Seonid

@ShaneysRus, @Aspen, were either of you the soother 1 who erased Hemalurgic Headshot's vote?

@Steeldancer, are you a Soother 2 who was redirected to @Drake Marshall last night? I'm reexamining all of my evidence trying to put things together to make sure I haven't missed anything and I realized that I couldn't piece the interaction between you and straw together. No set of roles provides both confirmation of what the role was and notification to the target. In fact, the only roles that inform the target they were targeted and leave the target alive are Soother 2 and Rioter 2 (technically a protection role can notify the target, but only if they were attacked that night, and there were no announced failed attacks - and they don't tell the person who used them what role their target was). Also, soother 2 cancels actions, so it can't confirm a role to straw. So straw must be a rioter 2. But how did Straw know what you were? Because Rioting does not inform the rioter what their target did. So the only way rioter could know you were a soother is if you were a soother 2 and the redirected target announced it in-thread. Which is Drake Marshall. Which means that Darkness isn't cleared because there are 2 claimaints for the soother who hit Drake. Somebody tell me if I'm wrong, because I don't want to be right. I want Darkness to be cleared so we can be certain that we only have 4 suspects for the mistborn. @Darkness_, don't take this as me tunneling on you. If this state of affairs is not the case, I think we need a full explanation of the situation because it's starting to look dodgy to me.

Alright. Let's see what we can mine from the votes. Elend Venture apparently voted for shanerockes. None of the 3 potential suspects (shanerockes, ShaneysRus, and Aspen) were on for the vote swing to Araris. That means that it's probably not a red herring (although ShaneysRus was on to vote for Araris, putting a second vote on the train, but wasn't on after that to see it grow into a majority.) That means that the mistborn wanted shanerockes to be lynched over HH. Either they don't believe HH is an elim, or they weren't online to see the accusation. Either way, we are 90% sure that they wanted to lynch shanerockes, and so we can probably toss him out of consideration for being a mistborn. That leaves 3 - ShaneysRus, Aspen, and HH. My read on HH is less firm than it was, but I still find elim!HH more likely than mistborn HH. ShaneysRus, as noted, was online to vote for Araris. It would be odd for the mistborn to vote for Araris themselves but riot Elend Venture onto the leading counter candidate. For that reason, I find ShaneysRus to be less likely to be the mistborn than Aspen or HH. My current top suspicion is Aspen, followed by ShaneysRus, and then HH. Shanerockes is at the bottom. If I've missed relevant information, please let me know and I'll update my opinions. We can only hope.

@Darkness_ I'm not very happy with me either

Storms! I was certain Araris was mistborn. At least he wasn't Elim. Gotta recalculate now. So, I don't see any way for Steeldancer, Straw, Drake, or Darkness to be fooling us, and I remain convinced of HH being Elim, which means that it's either aspen, shanerockes, or ShaneysRus. We're solving this game, though. Slowly but surely. It's just a question of time now. Namely, if we put the last pieces together before either the elims or the mistborn do.

Thanks I meant to say this earlier, but you've been an excellent contributor to this game. I appreciate both the quality of your analysis and your activity level.

Huh. Interesting. I literally came up with them just now.

The mistborn scan can't detect Elims. Just metals burned in the vicinity of the target

If I were the mistborn, would I have tried to derail the lynch on HH, who i think it's an eliminator? Why would I not have gone full steam ahead and lynched him without any reservations? For that matter, if i were Mistborn, why would i advocate living an inactive d1? Being an eliminator tends to make players more active, so if I were Mistborn, I'd be inclined to lynch an active player d1 because that gives better chances of finding an eliminator. Not only that, you're absolutely right that attention often backfires in SE. If I were the mistborn, why quills I have argued consistently and passionately in favor if a d1 inactive lynch? It was an idea likely to be unpopular and guaranteed to draw attention to me. In fact, it's the sort of argument that tends to get players lynched D1. If I were Mistborn, I wouldn't have done that.

Here's the interaction.

@Drake Marshall, Straw claims to know that Steeldancer is a soother. Steeldancer claims that this clears straw, because he is aware of a night actin targeting him last night. The two cleared each other in a dance reminiscent of you and darkness clearing each other. That leaves 6 players left - me, HH, Araris, Shaneyrus, Shanerockes, and aspen. HH I've rejected for reasons given above. Aspen is too inactive, and I'm not sure about either of the shanes. I'm not the mistborn, so if we trust Steeldancer and straw, then one of the two shanes or Araris is our mistborn. Activity makes me doubt the shanes. Admittedly, I had forgotten about Araris not being here, but he seems to have placed an order regardless. If you can mane a decent case against either Shane, or pick apart Steeldancer or Straw's story, I'm all ears.

You have a number of options, actually. HH also has 3 votes (IIRC), so you can vote on him. I don't think that would be good for the town, because if hh is an Elim, the mistborn is one lucky kill away from winning. But I could be wrong and HH could be the mistborn. Or you could vote araris with me. One more vote, and Araris would be tied for the lynch. Or you could pick someone else, make a strong defense of yourself (sometimes revealing your role helps) and hope people see it.

That leaves Araris as my best bet for the mistborn. @shanerockes @ShaneysRus @Aspen @Hemalurgic Headshot @Drake Marshall @Steeldancer @Darkness_ @Straw It's late in the cycle - only 3 hours left. What do you all think?

So, I've looked through all of HH's posts - there aren't that many of them. But after looking through his D1 actions, I'm actually convinced he's not the mistborn. Why? Because I have become convinced that HH is an Eliminator. He starts off D1 voting of Devotary of Spontaneity, a safe poke vote on someone who hadn't been active yet. Several hours later, he starts pushing back against the Ornstein lynch. And then, towards the end of the cycle, after the lynch on Ornstein is almost assured (but before the counter-train on asterion got started) he joins the lynch that he's been so conflicted about. He's then not present until after rollover. So, in summary, my review of HH's D1 posts indicates that he stood up against the Ornstein lynch, trying to get it shut down. And then, at the end when it seemed like there was no hope of saving him, he jumped on the lynch train. To me, it looks a whole lot like an Elim trying to save a teammate and then jumping on when it becomes clear they can't save him in order to gain town credibility. @Darkness_, @Drake Marshall, @Steeldancer what do you think?

@Araris Valerian thanks. If this is normal behavior for straw, then it's less pressing to challenge it. I'm loathe to lynch an inactive again, because I think we actually have good leads to follow up on now. But if we don't get a consensus, I'm ok with a lynch on shane as being better than leaving it up to the mistborn's vote manip. Apparently Straw is cleared of being mistborn. And, pending my answer from Joe, it looks like Darkness and Drake are non-mistborn. Araris is flying under the radar a little at this point, but I had a villager sense on him after interactions last cycle. Or at least a non eliminator sense - could potentially be mistborn. 3 inactives is annoying but better than we've faced in other games. I'll go back and look over HH's posts after my meeting tonight. My best guess for mistborn right now is either him or Araris.

@A Joe in the Bush If a mistborn smoking themselves is soothed, would they be informed of that fact?

I think it's time to turn our attention to players who are largely flying below the radar. @Straw @Hemalurgic Headshot @ShaneysRus @shanerockes @Aspen @Araris Valerian Of them, I'm most inclined to look at Straw. Straw's contributions have been low. D1, he actually had a decent amount of discussion - for D1, but D2 he placed a vote with no justification other than that he wanted to prevent vote manipulation from swinging it. And then almost nothing today. Anything to say for yourself?

Hm. Possibility matrix on this one. Possibility 1 - Drake and Darkness are telling the truth. This is easy - we focus on other players. Possibility 2 - Drake is lying about being Soothed. For what purpose? To cover up an action - most likely a kill? But then if he claims a false soothe, and Darkness claims to have soothed him, that's a touch coincidental. Not Possibility 3 - Drake is telling the truth and Darkness is lying. Thus, Drake was Soothed, but not by Darkness. Decent cover if Darkness is the Mistborn panicking because we're still trying to lynch him. But that's risky - somebody could easily counterclaim, and probably should be expected to counterclaim. Possibility 4 - both are lying. That is just weird, and we ought to lynch them both in that case, just on policy. I find 1 and 3 to be the most likely possibilities. I suspect that we are most likely seeing 2 villagers who've been led into suspecting each other. If that's the case, we don't really have time to pursue this line of reasoning much further. Which is annoying, because it's our best lead. But we might have to turn our attention elsewhere.

Hmm...this is less than ideal. Alright, time for my thoughts summarizing the voting cycle at the end of D2. And my thoughts on the current situation. Which are kind of blended together. Frist, D2 cycle closing. With less than 10 minutes left in the cycle, Darkness claims to be able to conclusively determine whether or not Drake or Droughtbringer are evil if he's allowed to live. Droughtbringer pulls his vote off of Darkness and on to HH (perhaps hoping to swing the lynch). Darkness then pings me to see if I'm willing to move my vote around and clinch a lynch on Drought. Convincing Drought to drop his vote made it so that the Rioting on Elend Venture was successful. If I had dropped my vote, it would have been completely unnecessary - but would have served as insurance against other potential Rioters. Then, the vote was manipulated. Drought died. Darkness lived. Darkness was an obvious lynch target today - except for the fact that he'd claimed a role which, during the night, sounded very much like a Tineye 2. No other role has the ability to find alignment. Now, Darkness claims to have determined Drake's role, not alignment. First a note - if he is a Tineye 2, he hasn't used his ability yet this game. But he claims to have verified Drake's role, which implies that he get a useable result last night. So, we can rule out his implied Tineye claim from D2. Strike 1 - he either lied about his role or exaggerated its ability and usefulness for the town. Now his useable result last night conflicts with Drake's claim of being Soothed. Unless Darkness is the Soother and is claiming to have verified that Drake isn't the Mistborn due to being soothed and the Mistborn kill still going through. @Darkness_ - are you the Soother that soothed Drake last night?

@Darkness_, so you're claiming to be a Seeker of some variety? @Drake Marshall, now might be a decent time to share with us who you scanned last night. Maybe not necessarily what you found out, unless it can help us restrict the solution space of the game. Also, now we have 2 claimed seekers - that's not unheard of, but we've already seen 2x Tineye 1s and 2x Rioter 1s, so I'm slightly skeptical of also having 2x Seekers. Although it could be a Seeker 1 and a Seeker 2, that wouldn't be impossible. As promised, here's my updated color-coded vote tallies: First up is the examination of the two days looking at positions on the Ornstein lynch. Green is dead town, red is dead Elim. Yellow is still living and voted on Ornstein. Blue is still living and voted on Asterion. Purple is Elend Venture's vote, which shows us who the mistborn wanted dead. D1: Ornstein (5): Seonid, Straw, Steel, HH, L.Legend Straw (1): Nutella Asterion (5): Sart, Araris, Drake, Droughtbringer, Devotary D2: Araris (1): Shaney Drought (4): Nutellaspren, Araris, Darkness, Elend Venture Drake Marshall (2): Straw, Sart Darkness (3): Drake, Seonid, Shanerockes Hemalurgic Headshot (2): Steeldancer, Droughtbringer Nothing notable there, except perhaps that the mistborn chose another one of the asterion voters to lynch. So it seems that the Mistborn, at least, is plumbing that mine looking for Elims - the Sart kill after the Droughtbringer lynch seems indicative. The Elim kill on Nutella was kind of out of left field, but then again so was the kill on living legend. I'll be back later this afternoon with my thoughts on the vote shifting right at the end of D2.

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Araris (1)- Shaneyrus Drought (3)- Nutella, Araris, Dark Drake (2)- Straw, Sart Hemalurgic Headshot (2)- Steel, Drought Darkness (3)- Drake, Seonid, shanerockes Here's a current vote count, to the best of my knowledge, with color codes as before. This has been a significant rearrangement of the vote count. More information in the long run, as we watch for interactions and patterns. But it means that this lynch is more chaotic and much more open to manipulation. In a way, I hope things are manipulated, because that tells us a great deal. @Darkness_, I voted you for the Mistborn because of the way you tended to react to Drake's posts pushing against you. I don't have any concrete evidence - the whole point of a Serial Killer role is that they don't have connections and therefore are hard to trace. You have to look and try to find someone who is trying to fan the flames of the village-eliminator conflict without actually moving towards winning the game for either side. Do you match that? Not yet. But you're the best lead I've got. @Droughtbringer - I base my assessment on the fact that the Unstable Mistborn is labeled as a Serial Killer. They are generally considered to be anti-town, with incompatible win conditions. Also, living legend is dead - Elim kill last night. They were a town Tineye 1. That also kind of informs my opinion with regards to whether Ornstein was a bus or not. If Ornstein was a bus, I'm not sure that the Elims would be restricting the pool of suspects that way. Of course, they might be a step ahead of me, and have killed living legend to direct attention away from the remaining players. But that turns into an IKYK gambit quickly.

Embarrassingly enough, I've fallen into the same trap that drake warned about. Ignoring the mistborn while concentrating on the elims. I'd really like not to lynch drake. Moving towards getting rid of the mistborn is even better. Towards that end Araris Darkness

Ok, going back over things. Here are the voting counts from the end of yesterday: Ornstein (5): Seonid, Straw, Steel, HH, L.Legend Straw (1): Nutella Asterion (5): Sart, Araris, Drake, Droughtbringer, Devotary Green is dead town, red is dead Elim. Yellow is still living and voted on Ornstein. Blue is still living and voted on Asterion. Now here are the counts from today: Araris (2)- Steel, Shaneyrus Drought (1)- Nutella Drake (5)- Araris, Aspen, Drought, Dark, HH Shanerocks(1)- Sart Darkness (1)- Drake As we keep going on, I'll continue posting color-coded vote counts like this to see if any patterns emerge. I may alter the color schemes if/when more suspect votes come up. Anyways, my thoughts on where we are now. Both Araris and Drought wanted asterion lynched instead of Ornstein. And both of them are in on the Drake lynch. The others who voted for Asterion are scattered. Drake obviously isn't going to vote for himself, and Sart put out a poke-vote deliberately avoiding analysis. Tenuous association between Araris and Droughtbringer - but it's so weak that we shouldn't make decisions based off of it. It's far more likely to be coincidence than collusion at this point. (I reserve the right to change my position in the future if the evidence warrants it) Of the players who voted on Ornstein, I'm voting at the end of this post, and only straw hasn't voted yet. @Straw, you up for a vote today? Steel wants Araris lynched, and HH is voting for Drake. No associations yet on them. For me, the most suspicious player is Sart. We gained a great deal of information from our D1 lynch (unexpectedly, as Araris points out), and stand to gain even more from today's discussion - pushing on players who tried to swing the lynch, and getting the alignment off of one or more of them. But instead of being willing to participate in that, Sart backs off, apologizes for being wrong about the lynch, and pushes for a lynch that would gain us little to nothing. That sounds an awful like an Eliminator trying to distance themselves from a failed defense of a compadre to me. For what it's worth, here's the rest of my commentary on players: Drake Marshall: Of the players who participated in the attempted swing, Drake reads the strongest town to me. His attempts to encourage communication sound town-like, and his points about the unstable mistborn are extremely important and, by and large, being ignored. I assume there were 3 elims to start with - with a serial killer and our numbers, it makes sense to me. That leaves 2 left. If the Mistborn is lucky, we have 2 cycles left. Barely enough to get through their layer of Thug protection. Remember! If all the Eliminators die before the Unstable Mistborn is killed, the Village loses! I don't think that most of us have internalized that fact. We ought to be attempting to get rid of both threats, but one is going under the radar. Drake drawing attention to this screams town to me. Darkness: That response to a single vote by Drake was remarkable defensive. But I think that's normal for Darkness' playstyle. NAI for now. Could be the unstable Mistborn, reacting badly to attention. HH: Was on the right side of the vote D1, but only reluctantly. Could be indicative either way, need more information to determine. Droughtbringer: Was on the wrong side of the vote, but today's comments largely seem village-aligned. Except for the fact that they are trying to vote down Drake for...pointing out that we have to kill the Unstable Mistborn as well as the Eliminators, and that we risk losing if we ignore them? Steeldancer: Strongly village to me. Combination of Ornstein vote and my sense of their contributions since. Shanerockes, Aspen and ShaneysRus: Haven't contributed enough to get a sense off of them. I'd like to hear more - these games only get more fun the more you participate in them. Straw and nutellaspren: Have both contributed minimally. Straw tried to get a D1 lynch on Steeldancer with little reason behind it - but that feels much more like a player playing our regular D1 game. Nutella is new, but has at least voted both times. Hasn't actually been part of a lynch train yet (in fact, so far both of her votes are singletons), and I'd like to see more engagement out of both of them. That leaves Araris: Now Araris is sounding kind of evil to me. He's made good points on not blindly trusting the players who were in on the Ornstein lynch, and the possibility of a bus. On the other hand, if it wasn't a bus, then this is a red herring and a distraction from more important things. Frankly, my #2 suspect to be scum right now. But on a scale from 1-100, Araris is only at about a 65. I'm open to lynching either Sart or Araris, with a strong preference towards Sart. However, I am strongly against lynching Drake Marshall today. Towards that end: Araris @Aspen, @Droughtbringer, @Hemalurgic Headshot, could any of you be induced into changing your votes? I don't find the case against Drake convincing, and I'd like to see if the latest developments in todays conversation change your assessments of the situation. @Araris Valerian, how do you feel about Sart's deflection? @Straw, @shanerockes, neither of you have voted yet. I've laid out my case for why I don't think that Drake is evil. How do you feel about the situation?

That's exactly my point