about a third of the way through, miiiiight have to finish in the morning, but I should at least be able to finish sheep's pairs.

[sheepsaysmeep]

im not very good with finishing work before a deadline

[Invisibility]

haha same it is not good for my grades

[Radical Rat]

Spoiler: Sheep Shearing (and Cook)

Spoiler: Sheep(and Cook)/Firebringer

61 is the first thing to jump out at me. An innocent joke, or hyperawareness of partnership?

80's an interesting vote. It looks slightly chainsawish, but I don't think it actually is, since towwl didn't ACTUALLY vote. Probably Firebringer picking up on the same vibes I did instead.

Nothing much of note for the rest of Cook's existence.

701 is a pseudo readslist with no Firebringer present. I'd have expected some comment about the GeorgeBailey era, but I think complete omission means sheep just wasn't thinking much about him, which points toward being unaligned.

752 I probably would think is partnery, if it weren't for the Lovers aspect. Reads kinda like the hedging you do when you don't want to push a partner, but also want credit if they go over anyway, but obviously you don't need credit if you're gonna die together anyway, so it's another point against the team for me.

778/779 if we're assuming that Firebringer is scum here, this seems almost like signaling a kill to avoid the double target, which would be too risky to do on a partner I think in case the other pair interprets it as they should be shooting sheep. And of course if we assume Firebringer is Town, it doesn't mean anything at all.

992 is the first instance of sheep actively opposing a Firebringer elimination.

1328-1331 reads like sheep trying to leech off Firebringer's towncred. Not very partnery.

1482 is probably the most likely to indicate partners here... very sus moment.

I don't think 1534 looks like theater.

And I think that's about everything relevant.

Final conclusions: Yeah, this isn't super likely, cross it off the list. I think D1 almost looks like sheep thought Firebringer was on the other scum pair sometimes, but I really don't see them as paired together. This is also a lot more work than I thought it was going to be though, so I don't think I'm gonna do this post-by-post breakdown thing again unless there's something really spicy in there.

Spoiler: Sheep(and Cook)/Ausuka

RVS interaction was sketchy as hell, and Ausuka moved her vote immediately after I put Cook at E-1. Not a great start.

Only other interaction with Cook until the replacement was a very weak push on Cook "feeling like it'll be a mislim" that was immediately dropped, and sheep quotes the exchange to laugh at it during catch up. Sheep quoting seems perhaps a bit too blatant, but idk. Weird vibes regardless.

For the rest, there's not much direct interaction, but quite a few townreads dropped, some minor hedging by Ausuka, and a handful of vote alignments.

Final conclusions: Very plausible. The only thing stopping me from giving it a "Likely" rating is that I don't think a team with Ausuka on it kills Meuh, but it is possible that either Skygazer was the real shot or Ausuka thought Meuh was Town and knew killing her would give towncred. I'd vote sheep first if this ends up being the proposed solve though.

Spoiler: Sheep(and Cook)/Drew(and towwl)

This is it. The big one. My white whale. But does it hold up to actual effort? Tune in to find out!

Cross vote in RVS, an easy start for perfomative distancing, but not really substantial.

63/64 is the chainsaw that started it all. A hollow expression of a desire to vote, followed instead by voting the most recent person on that very wagon. Easily the scummiest interaction we've looked at so far, and worthy of me putting in post tag effort again.

A lot of overexplaining the Ausuka vote, and then towwl's gone. Drew has literally zero interaction with Cook, and only mentions her once in the context of someone else's vote.

Sheep does mention wanting to kill Drew upon arrival, and does vote after catching up. This would be the origin of sheep's later claim that he "wanted to kill Drew before it was cool," but crucially there isn't really an actual threat to Drew yet. For Drew's part, he expresses a townread on sheep, and claims to not know who he replaced. It's easily fakeable, but I will be putting this on the "unaligned" pile.

Sheep is actually consistently on Drew more than I remembered, only taking a brief hop off for Skygazer before coming back on and staying. He has a rather strong OMGUS on me, but never tries to direct me onto Drew, which I think would be a natural defense since I'm proclaiming to scumread them together, or move onto me which I'd kinda expect from an OMGUS like that? Drew seems completely unbothered by the vote and continues to defend sheep as Town. I think this comes out looking more aligned than not D1, as was my original assessment.

D2, Drew tries to suggest sheep and I could be aligned, but isn't willing to commit to a scumread and reiterates that sheep especially is Town.

1441 isn't the kind of thing I'd expect one to point out about a partner, but he doesn't follow through with it. He does vote Drew again when prodded to though.

Sheep votes Drew with me at the start of D3, but doesn't stick around.

Also worth noting that there were multiple point throughout the game where sheep explicitly said "I don't think we look paired" and similar such phrases. Seemed very self-conscious about it.

Final conclusions: Plausible. But there's moments of doubt. I think I still favor it is as my solve though.

Spoiler: Sheep(and Cook)/Merlyn

Basically nothing before Cook's replacement, aside from a throwaway comment not understanding the wagon.

After the dawn of the age of sheep, still very little direct interaction, but both occasionally drop comments townreading each other and opposing eliminations...

Until 1460 when suddenly he's okay with killing Merlyn, but then doesn't vote and turns around with 1532, which looks almost like begging a doomed buddy to save themselves? And in the following poe list, she's at the bottom, but actually the top, but actually actually shouldn't be at the top anyway. It's weird. And Merlyn is not voted during this exchange.

And then there's a naked vote on Merlyn today, and that's all.

Final conclusions: Likely. If I set aside my personal biases and hopes for my D1 solve to be correct, this is like. Exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to see from a scum pair. I'd been mostly townreading Merlyn on vibes, but this is definitely making me question that.

Final final conclusions: 3/4 of the teams with sheep look viable to me, which... isn't great. Obviously they can't all be true though. In a vacuum, I'd say sheep/Merlyn looks the worst, but sheep/Drew fits my existing reads the best (a shocking revelation, I know). Among the viable wagons, sheep/Drew is the least likely on paper though, and I am forced to admit this. I won't be getting the Drew lim I initially wanted as a result.

Spoiler: Umlaut? More like SCUMlaut

Coming Soon!

[Radical Rat]

VOTE: sheepsaysmeep

Just in case I don't get around to doing Umlaut's in time, this is where I'm predicting to end up at present.

[sheepsaysmeep]

{Radical Rat, Umlaut};
{Radical Rat, Bingle};
{Ausuka, Radical Rat};
{Invisibility, Radical Rat}

{Ausuka, Firebringer};
{Invisibility, Firebringer};
{Doctor Drew, Firebringer};
{Merlyn, Firebringer};

quoting for myself for the new page lol

[sheepsaysmeep]

this forces me to basically look in depth at 2 of my already-townreads lol

[Bingle]

The whole point is to ignore whether you think the individuals are scum. Ideally this tactic finds someone who can only be scum with one other person and removes them from the lim pool, regardless of the fact that they’re NotMafia.

[sheepsaysmeep]

yeah I agree with it but this is like the most in-depth im ever examining people so it wouldve been nicer to do it on contentious slots for me lol

[Radical Rat]

I overslept on account of being in a bed again. Will get to work after food

[sheepsaysmeep]

Most of this is summary for myself rather than analysis

Spoiler:

firebringer ISO notes:

-I find it literally impossible to deduce almost any spew from all the georgebailey section besides prob wasnt bussing bingle
-I think my townread has been reinforced, no tinfoils this is just lock town prob
-townreads in post 1070: meuh, ausuka, radical
-post 1429: town umlaut rad sheep osuka, poe bingle ausuka merlyn
-post 1608: not voting Ausuka, Drew, Invis. would vote Merlyn

drew specifically:

-457 townread, seems mildly fair
-not featured in the townreads in 1070
-around 1085, he towncases drew. it seems decent and I want to believe it. I wanna say it's actually not partnered because I think mafia would try not to superlink themselves together unless they haaaave to and it seems like they didn't haaaaave to. but it doesnt rule anything out because it is still someone hard-shielding someone under threat at eod lol.
-1181 "maybe I should reevaluate drew" at sod2. I could see this as w/w, starting up skepticism after drew threat fades?
-1229 skeptical of drew
-1239 presses drew a little, I think nothing more comes of this

-long time later in d3: votes drew, sheeping rad

ausuka specifically:

-773 calls ausuka town for a good scum-list
-featured as town in 1070
-1429 listed as poe
-1432 calls merlyn/ausuka possible team
-1625 "I could maybe be convinced to vote ausuka", then disagrees with the case don makes on ausuka (which was very valid to disagree with imo(

invisibility specifically:

-no mention d1
-I guess slightly defends invis in 1209
-1429 left off the readlist and then "what a boring answer that would be"

merlyn specifically:

-1429 as poe d2
-1430 "I forgot merlyn exists" lol
-1432 calls merlyn/ausuka possible team
-from there on, he starts gunning for her lim

I am just going to call this a really unlikely team because of how hard he guns for her lim and almost singlehandedly kills her (although it's made physically possible by the fact that he just changes his mind randomly and pivots to osuka before eod)

-1656 calls merlyn a likely townflip

[sheepsaysmeep]

I think from Firebringer's end, I can conclude disappointingly not much about the pairings I was assigned (ausuka, invisibility, drew, merlyn). the main thing I concluded is that firebringer is probably just the towniest living player for all the flip flops on his stances, just doesnt make sense for wolf!fb to do all those random twists and turns shit


if gun-to-head I had to give takes (these are still only from the side of fire bringer's posting):

invisibility/firebringer is unlikely because firebringer truly ignores invisibility's presence at all, and I feel like he might try to have

something

there if they were the pair lol

drew: I could see this because he saved drew d1, but otherwise I think he's sort of setting up to vote drew and it would be more likely w/t with than w/w

ausuka: similar story to drew, if firebringer is wolf this is someone he's preparing to one day vote rather than his partner

merlyn: I think his d2 push on merlyn was too strong to ever fully back out of + merlyn is a contentious slot that if he is paired with merlyn he sorta box himself into loss by pushing merlyn so strongly

basically all my FB pairs unlikely but drew>ausuka>invis>merlyn in chance I guess

[sheepsaysmeep]

and yeah generally fb's play seems unpartnered if that makes sense as a thought

[sheepsaysmeep]

merlyn to FB: 1479 attempts to push fb and sits parked there for the rest of the day phase, nothing else exists

I actually thought this was a possibly w/w response to push. but then I looked back at fire pushing merlyn stuff, he only gives up on merlyn after it's clear that osuka is more popular (I thought he randomly changed wagon from merlyn and got people off it himself)

I would rule out this pairing just due to fire treatment of merlyn. just doesnt seem like appropriate bussing in this game lol, called attention to her scummy iso out of absolutely nowhere

1/8

[Bingle]

Dr:

Not Likely. Too much scotch. Umlaut jumping on the towwl early wagon didn't feel like S/S. Generally, scum wants to have a more developed hop on for their buddy's wagons than what Umlaut had to offer. Kind of a weird thing, but the scotch pocket thing is actually massively anti partner signals. Generally, this kind of inane banter takes place in the scumthread if there is a scumthread they can play around in. The fact that it's public means they probably don't have another means of communication. It's potentially viable that this was done purposefully, but I very much doubt that's the case. Especially because neither Drew or Umlaut are doing the scotch pocket bit in lieu of real content or in a particularly performative way. It's a thing that I'm personally hyper aware of (I think I told Ali to have eir nonsense convos in the main thread instead of the scum thread in Election to take advantage of it) but it tends to just not be a thing people consider doing. Their interactions with my wagon are also at loggerheads. They're both 'defending' me, but with vastly different intentions. Umlaut if scum is looking to make the people voting me look bad. Drewscum is intending to make the me like him/get towncred for himself. I don't think both halves of a team do such parallel but markedly different defenses of the same slot.

I feel fairly strongly that 668 and 669 are not partners for example. Umlaut comes in with a weak ass defense on me and Drew cuts it off at the knees to make himself look good. Also, Drew: Bingle is always the center of everything. This is a Bingle-centric universe, and you're going to have to learn to deal with that.

Merlïn

This looks partnery in a way that makes it not partners.
418 looks vaguely partnery, but I'm not sure that I buy that Umlaut is that... bad at optics. Like, it's a softball question set up to let Merlyn look better when she was struggling, but it's also like... So obvious that it's going to make Merlyn look better that I just don't know if Umlaut wants that association. Maybe if Merlyn was really struggling, but she wasn't really under a lot of pressure (I think I was her major detractor and even then I wasn't really putting a lot of pressure there compared to Meuh?) 1255 is another looks like potential partner post that maybe just isn't because of it. "Partner is scummy, but I want this other option first" is generally a pretty safe place to be, but less so when you're literally tied together by the lover mechanic. Umlaut's posting at Don being reluctant about Merlyn being at E-1 doesn't strike me as S/S either. Like, I think S/S Merlaut just takes the W of not having to be at E-1 there and unvotes while setting up a pivot, even if that was a distancing attempt gone wrong. The interaction around gamestate analysis suggestion from Umlaut and Merlyn agreeing but not advancing it also seem not S/S.