Quick Fix 64: Spies in Starsight

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

Resurfacing this post because it's relevant to Bookwyrm discussion

We now know of a v!Xino world. Does e!Bookwyrm resist the Xino votes that much? I don't recall Silver being in the lead at this time either, but can't find a vote count from the time + too lazy to build one up to that interaction myself rn...

Tbh I can do things like that if you put the request in the thread in the next two hours. I shouldn't be this drained or feeling this ineffective, but I am, and simple things like this I can still do. And at least I can still be useful this way. Give me a few to wrangle this.

My recollection from QF63 is typically just that E!Bookwyrm has difficulty generating suspicions: a typical post of his with a vote:

Silho vote and reasons:

I note it's opportunistic because it came after thread appetite for Silho.

He retracts it when Silho interacts with him:

And goes back:

Xino vote and reasons:

So I'll note I don't feel strongly about this; if I want to make an E!Bookwyrm case, my thoughts would just be:

• E!Bookwyrm tends to frame his E!thoughts in a pro-meta way, and I noticed one or two posts that fit the bill when I was backreading earlier, fishing them out is a different story but I can do that later.
•  It's possible E!Bookwyrm found it easier to resist a Xino vote than to try to find reasons or build a case. Wouldn't be the first Elim to do that.

But then. AGAIN.

We come back to the same problem of who is the partner in an E!Bookwyrm world???? Because I do not really think those kills are E!Bookwyrm kills at all.

[Amanuensis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

We come back to the same problem of who is the partner in an E!Bookwyrm world???? Because I do not really think those kills are E!Bookwyrm kills at all.

Honestly, I keep bumping my head up to a Stick/Hael, Stick/Kas, or Kas/Hael team. I think all three of you are good enough elims to still continue to dupe me, as I'm not explicitly suspicious of you three atm. Either way, I don't want to jump there quite yet, hence my willingness to look at other choices.

Elims deserve applause for this game either way. I'm thoroughly lost

[Stick. she/her]

Welp. I did say it was tinfoil. 

If it’s not Kas then the only pragmatic option left for me in the active people slot now is Hael.

Nerdy’s comment about them finding Aman’s response being suspicious and the subsequent post is giving me pause. 

I don’t mind going Bookwyrm either 

[Kasimir he/him]

@Amanuensis, as requested:

(1) Kas opens on Xino:

Quote

Xino (1): Kas

(2) Stick votes for Hael:

Quote

Xino (1): Kas
Hael (1): Stick

(3): Almond joins on Xino:

Quote

Xino (2): Kas, Almond
Hael (1): Stick

(4): Kas swaps to Bookwyrm:

Quote

Xino (1): Almond
Hael (1): Stick
Kas (1): Xino

(5): Nerdy doubles on Xino:

Quote

Xino (2): Almond, Nerdy
Hael (1): Stick
Kas (1): Xino

(6): Bookwyrm questions Nerdy. This is 2259hrs in the thread, so almost ten hours after rollover.

(7): Interaction with Stick - end at 2322hrs. No new votes in this interim.

(7): At 2337hrs - Stick votes Silver

Quote

Xino (2): Almond, Nerdy
Hael (1): Stick
Kas (1): Xino
Silver (1): Stick

(8): At 2340hrs, Wiz votes Aman.

Quote

Xino (2): Almond, Nerdy
Hael (1): Stick
Kas (1): Xino
Silver (1): Stick
Wiz (1): Aman

(9) At 0032hrs, Aman asks Bookwyrm which train he would prefer:

(10): At 0110hrs, Bookwyrm says he's thinking about it. This is ten minutes shy of Rollovet, the halfway point between rollovers.

@Amanuensis To be quite honest, when I re-read this, my 'gun to my head' stance is I don't think Bookwyrm is Evil. There's been enough candidates introduced by now. Re-reading his QF63 posts again, Bookwyrm's raw opportunism strikes me - I don't see how E!Bookwyrm resists just finding a train to park on, given how many there are here not Silver, and then 'changes his mind' later or not. There's just...no associated cost.

I will grant that:

1. QF63 had the confounding factor where you have a 40% chance of dying if you don't vote, and
2. Bookwyrm may very well be being advised by a teammate.

With all of that, I cannot make sense of E!Bookwyrm doing this. I think he's Village.

Edited to add: Even if there is no theoretical pressure to vote, as there's only a single vote on Silver, he had no issues just finding something...

 

Edited to add 2:

 

7 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Welp. I did say it was tinfoil. 

 

Tbh I would prefer you did tinfoil as I don't see E!you tinfoiling as often  

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

OK, my powers out for the foreseeable future, and I would very much not like to use up all my data. So I've read everything up, and am doing one post before hopefully (you guys might pull me back in) reading and writing for a couple hours.

I will vote to give you guys something to work with. I am not altogether comfortable moving on without checking out Nerdy. They were supposed to be opposite aligned of Xino, and I believe me as well, so clearing their space should help alleviate some of the suspicion coming my way. When I have internet later I may move to one of Stick or Hael, probably Stick. I also want to relook at Insanity at some point, they could fit in on literally any team if this does turn out to be a four-player team.

So, uh, see you at five ish MT and just before rollover.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Unknown said:

OK, my powers out for the foreseeable future, and I would very much not like to use up all my data. So I've read everything up, and am doing one post before hopefully (you guys might pull me back in) reading and writing for a couple hours.

I will vote to give you guys something to work with. I am not altogether comfortable moving on without checking out Nerdy. They were supposed to be opposite aligned of Xino, and I believe me as well, so clearing their space should help alleviate some of the suspicion coming my way. When I have internet later I may move to one of Stick or Hael, probably Stick. I also want to relook at Insanity at some point, they could fit in on literally any team if this does turn out to be a four-player team.

So, uh, see you at five ish MT and just before rollover.

Good luck, sorry to hear!

-Given that Almond is on the filter, prefer not to theorise any Almond teams unless they show up again. They're someone else's problem. If they're blatantly filter-dodging, that's whoever who's alive's problem next cycle. @_Stick_, while I see your point about the thread, I do want to note that as of now, Almond's last login was 0633hrs yesterday for me. This means they theoretically could have submitted a kill, and be playing a lurker strategy. I don't want to encourage too much paranoia here, but I will note FNG Lurker is a potential strat and I'll be more concerned about it if Almond checks back in just shy of rollover (but at the same time I do want V!Almond to check back in lol.) I guess part of me is thinking we just don't know enough about how - huh.

 

@ExoticAlmond, out of curiosity, have you played these sorts of games before? RL or online? Among Us?

 

-I don't currently E!read Bookwyrm and I'm having a hard time E!reading Nerdy's posts. But this makes the Xino kill all the weirder.

-IDK about Insanity I guess, so I could put her back into my pool but I seem to remember Stick said something there? Do you remember what, my brain is cooking rn .__.

-TUN is in my pool. Processing latest post.

-Between <Mat, Stick, Hael, Aman>, I guess I'd go with Hael. But #feelsbadman.

 

Edited to add:

 

Honestly, right now, it feels like a massive failure of imagination. Araris saying in I think AG8, "One of them must have slipped by us by doing something unexpected," is coming to mind.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir

[Stick. she/her]

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Almond's last login was 0633hrs yesterday for me. This means they theoretically could have submitted a kill, and be playing a lurker strategy.

Rollover should be 1 pm your time right? So 6:30 am today should mean cycle 4, and 6:30 am yesterday should mean cycle 3 no? Or is my math not mathing here. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

Rollover should be 1 pm your time right? So 6:30 am today should mean cycle 4, and 6:30 am yesterday should mean cycle 3 no? Or is my math not mathing here. 

Frick for some reason I was thinking 1AM to 1PM.

I really shouldn't be SEing with my brain in this state ._.

But yeah fair, either way I am only interested if blatant filter dodging happens. Not for the kill then, but FNG lurker still happens and as a player who benefited from FNG in my first Elim game, I'm always wary someone might be trying that strat.

@Szeth_Pancakes This is a QF so no pinch-hitters right? Just a filter death?

I s2g if he is Winzik and filter-seppukus... -.-

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

@Szeth_Pancakes This is a QF so no pinch-hitters right? Just a filter death?

There aren’t any pinch-hitters for this game.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Szeth_Pancakes said:

There aren’t any pinch-hitters for this game.

Thanks, good to know until/unless some IC gets themselves killed that way >>

[Stick. she/her]

8 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

IDK about Insanity I guess, so I could put her back into my pool but I seem to remember Stick said something there? Do you remember what, my brain is cooking rn .__.

My point was that insanity voting V!Aman and basically not providing any justification for it (not even ‘gut’) and instead saying they had a reason they can’t remember seems unlikely for an elim to me. I think an elim would make something, anything, up. This is not a huge thing though just a minor observation, for this reason I have a mild village read on them

[Kasimir he/him]

14 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

My point was that insanity voting V!Aman and basically not providing any justification for it (not even ‘gut’) and instead saying they had a reason they can’t remember seems unlikely for an elim to me. I think an elim would make something, anything, up. This is not a huge thing though just a minor observation, for this reason I have a mild village read on them

Sigh.

Really feels like rock and hard place rn tbh.

I don't want to shoot blindly into the <you, Hael, Mat> pool. I hate self-cannibalising on principle and it feels like doing this is playing into the Elims' hands. 

At the same time, I really feel like there is no other way to make sense of this.

I feel like I'm still between TUN and Hael right now. But I genuinely don't know if these kills are TUN - does TUN kill the population he'd be hoping to blend in with? I recall doing NKA with Ash and Ash noting that TUN likes retaliation kills and noise kills, which is a profile I'd agree with? So that just confuses me a lot.

The issue is that the last game I played with E!Hael was either MR38a where I think he was part of the team that orchestrated a C1 win utilising Village laxity and a bug in the rules, and QF46, where his vote patterns stood out a lot more. He's yet another player for whom I just don't have a baseline and I hesitate to go further back in time because I feel that sort of profile would be so dated it's barely useful.

I could see E!Hael having the strat cunning to work this out, IDK how much E!Hael gambits, but I sort of feel like I'm being driven there by PoE. The big question in my head between TUN and Hael is more if an Elim team with TUN as the anchor can do what we've seen. Because if TUN isn't anchor, then we are back to the set of three. 

I think there are just too many factors suggestive of an anchor player (I know we know this but I need to type this out for my own thoughts):

-The kill patterns don't fit. Either they are low info kills, which still suggest one thread active player, or they are snipes, which suggests we need a player capable of sniping.
-I do not think a team of just low activity or new players are as comfortable with leaving noisy players alive, or are as confident in sitting deep and sniping. There has to be one player with that nerve.
-The snipes suggest either someone who knows players well enough, or can read for enough hints. Tbf, Hael was fairly accurate in my MR, if the Elims had listened to him (IDed Drake fairly early though he didn't realise it I think.)
-Even in the world where the Xino kill is an accident, e.g. something like Octopus gate in AG8, the first three points seem to be true no matter what.
-Going back...in that world, Silver seems to have been a deliberate bus, or a passive one. Minimally, Mat was never going to be able to do that given his Silver V!read. Which reminds me that I also V!read Mat because that direct defense of Silver tends to be too assertive for him. Ok then, V!Mat I guess.

[If the fact I'm switching from V!Mat to E!Mat confuses you - this ending was written before the last paragraph. I'm not as sold on it but felt it had to be said anyway.]

Ok. Stick, Devil's Advocate - Aman exe -> E!Mat replicating the fact V!him is known to tunnel, as the dead doc in LG90 kept pointing out he didn't do it. Fifth exe -> weak preference to take out an active player as compared to Xino who wasn't showing up and could be MLed again the next Turn.

I'm honestly not sure myself I fully buy it but I feel you are being too quick to assert E!Mat has no reason to tiebreak when you yourself benefited from that reasoning in LG91 D1. You can say that's different and you had reasons but my point is that from a Village perspective, that's the very same conclusion we draw.

Edited to add:

I think part of my problem is TUN doesn't look very Village to me (a lot of his voting motivations so far seem to be so he can be V!read which I don't feel great about) but he just doesn't fit the profile either. In theory he could anchor Silver but the profile I've listed suggests one of <Mat, Stick, Hael> has to be Evil because I sure know it ain't me.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir

[Kasimir he/him]

Eh, soddit, lesgo.

I don't know how much time I'll have tomorrow. Flu and errand and all. I probably can check intermittently but that's it. So I guess I should do that thing unless someone @everyone if you can find a way to make a team and just everything make sense without an Elim in <me, Stick, Hael, Mat> please let me know because I don't want to self-cannibalise if I can possibly avoid it. I blame AG2 trauma.

Reiterating that I don't mind being flipped because I honestly don't believe I am capable of being useful to the Village in my current state, and if you need my slot cleared, go for it, I don't mind and won't consider it rude if you exe me in absentia.

Hael.

[Stick. she/her]

13 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Ok. Stick, Devil's Advocate - Aman exe -> E!Mat replicating the fact V!him is known to tunnel, as the dead doc in LG90 kept pointing out he didn't do it. Fifth exe -> weak preference to take out an active player as compared to Xino who wasn't showing up and could be MLed again the next Turn.

I'm honestly not sure myself I fully buy it but I feel you are being too quick to assert E!Mat has no reason to tiebreak when you yourself benefited from that reasoning in LG91 D1. You can say that's different and you had reasons but my point is that from a Village perspective, that's the very same conclusion we draw

Okay my memory’s crap so I had to actually pull up the LG90 dead doc to see if we talked about Mat’s tunnels there and we did, multiple times. Except - did he tunnel on a villager in your MR? Because to me his tunnel here felt like overkill for E!Mat, especially the cycle 4 vote and the following retraction/admission of fault reinforces my V read. 

Mat’s tiebreak is weird as elim because he explicitly did not do this C1 - doing it then in C3 is asking for suspicion because he did it while abandoning his tunnel and also staying inconsistent to his past self, which is way too many risks to take just to interfere in a v/v exe. Weirdly a lot of us are village reading him for it though and that goes in to IKYK territory. 

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

Okay my memory’s crap so I had to actually pull up the LG90 dead doc to see if we talked about Mat’s tunnels there and we did, multiple times. Except - did he tunnel on a villager in your MR? Because to me his tunnel here felt like overkill for E!Mat, especially the cycle 4 vote and the following retraction/admission of fault reinforces my V read. 

Hmm. No, not explicitly - he prefers to let the Village guide the exe. This is where I think the reactivity/E!Mat's assertiveness issue comes up again and was why I was V!reading him for it, albeit with regard to his stance on Silver. That and I powerfully vibed with his reaction to D1 which was me @ D2 Bookwyrm in LG91.

Yeah, ok, I'm down with hard V!Mat.

3 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Mat’s tiebreak is weird as elim because he explicitly did not do this C1 - doing it then in C3 is asking for suspicion because he did it while abandoning his tunnel and also staying inconsistent to his past self, which is way too many risks to take just to interfere in a v/v exe. Weirdly a lot of us are village reading him for it though and that goes in to IKYK territory. 

I feel that at some point, you can't stack too many gambits, or you'll be hanging them like hams from the rafters to make room for them. The fact we're relooking <you, me, Mat, Hael> already suggests we are postulating at least one counterintuitive thing. If we postulate too much more, we're just going to have to accept the player isn't Elim. Which is more or less where I'm circulating back to on Mat. So ok V!Mat.

In theory the main reason I wanted to relook Mat is I didn't want to have us ML our way through our set and just fail to rethink Mat. I'm aware I'm not doing that with Aman, but I've made my views on the matter amply clear, I think. I just do not see E!Aman reacting this way instead of going for division play, and I do feel relatively alright with that read.

Between you and Hael, the funny thing is that while I was side-eying you last cycle and sort of still am, I guess I should be more worried that I don't have that much on Hael. Like, I can actively flag where I'd have to make assumptions or stack IKYKs to read E!you, which can be done, and with Hael, the one turning point is functionally the Silver lynch/bus.

I will say the fact E!you is boxing yourself in in this scenario is maybe a good sign, because you're more or less committed to V!Mat, V!Aman, and even if you flipped me, you'd have to go Hael. Bah, part of my brain says we don't know how close we are to lylo, but even then... But no, I also like the tinfoil because I recall E!you didn't even remotely tinfoil as much.

Then again there's Hael's speculation of me-Aman E/E at C2 EoD...

IDK how I feel about his posts, I've gone back and scanned them and nothing jumps out at me either way but it could also be my current exhausted/sick/"YOU WERE MY BRO, Hael vod!" state so I don't trust me.

Which is retreading the same circles again I know, but what can I say, I'd be upset with myself if I didn't try to think it through. I guess it's odd to talk to a player I don't actively suspect but am trying to rethink since I'm rethinking the whole set and just sort of randomly babble my thoughts into the thread but IDK I just want someone to yell at me and tell me I'm kayana and make everything make sense ._.

And I'm aware that desire is dangerous because idk if they're Village either .__.

[Amanuensis he/him]

This game is hard.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

This game is hard.

Mood.

Can I offer you a potato in these troubling times.

[Amanuensis he/him]

Just now, Kasimir said:

Mood.

Can I offer you a potato in these troubling times.

Boiled, mashed, or stuck in a stew?

[Stick. she/her]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Bah, part of my brain says we don't know how close we are to lylo,

Ah yes, I actually have Winzik pinned down and will be delivering the final strike today, just need to wiggle my way out of this one >:} Hopefully all ICs are dead. 
 

For legal reasons this is a joke

But I fear the real elims probably thinking like this rn 

 

[Kasimir he/him]

5 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Boiled, mashed, or stuck in a stew?

 

Spoiler

 

5 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Ah yes, I actually have Winzik pinned down and will be delivering the final strike today, just need to wiggle my way out of this one >:} Hopefully all ICs are dead. 
 

For legal reasons this is a joke

But I fear the real elims probably thinking like this rn 

 

Sigh.

Yeah I know :/

I really haven't felt this lost in a game since MR56 or since Mat was FUDing me uber-hard in QF62 and my brain was melting :/

I am going to need my emotional support Wormmon to handle this :/

Spoiler

Where' Devo for some good sense :/

Oh right they friggin' murdered her :/

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir
fixed spacing

[Amanuensis he/him]

I'm kinda at e!hael now too but I like hael so I no wanna rn

Essentially because it feels like the biggest reasons for me v!reading him is making the Silver train viable again (possible e!Hael didn't want any fallout by voting v!Nerdy, v!Aman, or v!Xino and didn't expect Kas + Stick to switch) and because he's been generally more in the background / following my preferred votes, which have since proven wrong (great stalling tactic).

This would mean he put the Xino kill in either because

A) Xino's C3 inactivity corresponded with an IC member's doc inactivity
B] He wanted to frame Nerdy further, or potentially Stick, given the direction he took the Xino double execution
C) He's either giving us a chance or trolling us (this perspective seems more like e!Kas imo, assuming he decided to make this game more fun for us rather than immediately win)

[Stick. she/her]

14 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

 

---

There's the possibility of an elim that was only around the first half the day, when I think Xino was third, after Aman and Nerdy?

 

14 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

I will point out that the Xino lynch materialised after Stick went offline (last online 6 hours ago). And that Nerdy also hasn't been online for 14 hours.

Perhaps Hael wanted to frame me .-. 

13 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

I think that's compelling enough a point to take off my paranoia hat.

But he backed off very easily. 
 

Edit:

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

He's either giving us a chance or trolling us (this perspective seems more like e!Kas imo, assuming he decided to make this game more fun for us rather than immediately win)

Ngl I considered this while making the list of possible Xino kill explanations (4. Mocking the village) but…this means they’re very confident in their place as a trusted villager and also that they probably know who Winzik/remaining ICs are. I don’t think it’s impossible. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by _Stick_

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

C) He's either giving us a chance or trolling us (this perspective seems more like e!Kas imo, assuming he decided to make this game more fun for us rather than immediately win)

Is this a good time to mention I'm more ruthless as Elim?  

I mean, bro, I C1ed you in BT1. I felt bad about it, sure. But after my team lost LG5, I don't really believe in holding back. I can see where that'd make a game more fun but unless it's an issue of ethics, I usually try not to.

Again, you can take this with salt if you want to.

I just wanted to say it for postgame posterity I guess  And also because IDK, I feel you have a better opinion of E!me than the reality, and I guess I wanted to set the record straight. E!me is scrappy as all heck because of that string of bad E experiences where I know the game can turn on you at the drop of a hat (remember, the GM and IM were more or less calling the game for my team before we lost in a single cycle because of two Villagers PMing each other, and I think also Luckat showing up and analysing the write-ups to ID us) so I don't believe in getting exotic, just getting the job done. 

It makes me a very unfun Elim, yeah, and I'm sorry for it. I'd definitely refrain from C1ing you and stuff like that as far as I can, but deliberately pulling a kill like this just feels like baiting the game gods who have historically never smiled on E!me prior to this year. (See: ensuing QF59 breakdown when I had to 1v2 Archer and Maili.)

6 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

 

Perhaps Hael wanted to frame me .-. 

But he backed off very easily. 

My problem is my Hael vote is functionally a PoE vote.

I don't read his posts as Evil.

I don't read his posts as anything tbqh, and that scares me.

[Stick. she/her]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

My problem is my Hael vote is functionally a PoE vote.

I don't read his posts as Evil.

I don't read his posts as anything tbqh, and that scares me

My problem is I’m straight up reading his posts as village. But I’m reading the rest of the group more strongly village. So yeah, PoE. I haven’t played with E!Hael in probably like 3-4 years or something so I don’t entirely trust my own read of his posts.  

[Amanuensis he/him]

I'm kinda at a crossroads rn, where either e!Nerdy did submit the Xino kill and his self-vote today was to maybe wiggle out like Kas did C1 and I did C3, or e!Hael intentionally framed Nerdy.

One problem is, Mat didn't switch to Xino until the last couple minutes or so, yeah? Still possible we have a case of e!Nerdy and e!Hael, where e!Hael expects his partner to die and shoots v!Xino.

I guess that makes sense too, given Hael needs to blend in with the other active+Silver voters for as long as possible.