Amanuensis

Well that's depressing Devotary has been RPing and I have not. Why kill her? Who kills her? Also RIP my Thaid theory, but it was worth a shot to see if Striker was resigned to die because of partner inactivity rather than a bus. Still think Ash is V, though I might not be the best judge of their slot anymore. IMO the lack of engagement in the exe points toward V/V tho. Gonna let others take the lead from here. This evening + tomorrow is going to be fairly busy for me, and tbh I just want to RP once before I die. Seriously, why kill Devo? It narrows the pool of potential Stricker busers.

Here's my take. I suspect at least one elim is pushing Ash today. It's why I've mostly been like, not hard defending him and presenting an iffy case for Thaid as an alternative, because I wanted to see who pursued an Ash ML (or in an E!Ash world, who'd take the easy route for Thaid). Now that there's an hour left, I think we've got a big enough pool to look at the relevant people. Annnd ninja'd by Devo, nice. Honestly would depend a lot on how the votes panned out, but I still think Illwei is a fairly strong candidate for a third partner / buser. JNV and Archer could work too, given they're pushing Ash today. This, of course, assumes that E!Thaid means V!Ash, which I'm inclined to believe, since I don't see why E!Ash would sacrifice himself for E!Thaid or V!Thaid. That entire interaction with Ash felt really Village to me (and some to Kas as well) so /shrug. Orlok is another bus candidate but he's got IRL stuff going on that I'm hoping resolves itself soon, wish only the best for him. Would like to give him until C4 at least, if we can. Or to encourage he request a pinch hitter if life is too difficult atm. Beyond that, maybe Experience. I don't totally remember why I marked him down as Village during C1, and it was probably for a really weak reason because I suspected other people more strongly. ED1T: Just realized I didn't even think about V!Thaid in which case, idk. Literally no one has tried to get him exed but me so probably the exact same pool of people. ED2T: Might be my last post for the turn / game, gotta do something for my Dad so, good luck Village! I'll be rooting for you!

Hm, perhaps the more fitting analogy is Pearl's read of Melon, not Turquoise. Turquoise had done things to warrant suspicion, whereas Melon had not yet done much (I'm pretty sure Ash only RP'd that game). In this game, Thaid had done literally nothing. Also want to point out that Striker told me a few times his Ash suspicion was independent of Archer, and that he'd be pursuing Ash if Archer didn't pan out. So I'm not sure an Archer exe would have resolved Striker's views on Ash. ED1T: Also, sorry @Kasimir, I didn't mean to set you off with that one line I just meant to say that as far as I can tell right now, you're Village, but in a bus scenario your lack of voiced Striker suspicion does look interesting, and that I have faith that you could have pulled it off convincingly were you're an elim. I definitely don't want you to experience crippling guilt or anything, I just don't know how you'd actually respond to a villager dying atm cause in this situation we're on D2 after voting out an elim. Basically, I needed more data points to be 100% certain, cause your relative chillness this game hasn't got me there quite yet Or didn't. Yay Village Bros.

ED1T got ninja'd by Thaid so reposting in case anyone missed it: These are basically my reads rn. Kas yellow cause I want to v!read him but I haven't seen him get ML guilt yet, so idk could believe that he wasn't obfuscating his Striker vote as much as he was trying to be thread control to get someone else exed for Striker, and then ended up busing him. Very likely green but I think e!Kas could pull that off Orlok yellow because his playstyle means he's always kind of behind which means it takes a lot longer for me to develop a read on him. I'm much better at figuring people out when I can interact with them in real-time. Would prefer giving him the chance to weigh in more. Archer yellow because tbh wouldn't be surprised if the plan from the start was for him to post something he knew would draw questions from Villagers with the intention of other elims casting doubt on him and his ideas to likewise look village. This is probably more of a tinfoil hat theory than a legitimate concern but something to definitely consider a few cycles down the line imo. I really don't think Thaid is Village. And if he is, and Ash is elim, then I don't know why Ash would defend his inactivity. In fact, it makes no sense and only reinforces my V!Ash read because E!Ash would presumably want that mix over his own death, yeah? Illwei being a voice of reason is just not what I'm used to and it really feels like she was trying to be at the start of C1 (re: Archer's plan) and idr Village Illwei ever trying to be a voice of reason. Plus there was that reads list where she was like "Archer? Striker?" which looks like hedging on both of the exe candidates. In a V!Archer, E!Striker world, I think that looks pretty bad because it would suggest she was gauging Village preference before settling into the bus. If anyone wants to find that reads list and compare it to Striker's re-entry, that'd be grand. ED1T: Oh right, this. But I'm the one that started the Stricker train, and I'm also the one advocating Thaid votes, so at the very least I'm not doing it to distract the Village, which should be comforting ED2T: I'm beginning to realize that QFs are hard for me to RP in because even when I want to I keep getting distracted by game stuff and the limited time in a cycle means I end up prioritizing the game stuff really going to try to get at least one good IC post in before the turn is over because I fully expect to be NK'd, but also got some IRL stuff going on today so dunno how much time I'll have between 11-1 EST.

For what it's worth, I think Ash if a very pragmatic exe candidate, particularly for the reasons Archer just listed. But my heart says he is Village, so I'm personally not going to vote there. I definitely encourage people to vote Ash if they disagree with me, but simultaneously encourage people to vote Thaid if they don't. I kinda hate the idea of spending D2 exeing a player who voted an elim. Even with the decent chance of a bus, I'm more interested in checking if there's an elim who didn't bus first, while giving the villagers who voted on Stricker another day to prove themselves and narrow down the PoE further. Of the Stricker voters, I still think Illwei is the best candidate, with Orlok coming second. I'd like to give Orlok more time especially, if he is Village, while Illwei at least has been around enough to participate more directly, and thus should have no problem defending herself or finding a better candidate. So if I had an exe pool today, it'd be <Thaidakar, Illwei>. Though again, if Illwei is village, I'd be happier to give her the opportunity to prove it by going for Thaid first, so you all know where my vote is anyway.

That's what caught me, yeah, but at the very start I either completely ignored him or tried to encourage him to be more active, rather than joining people's suspicions. It was only when it looked like Gorilla was for sure dying that I got heavily invested in his defense. Thank you, we pretty much reached that conclusion after realizing you were offline for like 11 hours, so makes sense you're probably cleared because of it, so yay. And you said you're not good at voting elims Also glad you're back, would love a new perspective on the whole Stricker situation.

TBH I don't think he was lurking with the second account per se; more that he had the second account for other reasons and just happened to check the thread without switching to his main account. That account went offline shortly before Thaid came online and posted, so I imagine that it wasn't intentional. Just unfortunate timing. But what that does tell me is that he could have been around for this game more, but actively chose not to be. He promised to post once a day to avoid being filter killed (very likely his teammates warned him that he was in danger of being filter killed) which is just straight-up unusual behavior for him, based on every other game he's played (lots of jokes and general randomness). That was kind of what tipped me off in the first place (why he was my first vote D1) but I really do feel the way Striker treated him in his reads list supports that argument. It lowkey reminds me of how I treated Gorilla in AG8, and if @Devotary of Spontaneity remembers where she saw Pearl Chamaleons reads lists, I wouldn't be surprised if he treated Turquoise Gorilla similarly. ED1T: Hm. I take this to mean you weren't swayed into reading Ash as Village, despite this?

Yes please sleep, and Kas please work. I'm going to make coffee and cook breakfast and try to be a productive writer this morning. Lotus wants RP and I want to deliver

Idk, I could maybe be wrong (I don't know the results of my report, the second account in question still exists) but tbh the evidence I just happened to stumble upon was fairly damning in my eyes. From my pov, I'm not mad at him, and the mod that I reported it too wasn't either. We believe he's just on the younger side and doesn't know any better (maybe didn't know the rules well enough, both for the Shard and SE). So the mod recommended a warning, and that's the last I heard. Point is, let's not get upset over it. Learning opportunities and such. I'm sure we all made a lot of mistakes when we were young teens. I definitely had my fair share. ED1T: Basically, don't vote for Thaid just for that. But also don't not vote Thaid cause inactive.

I edited my last post btw. And on the Thaid thing, I don't know if this is taboo to say, but I caught him viewing this game from a second account yesterday and had to alert the mods. So his inactivity was definitely not an IRL availability thing (assuming I was right, which I'm pretty sure I am, but room for doubt).

I guess I should note the repeated mention of Dingo is one of the reasons I'm having trouble fully believing you're village why would village you be slipping into elim apathy? ED1T: Also the "tied to people" thing. I never really saw your alignment tied to Archer's and definitely not sure how I see it for Experience now, so really I'm just confused. You seem more self-conscious than the Ash I'm used to from the last MR and LG. ED2T: Experience is the other player who was publicly contemplating not voting at all, right? @KasimirCause like, despite being in an extreme IRL situation, @Experiencedidn't seem to be thinking about no voting because of it, but more because of the blind voting thing (maybe he can confirm). Imo, that would indicate to me that Ash and Exp have the same alignment, in the same way I v!read Mat for reevaluating Archer and want to v!read Ash for missing a lot of Archer's first post due to his initial reaction. Idk man, maybe I just want Ash to be town too badly. Is there a term for a reverse tunnel?

Have slept, here are my thoughts. 1, very sad there's only been one new post. 2, feeling pretty good about a v!Devo read for now. I think the main thing holding me back is a healthy respect for her e!play. Possible that a part of why Stricker gave up was because v!me, v!mat, and v!devo all publicly voted him and his team just didn't have the thread control to pull off a different exe in such a tiny timeframe. 3, conversely, still pretty sus of illwei. On top of her fitting the criteria I was looking for that made me jump on Stricker in the first place, I just remembered she said short turns are elim sided and it really didn't seem to be yesterday, so idk. Her slot just feels... more reasonable than I'm used to? I hate for that to be a reason to sus her, but I've also come to expect v!illwei to pull out hot takes like C3 of the MR on Archer. I feel like her personality is muted? Could be IRL or playstyle change but have to note it. Either way, gut feel. 4, I really, really, really want to exe Thaidakar today. Yeah yeah low hanging fruit but we got an elim C1, Thaidakar is blatantly filter dodging, and an inactive elim could explain Stricker's resignation at the end of C1. Tbh I'd rather vote outside the Stricker exe than inside it because I would hate to start cannibalizing our own if it really was a pure exe. Ninja'd by Kas, will post and read now. ED1T: Idk tbh don't think I can get behind the Ash exe myself. I had the exact experience he did with Archer's random vote post. Like I read the first line and already had a big flashing red NOPE in my head and completely missed pretty much everything else that Archer said until I reread it later. Not once, not twice, but three times I had to look back at it. It took me a really weird amount of time to process what he was proposing and the fact that Ash also had that experience makes me think he's probably just a Villager having an off game. So I guess vote there if y'all want but I'm aiming for a perfect vote streak until I'm dead, so votes going on Thaid. To further my Thaid point, what does Stricker gain from treating Thaid with kid gloves in his reads list? It's Thaid's fourth game now, right? And he's notoriously very chaotic, right? That's an easy ML opportunity and Stricker didn't set it up at all. Would he gain much from pocketing him? I doubt it, Thaid is very hard to pin down. Basically I'm convinced Stricker was avoiding drawing attention to his inexperienced teammate. So yeah no way I don't vote Thaid today. @Kasimircause I edited.

It's less bold when you believe Thaid is a first time elim that's lost in the sauce So anyway, I ended up reading D1 again... This was Stricker's re-entry into the game from about 1 hour before rollover, as seen on Page 4. On Page 2, only Mat and I were publicly anti-Stricker. On Page 3, Archer responded to some things about Stricker but in a kind of distanced way that didn't give his read. Illwei and Striker began interacting with each other in a way I can't parse as E/V or E/E (someone halp). Bort also expresses his suspicion of Stricker, and Ash considers voting Stricker over Archer. On Page 4, Archer finally comes around to suspecting Stricker (though does not say he's voting him), JNV continues pushing on the Archer exe, and Devotary chimes in with her public Stricker vote. That's when Stricker re-entries: explicit votes from Aman, Mat, Devo, potential votes from Bort, Archer, and Ash. Greening the conf villagers Kas I kind of want to give the benefit of the doubt rn, will be very impressed if he's an elim playing things as cool as he is now Devotary's public vote makes her look pretty good, which makes me wonder if that's the point (I.E. bus was decided by the time she voted) Ash was basically coerced into his vote last minute (imo contributes to my village lean) Orlok was paying enough attention to the game in order to vote despite not catching up on his big analysis (ngl, I'm kinda sus of that fact) And Illwei wasn't super clear about suspecting Striker but voted there anyway Inb4 the elim team is actually Striker, Devo, Orlok, and Illwei TBH, tryna pick out who the buser is (if there even is one) feels like shooting fish in a barrel right now, so let me take a different approach. Greening TUA because imo Stricker was clearly keeping that option open for a ML. Could Stricker have been resigned to death because one of his teammates (Thaidakar?) was not online to vote with him? Kind of want to green Experience because would a Stricker who believes he's going to die really vote alongside a teammate? I'd buy him voting a teammate before I'd buy him voting with one. Mailliw vote so indifferent to Stricker's potential death, it probably means he's V. Still think JNV wouldn't have tunneled so hard on Archer if JNV was E. Bleh, I really don't know. It's such a weird situation. @Kasimir you like vote analysis. Have you come up with any conclusions?

Striker did seem resigned to die near the end tho. I kind of suspect that he was aware other elims were voting him already and following my lead explicitly to gain village cred. Did anyone besides Devo openly vote for him? Cause not even Ash or Exp were up for it originally, so it feels weird for him to assume he was dying at that point.

For the record, perfectly happy to get NK'd today. I've done my job getting at least one elim killed and I got short stories to be writing anyway

BTW for the group date, I imagine it'd involve you two dueling (Awoman would probably encourage a shirtless duel, but with how Adolin likes his fashion, he might not be into it) while simply watching and lounging and petting Lucy, who he's adopted as a pet / spy / confidant. If you want to start it off, I can build my RP off yours. Also feel free to take it any other direction you'd like; I can adapt.

Yup, apparently the red flip was a pleasant surprise but also immediately tainted by how coordinated it seemed because of Big Number. Also agree that's a very good avenue to pursue, just too lazy to backread myself. Gotta let other people do the work sometimes, y'know I think I'm most interested in a Thaidakar the Ghostblood exe today. I mean, he's literally the storming leader of the Ghostbloods. And he's uncharacteristically inactive.

TBH my vote was on myself until 4 hours before the cycle ended I had planned on abstaining from the exe by self-voting but was a bit worried that no coordination would = an unproductive exe and elims gaining ground.

Thank you for doing the back reading I'm too lazy to do myself <3 Hm. In a V!Ash world, it's possible Striker believed the anti-Archer feelings would naturally transfer over to Ash (in others' minds), and thus could have been keeping his options open for another future ML? Idk if I'm a good judge for this since I want to believe Ash is a Villager for a couple independent analysis reasons, but the interactions with Striker are, well, Striking. Especially in a bus scenario. First level says Striker voting Ash to self-pres is E/V, but in a bus scenario, would be optimal to vote a teammate. I also think that if the elims weren't planning a bus ahead of time, they would be panicking about where to vote at the end, since even inaction would look weird (hence Ash being like, "I'm confused so I might not vote at all"). I feel like villagers would have more dgaf energy in this situation? Like... what does not voting accomplish as a Villager? Why does being confused in this game differ from being confused in any other? Why sweat about it? Feels like Ash was more worried about how his vote would make him look than who he was voting, if that makes sense? That's kinda where I'm stuck, atm. ED1T: Ooo, I either missed your post where you publicly voted him or forgot it amidst other posts. I do feel good about your vote for those reasons, although I will say if Striker was planned to be bused ahead of time, you'd fit the bill. At the very least, you're definitely not E/E with Ash, which is nice.

Cool, thank you. I have to admit, your EoD panicking look not great in a last-minute-bus scenario. But I also have reasons to think you're Village and tbh I would expect your "idk where to vote, I might not vote at all" to be contained within the elim doc, were you truthfully an elim. Which is why I want to know if anyone was expressing sus of you before Striker's post, because his weird hedginess with you could have been hoping for an ML if so. If not... it def doesn't look good for V!Ash.

So for anyone intent on analyzing Striker's opening readslist, here you go: Also my reply, which I translated character names to player names / interpreted meaning: NGL I'm a lil impressed at how quickly I jumped on him something like a 1hour difference between reading his post, thinking and writing, then posting mine. Some thoughts in retrospect: TUA looks village imo (ML opportunity, like I pointed out) Ash read continues to be very weird so could be E/E distancing or ML set up - anyone care to see if others were suspecting Ash at the time? Still not loving the v!read of Illwei but could be born from TMI like it was for me - would like others thoughts on Illwei Still convinced Thaid is an inactive partner given how I read Striker's read Awesome, thank you

For what it's worth, sorry Stricker! I gave you hope when I had no intention of switching. Just glad that for once my D1 tunnel was on an elim Lowkey upset about this kill Mat's died C1 a lot recently, hasn't he? Possibility of bus makes me think 4 elims might not be as unrealistic as I initially thought. Assuming 3:12 or 4:11 start, a 100% pure Stricker lynch is feasible, but idk how plausible. Did any Villagers believe that Stricker might not get exed at the end of the previous turn? I did have doubts - I thought the exe would be a lot closer, at least - but I always have doubts, especially about exes I'm leading. @Kasimir, @Devotary of Spontaneity, @Ashbringer, @Illwei, @Bort, @Orlok Tsubodai, could you all tell us your exact reasoning for voting Stricker, and perhaps the exact time you submitted the vote in your PMs (pending confirmation from @Araris Valerian that it's okay)? Assuming that doesn't cross a line, the timing of your votes could be really important in determining your own alignment (in the same way that we'd analyze when players voted in a public vote game). I would imagine that the decision to bus Stricker didn't come until very near the end. For that reason, Bort looks Village imo since he's not been online in 11 hours. This is my reads list from yesterday btw. @Kasimir since we're the only males (I think) maybe we should do our group date together I need to RP anyway, but couldn't last turn due to time crunch. ED1T: Maybe should have read your post before I wrote mine haha. Great minds and all that

So who bussed?

Chinese Fire Drill (need a term that removes Chinese tbh, don't like the implications). Basically last minute mass switching like I did in the MR's C1 (on Karn).

My one complaint is that it's hard to CFD in a game where votes are submitted in PMs.