Mafiascum.net

In post 111, humaneatingmonkey wrote:VOTE: Madoka

In post 113, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Even wagons look nice

First interaction is HEM voting Madoka before Madoka even makes a post in the game, for a pretty random reason. Honestly I don't think random votes like this are really indicative one way or the other of connections between players.

In post 143, humaneatingmonkey wrote:the Madoka votes were RVS, but also at the heart of every RVS is trying to see the reaction of people when they wake up and they have a wagon on their name

Again, not really indicative one way or the other.

In post 171, Madoka wrote:Umlaut, could you confirm if you are indeed Masons? I'd rather not waste mental energy attempting to sort you if you are. And being deceptive and having us think you are when you are not, causes confusion and is unfair to your allies if you're town.

In post 172, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I'd like to add: If one of you flips and you aren't masons, I promise that I will lynch the other no matter what. Any backtracks now will not be AI, but backtracks later I will read as scum. This is your last chance to come clean.

This kind of indirect "and another thing" interaction, on the other hand, kind of reads to me like one of Madoka or HEM is town. My mental model of scum says they're hyperconscious of appearing to move in unison and would prefer not to do so barring some sort of obvious tangible gain, and I don't really see one here, particularly since continuing to ask for confirmation of a PR claim like this is suspect.

In post 383, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Madoka, I think I'm townreading Hiraki.

This is more weird than anything, I need to think more about it. HEM, why would you tell this to Madoka specifically?

In post 402, Madoka wrote:I am town reading HEM. He is playing in an easy going way and does not seem to care too much about players being town read. In the previous game he pushed for players pretty hard so as to avoid being PoEd. He was also very LAMISTy and he does not appear to be making an effort to appear town here. My negatives are that his friendliness and jovial character is making me feel weird because of the stark contrast with his previous play. It does make me wonder if he is trying to be so different from the last game, that he is town read by meta. @Holden, did scum HEM in your last game play similarly to Blitz I? Or did he change up his style? Do you think his play here is within the realm of being deliberately different? Another thing that is weirding me out is how he keeps addressing Shiki. But I think the most suspicious part of HEM's play was his read on the George situation. George simply was not scummy there, and HEM portrayed everyone else's read of the situation as coming from meta, but I do not think that was the case except for Shiki. I suppose this, along with the way HEM has been addressing Shiki, could be explained if they are in a neighborhood and Shiki expressed her meta view of George privately.

So this is by far the most commentary Madoka gives in her read of anyone in 402, and that commentary is pretty meh on a reread: "I think HEM is town because he doesn't seem like he's trying very hard to look town." That said, it's a little unusual for scum to list their buddy as their top townread. Not unheard of, but a little unusual, because psychologically it is difficult to believe you can sell a hard townread on someone when you know the evidence for it can't possibly be good.

In post 403, Madoka wrote:Ok, looking through that last page, I think it is safe to lock HEM as town.

Yeah, again, scum!Madoka doesn't instantly offer this opinion of scum!HEM before the rest of the town has weighed in on it. scum!Madoka can't tell herself with confidence that scum!HEM's catchup posts look super town, because she knows perfectly well they aren't coming from town and doesn't trust that this opinion won't catch her some heat.

In post 440, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Madoka? Where's your Hiraki vote?

I could say "if scum!HEM wanted to say this to scum!Madoka why not do so in the private thread," but in the case where HEM was scum this post was as much theater as it was actually trying to sway Madoka's vote, so I don't put a lot of stock in this as an indicator. I do note Madoka didn't respond to this directly.

In post 506, Madoka wrote:Up to Page 10

[spoiled stuff]

♡ I still read Datisi's reaction as coming from self-conscious scum. Some of his responses afterward had a towny tone, however, I do not think they are enough to override the read. Still, this read is not that strong.

♡ Holden's treatment of the masons was strange. He focused on it way too long and he questioned umlaut way too long. It did not produce anything fruitful. I really cannot wrap my head around why he discussed the Madoka vote thing with him so long. I think there is a good chance Holden is scum.

♡ Shiki has made solid post after solid post. Her reasoning is consistent and her points do not come off to me as having come from scum. In particular, her paranoia that I asked umlaut to vote her and her read on Holden.

♡ Hiraki's post up to this point have also left a slight town impression on me. They looked worse when I was skimming, but his points are not bad.

♡ George has made some really innocent seeming posts, but he also seems to be making a lot of posts that read as TMI. In particular, his read of shiki and his read of Holden. He made a post saying that he thinks the reason holden is playing differently here is because of the pace. I think this is a strange opinion to have considering the last game they played together was also a blitz game... I think George is currently my strongest suspect.

HEM is notably absent from this read list, which I suppose I should interpret as Madoka's read not having changed there? Aside from Hoctac and I (the at-the-time claimed masons) he's the only player absent. Kind of wish I could ask her about this now. Anyway, her followup post 507 has him as her top townread still. Really, looking at 507, I'm inclined to agree with HG that if Madoka is scum her partner would have to be clidd (or I suppose me, from his perspective).

In post 510, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Madoka can you speed up to 21 so I can finally see your vote

In post 511, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Can anyone pushing for a Bailey lynch tell me why Bailey is a better lynch?
And where the hell is Bailey?

This pair of posts is kind of odd. If HEM is pushing Madoka to vote then, based on her reads as they stand, he should expect her to vote for GeorgeBailey. Yet, despite claiming to not really understand the case on GeorgeBailey, he is not interested in arguing the points Madoka raises against him before she makes her vote. I don't understand what HEM's town mindset is here, which makes me more willing to think he's scum. My instinct is that this doesn't look like a scum-scum interaction but there's nothing I can really point to there, so I'm going to pretty much treat it as null in that regard.

In post 527, Madoka wrote:

In post 522, Hoctac wrote:Specifically, why is this "super town" from monkey?

Oh! I had forgotten I even town read that. It was town because of how forward he was with it. There is no advantage to doubting the mason claim so hard as scum because it pins two players that know each other are town against you. I also like how immediate his reaction was to your claim. I can see from his perspective why he thought it was fake.

The reason why I find Holden's approach scummy, on the other hand, is because of how indirectly he is going about it. He is actively spending his time questioning the two of you when you are going to be sorted out eventually.

Since I felt the same way about both of these at the time, I don't really read too much into it. At any rate this isn't really an HEM-Madoka interaction .

In post 543, Madoka wrote:I still think HEM is town. I do not think the points on Hiraki are AI though.

Kind of a weak reason for townreading HEM again, because the points on Hiraki are most of what HEM did during the day.

In post 545, humaneatingmonkey wrote:

In post 543, Madoka wrote:♡

I think Hiraki may be image managing this game.

He tends to be quite mean, but he has complimented me, shiki, and umlaut in some form. He also seems to be playing less assertively. This is not substantial enough to lynch him though. I think most of his content is reasonable. He misinterpreted HEM it seems, but I don't see that as AI. Not really having a solid scum read other than HEM is the biggest negative.

I think you hit the nail on the head with image managing. I felt something like that with Hiraki's play. But why is that is not AI to you? IMO that's a big indicator that he's careful about what he's seen as.

When I scanned Hiraki's games, he is not above compliments. He is constantly positive to people who he thinks he

vibe

with — aka people who agree with his reads.

Here I would say that (1) as I pointed out before, Madoka easily had a reason to vote (or intent) Hiraki here, especially with the deadline as close as it was, so going for Datisi instead is a surprising choice; and (2) HEM seems to be trying to push her to do just that. I could believe two scum would have this interaction (it's not as if they would really care which town wagon gets lynched), but I wouldn't say this especially points in that direction.

In post 575, humaneatingmonkey wrote:You're getting lynched, Umlaut

In post 577, Madoka wrote:I believe Umlaut. The reasoning that Umlaut is scum for lying is not valid because Hoctac also lied and he was town. I would like to run up Datisi.

Could well be scum-scum; I don't expect two scum to visibly take the exact same position here. It's actually a little odd that Madoka never ever softens her opinion that I'm town, even though as far as I can see her entire reason for believing it is because... I lied about my role?

In post 595, Madoka wrote:HEM are you neighbors with Shiki?

In post 596, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I'm fine with a massclaim if that's what we're doing.

P-edit: No, I'm a VT.

In post 597, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I really don't know why anyone would think I'm neighbors with shiki

In post 600, Madoka wrote:Are you partners with Shiki then? Because the way you have interacted with her reminds me of the way you interacted with bugspray.

I am also a VT.

In post 601, humaneatingmonkey wrote:No I'm not partners with shiki. Tell me about this interaction with bugspray.

In post 603, Madoka wrote:No, why would that be helpful.

Yeah, this isn't scum-scum. Madoka refusing to explain her suspicions of HEM in detail is thereby refusing him a chance to defend himself. There is no reason to do that if you're just trying to distance from your scumbuddy and don't actually want him lynched.

In post 638, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I'm sorry I called you full of shit, Madoka. I get now the POV why you thought it was me and shiki. After Umlaut and Hiraki, it's just me and shiki on your PoE.

But can you still explain why you believe Umlaut? IMO there's a lot of reasons not to believe him.
Also, how confident are you in that monkey-bugs were similar to monkey-shiki?

This sort of "forgiveness" is again weird for a scum-scum interaction, because scum!HEM isn't really afraid of how his own buddy sees him.

In post 685, Madoka wrote:The more that I think about it, the more I think gambit comes from town Umlaut. I think mafia would have been resistant to Hectic's plan, considering the backlash.

In post 690, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Why would mafia be resistant to Hectic's plan? It's the perfect excuse to kill off your neighbor and get townread for it. It's either accept this gambit or ML the town neighbor. Both would flip the town neighbor in such a way that reveals they weren't confirmed, but the other provides an excuse to be seen as town.

In post 696, Madoka wrote:I think the first line is incorrect. If you don't agree to the gambit, your partner thinks nothing or town reads you. If you agree to the gambit and kill your partner, you do not get town cred. The only thing the gambit was useful was the possibility of line two. Had they not died, we would know one or the other was scum. But one of them dying does not provide insight one way or the other.

As to why mafia would be resistant to the plan, because of how bad it makes them look among the town. We gave umlaut multiple chances to come clean and he could have used any of those as a way out of the gambit. You made it clear that if he was lying we would lynch him. The fact that he continued it any way I think is indicative that he was less concerned about self-preservation and more concerned about reading Hoc.

In post 698, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Madoka, Umlaut literally celebrates Hoctac's death because now he's confirmed town, he says.

In post 712, Madoka wrote:I think Umlaut was more excited about the fact that Hectic was killed than he was about being clear. I do not think he thought he would be clear.

In post 713, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I disagree. There's absolutely no reason to celebrate the death of your town neighbor if only to signal the fact that it may imply you being cleared.

In post 714, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Your town neighbor gets NK'd and your reaction is "woo!". Why and what have you gained?

In post 715, humaneatingmonkey wrote:Think about it Madoka.

In post 716, Madoka wrote:I would be happy about it. Their goal was to draw the night kill and it worked.

In post 717, Madoka wrote:Hoc is not the easiest person to read. From Umlaut's perspective he got mafia to kill a difficult slot that had a good chance of being scum mechanically.

In post 718, humaneatingmonkey wrote:But what have you gained??? What would you gain there, as Umlaut?

In post 720, Madoka wrote:The elimination of a difficult to read slot by mafia's hands as opposed to the town's.

In post 722, humaneatingmonkey wrote:I'll sleep on it.

There are a lot of posts here and I skipped several to focus on their main back-and-forth interaction here. What I want to emphasize is that I don't even know why not (though she seems to understand what I was doing, these are all more reasons not to scumread me specifically for the lying than reasons not to scumread me at all), but the exact reason doesn't matter here, because if this were a scum-scum interaction the point would be to sell a story where one of them was swayed into agreement with the other, and at the end of this story they never really come to any kind of agreement on anything at all. There is just no other reason to get into a 1v1 with your buddy like this over a third party, unless it's "we will get into this big 1v1 and not come to any agreement and then someone will think we're not buddies over it tomorrow," and I don't think that's what I'm looking at.