STEVEN UNIVERSE 2 - GAME OVER

[Almost50]

I’ve bolded the above portion to highlight that as of Day 5 to show that prior to today’s early “There are no Leftovers” flailing by grapes he was posting from a standpoint that he believed there was more than one.

Which reminds me: Xk DID believe there to be other leftovers in the game. In fact, here's a quote from what he said:

I am Peridot, a member of the Leftovers, which is a Third Party "faction." I put that in quotes because

my role PM is clearly worded in such a way that I'm sure there are others

, but I wasn't told who they were (though, I do believe that FB is one, based on his posts).

I've even bolded the part where he said the wording of his PM made him SURE there were other leftovers.

[Almost50]

@Fuzzy:

Stop being silly. The Gems are TOWN ALIGNED. If it makes a difference to you, then Xk also told me they were Town even before he joined them. He knew they were Town and suspected there was another Town faction (i.e. he didn't know about the EARTH faction).

When in doubt.. trust a flipped Townie .. erm.. more to it .. trust the INFO of a flipped Townie. I -of course- have more reason to beliee they're Town aside from relying on Xk's revelations, but I thought this might help you.

Also, Mastina is Town. I would have voted her already for her extremely scummy behaviour except for the messages she has been sending me night after night which are mod-confirmed info, so we DO have THREE conf Town alive. Live with it.

[Almost50]

@Varsoon: when Skybird was removed from the game by a trap for clods, was she still considered in an alliance? In addition, did her protection also protect her from events?

Players removed from the game are not considered to be a part of any alliance.
Skybird's protection only specifies 'abilities'--Events, notably, bypass this protection.

And there goes Mastina's "ALL ABILITIES" thing. As an astute mod I would have expected her to tell thye difference even if I myself didn't notice it.

[mastin2]

@Mastin

– Why don’t you ask grapes about his claimed Cop Event? I’d really like to see your take on what he claims to have.

If you mean in private, you'd be fundamentally forgetting a particular aspect of my alliance with grapes.

If you mean in public? Nothing I say is any different than it coming from you. I have no knowledge of grapes's event. But frankly I don't care about the event--events on a rolecard are almost all town powers with town flavors. What knowledge is there to be gained in knowing grapes's event? That it hasn't been used?

[mastin2]

and maybe the inconsistency there could just be attributed to apathy?

Right.
The second-highest post count in the game at nearly a thousand is suffering from a lack of obvtowning from apathy.

The amount of hoops people are jumping through to justify, to explain, to write off RR as town is just mind-boggling.

We're on the right track, though, I believe. One of a50/rr is desperately pocketed town and the other is scum.

Okay. Tell me which of them looks to be playing the part of pocketed town.
And tell me which of them just looks like scum.

Because to me Almost50's stance of "I'd rather lose than lynch RR"? That looks an awful fucking lot like pocketed town.
RR's stances on the other hand, where I have to fight tooth and nail to get anything resembling content? That looks quite a bit like scum.

Cerb at least tried to hear me out (is that scum who knows though).

Literally the towniest thing about them was that, I will agree there. You won't find me disagreeing about Cerb hearing you out and listening and putting in some effort to consider being the towniest thing they have done and even a potential sign they are town. I saw it myself and even acknowledged it.

But while it looks good, so does every other player. (Well, except Shiro to be honest. But that bounces back, once more, to there needing to be two scum left alive, a premise I doubt.)
Fuzzy has the most objective reason of any player to be considered town.
You have strong objective reason to have not started as scum. The only question is whether you would have a role where you had the option of joining scum and decided to do so. I have laid out my reasons for not believing this.
You're right in that it leaves RR/Almost50 left.
Yet Almost50 continues to say he encourages his death and is actively working towards that. He has shown such a level of craziness that I think it's beyond what he's capable of faking as scum. I don't see the scum motive in his actions. Where's his plan? Where's his agenda? What's he hoping to accomplish? I see a player who is being a stubborn ass, but I don't see scum.

In contrast, RR continues to say they should absolutely not be lynched today. Every step of the way, they insist that they cannot be today's lynch. They have shown immense survivalism the whole game. And the kill narrative for the game fits them best of all. The scum have acted in a way which suggests intelligence beyond what I'd think Shadow_step would be capable of, and TWIE died D5 so he couldn't have called all of those shots and doesn't quite fit anyway. Heck Skybird didn't exactly seem like a scum mastermind either. The intelligence with which the scumteam has acted is reminiscent of RR's scumplay. The level of bad pushes and simple wrongness shown is outside of the characteristics I define their towngame by. Most of all, I can see the scum motive in what they have done. I see a scum plan, and a scum agenda attached to all of their moves. Now, seeing doesn't necessarily mean it's true. When I say I see something, it means I have envisioned the possibility of how it could work. To give an example, I have also seen the possibility of the crystal gems being a malevolent third party, yet I obviously don't believe that in spite of having seen it. All the same: that I have a crystal clear picture of why their actions make sense as scum is a very good sign for them actually being...scum.

Why won't you vote a50 today?

Because I don't think the lynch is possible.
Fuzzy would be a town lynch, but is possible.
You would be a town lynch, and are impossible.
Shiro won't be lynched today period.
RR is my preferred lynch and is theoretically possible, thus my current vote: they are my preference.
Almost50 is a townread, albeit more likely to be scum than Fuzzy is, yet is far less likely to be scum than RR. However, it doesn't matter what I think, or what you think. It matters what the rest of the town thinks. MoI is deadset against it. randomidget will follow Magna when push comes to shove. RR is presumably against it.
Short of Almost50 self-voting, Shiro voting, and Fuzzy voting, a lynch on Almost50 simply can't happen for that reason alone.

Thus why I continue to push for a lynch on RR.

[mastin2]

Minimum competence assigned to scum should mean they would have asked whether or not that event would pierce BP.

The problem is:
Varsoon will not answer about a living player's role.

Xkfyu was living at the time.

Ergo, scum would be unable to ask about ANY part of Xkfyu's role they weren't experiencing first-hand.
And by the time scum would be experiencing Xkfyu's role first-hand, it'd be too late to change anything, now, wouldn't it?

Again: hindsight bias. You can get any answer from varsoon about a flipped role if asked in the right way.
You can't get an answer from V about an unflipped role that you only know about via a claim.
Even dealing with hypotheticals is a venture where Varsoon is ambiguous as much as possible.

They had just removed Yume, removing a permanent alliance and thus permanent source of protection.

I'm pretty sure that only granted the benefits of an alliance D1.

EVENT:

Sworn to the Sword

If used during Episode 1, the following will happen:
You will form an alliance with the player with the flavor of 'Steven Universe'.
You will gain a double-vote

for the rest of the game.

Varsoon said that Yume formed an alliance with Skybird, no "for the rest of the game".
Varsoon DID specify Skybird's double vote was for the rest of the game.
If Skybird's alliance with Yume was permanent, then wouldn't it say so in Skybird's role? "You will form a permanent alliance with the player with the flavor of Steven Universe"?
A permanent alliance is a huge fucking thing.

[mastin2]

You realize the bolded makes no sense when if it's just shiro and almost left alive then shiro is confirmed town anyway if the game's not over.

The bolded also relied on you flipping scum.
If you flip scum, then Shiro is no longer confirmed town, and has the most lurkfest coastiest iso of any living player in the game--on sheer policy alone, I'd lynch that.
If you flip town, then Shiro is explicitly confirmed as town.

Why is the conversation for you always RR or Grapes. And not RR or Almost. When your reasons for townreading me are vastly more compelling that your reasons for townreading almost?

Because I change my tune depending on my audience.
My main audience is MagnaofIllusion, because MoI is confirmed town and yet is also my main opposition.
My secondary audience has been Almost50 because he's been the main one talking to me aside from RR (who isn't as much of a target audience for me for obvious reasons), by sheer happenstance.
In both cases, they have little reason to talk about lynching Almost50, and the subject at hand is purely RR vs. grapes, in which I explain why not to lynch you and why to lynch Reasonably Rational.

When I talk to you, obviously, yeah, it changes, to focus on RR vs. Almost50, in which I explain why I want to lynch RR first.

To some extent, also, it has to do with the fluid nature of my reads. (YEAH BECAUSE GUESS FUCKING WHAT MY READS AREN'T...uh, what's the word I was looking for? Not "stale", but the other one used mostly as an insult and indicator of apathy. Not quite "unmoving", there's some other word I'm looking for. WELL WHATEVER THE WORD IS MY READS AREN'T THAT.)

Namely: my read on Almost50 right now is that he's the second-best possibility for being scum.
My read on Almost50 at other times has been he's the least-likely of our nonconfirmed to be scum.
This shift in opinion is present in my attitude as well: when I feel like Almost50 is townier than the rest of you, he drops out of the "yeah lynch him" pool.
When I feel like it's plausible Almost50 is scum, he shifts into the "get rid of at earliest opportunity" pile.

[mastin2]

What reason could he possibly have to townread them both equally as strong, considering Foxbird had done essentially nothing?

There is a possible answer I can think of, but best ask this of Almost50 first, yes?

This isn't something you want to ask others because if they answer first, all Almost50 has to do is steal one of theirs.

[mastin2]

As an astute mod I would have expected her to tell thye difference even if I myself didn't notice it.

Not the point.
We know that Skybird wasn't immune because she fucking died.
Period.
That simple.

So there's no telling the difference in hindsight; we already know that the ability works that way so asking about it IN HINDSIGHT is useless because no fucking duh that's how it works, we saw it work that way so we know it works that way.

The point I was making is whether the SCUM would be able to tell the difference

before

allying with Xkfyu themselves. That being, would Skybird have KNOWN she wasn't immune? Not us on day nine after she's long-since dead. Her on the day she made the alliance.

[Reasonably Rational]

Regarding skybirds permanent alliance: True Mastin2, in our pt with Yume on D2 when we were discussing Beach-a-palooza organization she told us she had one more person she could get on board, and that I'd know who it was had I been paying attention. We assumed it was Skybird(since we had already discussed you) since there was nobody else who there was any public indication that Yume should have access to.

That should indicate that at the least yume had a pt with skybird still at that point. I was expecting it to be an alliance since that was what the event notification had said, but just a pt is possible. I think we have a semantic flaw either way though, either that ability doesn't specify that the alliance changes into just a hood after the first day, OR it doesn't specify that it's after permanent alloance.

Now, regarding the hypothetical question thing: Had Varsoon been asked, by Skybird, how an event such as the one described by A50 would interact with Skybird's protection, Varsoon would have almost certainly said "blah blah, depends in the exact wording of the event/ability, AND Skybird's protection does not extend to events." That second part there isn't dependent upon the unflipped role, but upon skybirds.

Like I said, I think it's safe to say that scum knew Skybird was vulnerable to events, for a number of reasons.

Mastin, what content are you looking for here from me? I haven't been able to put the hours of reisoing into everything that I wanted to do, so I don't really know what more you expect from me at this exact moment. :/

-Cerb

[MagnaofIllusion]

The point I was making is whether the SCUM would be able to tell the difference before allying with Xkfyu themselves. That being, would Skybird have KNOWN she wasn't immune? Not us on day nine after she's long-since dead. Her on the day she made the alliance.

Given that scum had access to the Remote Detonator Event that killed Bulletproof Yume which I am guessing they had knowledge of from the very start of the game the clear answer is overwhelmingly yes.

[Reasonably Rational]

A50 already made it clear that he knew and that he told us specifically that the alliance was terminated and the player removed from the game, so if he or we were scum, then a scum team informed of that would have known her protection would not apply.

I have it noted that Skybird was aligned with Steven permanently. I have that noted because Yume told us outright she could loop another person besides you into our plans for making sure you won beach-a-palooza and for defeating the cluster. Even if we assume the opposite and believe that it was not a permanent alliance, that changes very little. If the scum team knew about Xk's event ahead of time, they took deliberate actions to put arguably their strongest role in harm's way.

I get that you NEED the scum team to have known because otherwise you have to stop pushing us and accept our view that A50 is either a brilliant mastermind who pocketed us and was able to fool us in alliances twice OR he's also town ... but at this point we're stretching credulity. You really want to argue that the scum team was informed of xk's event, in detail, and swapped their most powerful role into harm's way instead of letting the lesser role ally there, and THEN went ahead and popped an event and killed Yume, who may have been in permanent alliance with Skybird and thus providing permanent protection, pushing the stress up to a mark where they KNEW that xk could terminate the alliance and kill her?

It seems much more likely, to me, that they suspected Xk might be a gem and sent Skybird to find out, and then got whammed in the face. I mean ... Occam's Razor and all that.

~Drixx

P-edit: If they were informed of Xk's event details by A50 they would have known it severed the alliance (stripping Skybird of protection in any case), so the answer to your question is a resounding YES, Mastin. The scum team WOULD have known. Unless you're arguing that A50 is scum and simply didn't give them all the details. That seems unlikely to me.

And now that I think about it some more... Skybird volunteered to step into that alliance in place of another scum team member. If the whole thing was just a gambit from an informed scum team, why the fuck would they put Skybird in to die instead of just letting the alliance as it was arranged by Titus go forward and lose the lesser slot? If the scum team was informed of XK's event, it follows that they deliberately put the conditions in place for Xk to use it (the scum event killing Yume enabled the event). The supposition just makes no sense. There isn't even a burden of proficiency argument here.

SKYBIRD

herself is way too competent to have made that play.

[Randomnamechange]

I am total okay with dying/getting bubbled this episode///////////////////


Random prob is town and I am just being paranoid...however that's no reason to give a free pass and ,,,I don't know why everyone is okay with this. Say what you will about MOI atleast he trying to scum hunt and help. I am not even talking about the number of post
but whatever I will be put out of my misery soon enough.

I am scumhunting. just because im not posting it doesnt mean it isnt happening.

[MagnaofIllusion]

@Shiro / Almost

– you have Fuzzy’s express permission to vote him today. Please do so.

--

Mastin can't talk to grapes privately.

I'm a little confused by why grapes wouldn't have triggered a cop event at some point though.

If you mean in private, you'd be fundamentally forgetting a particular aspect of my alliance with grapes.

If you mean in public? Nothing I say is any different than it coming from you. I have no knowledge of grapes's event. But frankly I don't care about the event--events on a rolecard are almost all town powers with town flavors. What knowledge is there to be gained in knowing grapes's event? That it hasn't been used?

I’m lumping these together because they both address grapes’s claimed Event that I outed earlier.

Background – in out PT grapes claimed to have an Event and an ability that could work in conjuction.

The Event requires Stress +4 and grapes could target a player and both he and the player are removed from the game. If the player is Not a Threat to Earth both will return at the end of the current Episode. If the player is scum Stress goes immediately to -4.

Grapes ability claim is that on Season Finales if he is removed from the game he can return.

My issue with the claim is that (and grapes reaction of “Why did you out me”) stems from the convenience of it – we have yet to get to Stress +4 this game and I think odds are overwhelming based on the game-state we will never reach that point. So it is a “safe” claim for him to make that explains why he’s never used this highly modified Cop / Vig style role that either absolutely removes a Mafia player (maybe at the cost of Grapes depending on the time frame) or confirms another player as Town. Furthermore grapes’s “Why did you out me” from 12117 rings false given all I have just said – it isn’t like I’m compromising a powerful role given he hasn’t used it in 9 game days and will not be using it the rest of the game.

RR – The above explains why it isn’t used and I’ve explained why I feel that makes the claim shaky.

Mastin – This is the sort of response that makes “working with you” a chore. Before even knowing what information there was to be had you dismiss out of hand that it could be impactful to you and your read. The important point of his ability that undercuts his “Fuzzy isn’t scum” stance is that he is claiming yet another Vig(or more precisely Vig Scum Confirm Town) kill ability from “Town” (on top of XK’s Trap for Clods, the Gems quasi Vig Bubbling ability) but refused to even look askance at Fuzzy’s claimed ability as possibly scum.

--

I actually don't remember if it was confirmed magna was shot or if scum possibly no-killed again.
It's the easiest explanation for the missing kill that night sure but it's also not a given I don't believe.

Mastin was talking about N5 being somewhat of a mystery and I think that was when scum might've tried to shoot farside because she got 2 points that day someone correct me if I'm wrong there.

On the heels of me explaining (and showing Mod provided info that a death was prevented by the Night 5 Event) to Fuzzy about that Night this doesn’t dissuade me at all on my read. Especially given the context where mastin specified in his summary that Farside logically was shot at Night 6.

[MagnaofIllusion]

I am scumhunting. just because im not posting it doesnt mean it isnt happening.

Don't ever use this as a response to people claiming you aren't scum-hunting.

If you aren't doing it in thread for everyone to see (or in a PT be it a Neighborhood or Masonry where others can observe it) then it is pretty safe to assume everyone thinks nothing is going on. 'Show Don't Tell' writ large.

Frankly your play here is reminding me of Soccer Spirits where you got lynched late game for the same lack of perceived effort. I would have thought you might have learned a lesson from that given your post-game comments.

[Reasonably Rational]

5 hours.

Seriously.

Show up people.

-Cerb

[MagnaofIllusion]

By the way, how's this sound for a plan?

Today we lynch one of Fuzzy/RR.
You bubble the other.

Sorry, no. This is yet another “I get what I want” plan made by you that benefits your goals (which I don’t agree with clearly).

The only way RR gets lynched is if all players not RR, myself and Random vote for RR or one of us defects. I’m not voting RR today. RR clearly is not voting for themselves. I don’t think Random will vote their either. And I don't see Almost as voting that way either when Fuzzy seems to be a more logical fit as scum in his mindset (this is IMO of course Almost can speak for himself).

Fuzzy more likely of the two to be lynched today. So I’m not bargaining with you over the more likely scenario.

The only way I’d even consider letting you direct the Bubble tonight to RR is if we lynched grapes. And you’ve made it clear that isn’t happening.

So no deals to be made I am afraid.

Mind you: "they mean nothing" is a valid point of view. But when you raise that argument, I will explain why I feel they mean something...
...And then you don't go to respond and explain why you feel they mean nothing.

And here is the root of our disconnect. Responding to your overly long posts point by point isn’t something I really care to do. When I say “I disagree with your assessments” that frankly should be the end of the discussion. Neither of us are trying to ascertain the alignment of the other player – that issue has been long settled. And it is clear to me that both of us are not going to be convinced about the other’s stances. Your response to my Grapes discussion is an example of that. I’d summarize it as “Nah I disagree” if I was trying to boil it down to pure essence. Your response didn’t change my mind on my thoughts there and me pointless telling you why I think all your responses are invalid or bad isn’t going to change yours. I’m self-aware enough to know and acknowledge this. I assumed you to also be so.

Here’s where I am – your RR case summarizes down to “Burden of Proficiency” that RR should be a lot more Town if they were Town. That’s never going to sell me and each wall you put up explaning it under those terms is pointless. Another issue I have is that your narrative hinges on RR as the “Scum Mastermind” behind the moves of the scum team. But every time you hit something that contradicts that narrative you try to hand-wave it away as “Lucky Happenstance or Scum Don’t Play Perfectly”. Let’s look at 12077.

You conclude that scum killed Yume to allow Xk to fire off an Event because said “Scum Mastermind” RR figured it would fail. That’s reaching for obvious straws given Yume was likely killed as confirmed Stephen Universe who had enough voices in her ear she couldn’t be easily manipulated. Furthermore it has been demonstrated that scum had all the resources to know explicitly that Skybird was likely not protected from Event Kills (like Remote Detonator).

You conclude that there was no N8 kill which I find spurious when RR as solo scum can easily just have killed Fuzzy that Night will no damage to their chances of victory (which would be minimal). And I disagree that grapes would be in any way cleared by a “Went nowhere” track given that he could be a Ninja (and I find it baffling you didn’t even consider that possibility) or that as a Leftover he can’t actually make the kill anyway.

Night 5 (you know, me being shot at) stabs your theory right in the gut given that RR apparently was well informed that I was protected. This again is you trying to dismiss what you can’t explain logically.

There are tons of other nit-pics I could make (you don’t even consider that DGB could have wrestled the kill away from scum to kill Klingon N2 which puts your logic train in doubt or that Scum Mastermind RR would probably not have shot farside if it wasn’t a lock kill) but I don’t want to spend time hitting all of them. But there is enough there that points (IMO, anyway) from you concluding RR is scum and trying to fashion a narrative that points to him as opposed to really taking in what is known.

Finally there is no requirement that a “Scum Mastermind” even exists. Random distribution of roles could just as easily land us with no player who can fill that architype being distributed a scum role.

At the end of the day if RR really is Solo remaining scum he’s doomed. You are going to be breathing down his neck for as long as you are alive feasting for his blood. And killing you just extends the amount of Nights he might draw that game ending Bubble. So given I’m not convinced by your cases and logic I don’t see a need to accelerate his removed when worst case he is on borrowed time anyway.

[TheFuzzylogic99]

MOI
if we lynch Grapes than you will bubble either me or RR......Bc the best plan for town is to have Gem bubble s scum candidate......

[MagnaofIllusion]

MOI
if we lynch Grapes than you will bubble either me or RR......Bc the best plan for town is to have Gem bubble s scum candidate......

Grapes isn't getting lynched on this short a fuse ...

[MagnaofIllusion]

Oh and as usual -

Mod - I am V/LA from 4:30 EST today until Monday morning as per norm.

[TheFuzzylogic99]

I think town is missing an opportunity by not bumbling the one not lynched today,,,,, It narrows the scum pool. Just my humble opinion

[Reasonably Rational]

TFL: a town flip today means a bubble tonight doesn't resolve the 2 scum possibility. Only a grapes lynch would make the bubble actually valuable as a PoE tool. They could risk using the bubble tonight with the expectation that today's lynch is on scum, and therfore it'll resolve that issue, but in the event the flip comes up town tomorrow they haven't learned anything.

It does make it so reaching 4p without losing will automatically conftown those slots that had been bubbled, BUT it leaves open the possibility of said loss occurring in the first place.

-Cerb

[MagnaofIllusion]

It does make it so reaching 4p without losing will automatically conftown those slots that had been bubbled, BUT it leaves open the possibility of said loss occurring in the first place.

Um no. 4 players left and the game not ending simply means that there is only 1 scum alive. A second scum could be bubbled ...

[Reasonably Rational]

It does make it so reaching 4p without losing will automatically conftown those slots that had been bubbled, BUT it leaves open the possibility of said loss occurring in the first place.

Um no. 4 players left and the game not ending simply means that there is only 1 scum alive. A second scum could be bubbled ...

No no. You misunderstand. I mean if nobody is currently bubbled, then at 4 alive it means anyone who had been bubbled since shiro was bubbled while SS was lynched is confirmed as town, because if there were two scum remaining in game town would lose.

-Cerb

[MagnaofIllusion]

No no. You misunderstand. I mean if nobody is currently bubbled, then at 4 alive it means anyone who had been bubbled since shiro was bubbled while SS was lynched is confirmed as town, because if there were two scum remaining in game town would lose.

-Cerb

Ah, yes I agree with that statement. My mistake.