Mini Theme 2161: Undertale C Open - Chara's Folly

[Chara]

first.
HEAL: Chara

[Chara]

going great so far.

[Chara]

Chara, yes. but vengeful? no.
i was vengeful Chara the last time Isis ran this series, though.

[Chara]

i haven't decided yet what route i'd like to go for. the no mercy run is rather tantalizing. i want to see blood.
but neutral is alright too. i'm sure one is "optimal", but i'm not as interested in that.

[Chara]

i reset. it's fine.

[Chara]

i need a new Chara avatar.
hello Tweet.

[Chara]

it does look like the genocide run is more plainly optimal. that's a little unfortunate, i really enjoy the back and forth on which is better.

but

, i really want to read Prism's spare argument! so i can still be excited about that.
so, we can only get the global investigation if we fight vengeful Chara today, or at least hit another mafia member. that means this day is very important for mafia, they're going to want to avoid a Chara fight as much as they can. it's not quite white flag but it's almost as bad, by my understanding.

so, let's hunt for the little imposter.

pedit: hm. i'll agree.

[Chara]

HURT: Elements

[Chara]

is it bad how amused i am by my name being thrown around so much? there is only potential for confusion.

i am very convinced that fighting is the better choice. unfortunately.

[Chara]

now we play mafia!
HURT: lavender

This is town af

pedit: hm. i'll agree.

whichever one of you gives me a better/more convincing/funnier explanation on why you think so gets 5 free TownPoints™ [limited time offer] [batteries not included]

i'm not good at being funny. :<
and upon being called to explain why i thought that... i guess it isn't particularly towny after all.

[Chara]

are you going to keep pretending to be my brother? i only played along last time because the rest of the monsters were so concerned with your opinion.

HURT: Hectic
<3

[Chara]

also, people are forgetting that bad play on 4 FIGHTS (4 misFIGHTS in a row) means scum get parity and we're donezo
without any investigations at all

if we misfight four times we deserve the loss, skeleton.

[Chara]

murder is mechanically better.
but the only thing i'm hard against is a fully pacifist run, here.
i'd rather fight today and spare tomorrow if we must.

[Chara]

worst case scenario where we don't totally suck is 3 town fights and one scum fight. let's say the one scum fight isn't Chara.
that puts us at one mafia left (Chara dies), and 3 town alive. we also get the two invests courtesy of mafia.

if our one scum fight

is

Chara, we have two mafia left and three town alive. also, we autowin.

the actual worst-case scenario is we fail to fight either of the two non-Chara mafia four times, and then we lose. what are the odds of that? it seems very, very unlikely to me.

[Chara]

we get one chance at the autowin. it's a significant enough thing that mafia need to prevent it from happening this day. i want them worried about it right out of the gate.

[Chara]

we fight Chara day 1, then we do a terrible job of things and elim 3 more townies. mafia kills a townie a night, night 4 is skipped. that's 3 living townies and two living mafia, and everyone's alignments flip.

i've been trying to work this out in my head while people around me keep talking at me so it's possible i'm distracted and annoyed enough that this is wrong, but this is my understanding. it doesn't seem likely Isis would make it possible for us to autowin day 1, but this is how i understand it, so am i missing something obvious?

[Chara]

but even if we fail to fight Chara and hit a townie, the mafia were all forced to avoid the terrible scenario of Chara being fought, so their flip gives us something to work with. i really think we can hit at least

one

mafia in the ensuing fights.

[Chara]

but if we spare today? sure, mafia wants Chara to be spared, but if they feel it won't happen they aren't backed into a corner like that.

Spoiler: desperation. that's what i want.

[Chara]

but even if we fail to fight Chara and hit a townie, the mafia were all forced to avoid the terrible scenario of Chara being fought, so their flip gives us something to work with. i really think we can hit at least

one

mafia in the ensuing fights.

if everyone is looking in the wrong direction for chara this doesn't help at all though

that's an if. we can try, can't we? getting any mafia is a victory. hitting town just means we lose the autowin and try for mafia again the next day.

if we spare, we flounder without any real confirmation of how we're doing. we don't have the benefit of an IC this time, Hectic. you left the game temporarily, so i don't know if you remember the frustration of no flips until town finally fought Farkran.

[Chara]

I don't think you're counting the vengeful but I'll cut the mech talk short for now

cut it short? you're right, i didn't take the vengeful into account. we still need to fight a mafia besides Chara.

but that doesn't change my position. it just means fighting Chara isn't quite auto. but we'd need to fight a non-Chara mafia if we failed to hit them day 1, anyways.

so, i still want blood.

[Chara]

in other news, i have to TR puppy.

i don't think Prism has done anything AI yet but i do really want them to be town.

[Chara]

so i don't know if you remember the frustration of no flips until town finally fought Farkran.

Speaking of, that game was an excellent example of why the "it's easy to get townreads" assumption is kind of bogus. Without disrespect, Farkran essentially hardclaimed scum at one point (mad at being called bad scum, fine with everyone calling him bad town) but almost all of the town refused to budge on their concrete TR on him. Plus literally the entire game was wrong on you. One game isn't a huge sample size, but you get the idea.

Still took eons to get him voted, even among players that really should have known better because they were insistent on townreading the dumbest stuff.

it wasn't the entire game. Psyche would have had me if we hadn't killed them, and i believe there were others.
but yes, i see your point. it's not as easy to get town as one might think, and i'm particularly weary of players like Elements who, even if they were not being serious, are throwing out townreads left and right.

and the drain of no flips besides scum kills can't be understated.

[Chara]

townhunting is powerful, better than scumhunting imo, but we can townhunt inside the fight framework too.

oh, you're my favourite.

listen. Hectic, Prism, and i played the previous version of this game. Hectic was spared early so he didn't suffer with us. i was scum, so i was suffering for an entirely different reason, but our scumteam was literally leaning on the apathy and frustration that came midgame as town struggled with no elimination flips.

[Chara]

[Chara]

the most significant towntell from Pooky so far would be that he apparently did math for this.

i'll look at Tanner in a moment.
i scumread Elements. what do you think about them?

[Chara]

Tanner's above null for now. i don't want to put a lot of weight in where he falls on the spare/fight debate. i have concrete thoughts on this but i want Tanner back in the thread first, so you can ask me again after that happens.

catboi also gets that sweet and soft earlygame TR for the Puppy vote (that i disagree with) and for the setup math (that is really very NAI).
so what i mean is catboi gets the earlygame TR for no real reason besides i say so.

[Chara]

one of them should be pooky
one of them should be me
one of them should be hectic

this is a game
it's meant to be fun
sparing is the more fun path
we should spare

first quoted post is what pinged. i mentioned i thought it was likely a joke but the lackadaisical attitude is what's rubbing me the wrong way. there's a desire to spare but no

determination

to find that town to spare, yet.

[Chara]

HURT: puppy

what don't you like about Puppy's explanation?

[Chara]

HURT: Elements
i forgot i'd voted Hectic.

[Chara]

Chara only gets let off if we plan horribly. one miselim and they're gone.

unless

we spare first and then start eliminating. then Chara gets to stay.
which is part of why i advocate for fighting today.

i understand the annoyance surrounding mechanical talk but it's part of playing to wincon. i'm certain Isis had the game properly reviewed and balanced, but they're all still humans. the last game that was run had a white flag situation that was unintentional and nearly cost us the game. this isn't me casting doubts on Isis's capability to mod or design at all, but it is me saying i can't just be okay with an option i feel will both lower our chances of winning

and

be less fun.

[Chara]

neutral is good, too. we get investigations. even if they're on the mafia's perception of what the least useful slots are, the confirmations will make them sweat.

Hectic, i agree catboi is town. do you have a read on me and Elements?

[Chara]

anyway, Prism town because he did the math and was accurate before catboi revealed his spreadsheets
he made the effort but showed no working or proof to try and make it look impressive or get any towncred from it

I really want to hear more explanation on this. At this point, you've seen one of each of my games. What gives you this impression?

i have a comment on this too but i'll wait!

Prism, i had so much fun playing with you last time and i'm looking forward to doing so again.
any scumhunting thoughts yet?

[Chara]

Prism: well, i appreciate that you answered all the same.

it's not the same thing, but it does remind me of how i can feel changes in my own playstyle. i'm continuing to press reads on weaker reasons in order to see them grow/generate readable content, but now i want to be more explicit about which reads i'd stake the game on and which are still in progress/unreliable. and interrogating my own reads both introspectively and in-thread with the read target. the latter i think i need to improve on. i never developed the "how to interrogate a player" skill early and now i'm having to learn it now.
the act of striking fast with early reads i still find useful in terms of content generation/gauging reactions.

i'm not sure how much of this is a genuine portrayal of my own play and how much of it is in my head, though.

[Chara]

hi tanner! why did you vote Lavender when you did? this question is what i was referring to in 158.

[Chara]

my first thought upon reading this post was "alright, now to try and emulate my town self that Prism is recognizing so i can keep getting townread."
Undertale S ruined me.

[Chara]

hi tanner! why did you vote Lavender when you did? this question is what i was referring to in 158.

all their their posts up to that point (other than one) were early game shitposting (nothing against that), but once the discussion turned to mech-talk and deciding we should probably be fighting someone today, their "hmm what now?" (46) struck me as insecure scummy in a way? as if they didn't have anything to contribute to the discussion, either mech or gameplay, but also wanted to give an appearance of Being There.

i agree, and this was also my guess on why you voted Lavender, though i was not this specific. the way you jumped in and voted the slot was enough to get you above null for me, it was a pretty natural move.

i've liked Tanner since then. he's direct and wants to solve. that's good enough for now.

[Chara]

Tweet: if Prism is scum he's doing an excellent job of making me like him.

Pooky, i do not like your plan, because i'd feel compelled to nominate myself because i trust none of you yet, and could definitely win. but i really want to murder today. and also i don't want to sit in the Spared PT and watch the game happen without me.

[Chara]

258 sucks, but that's old news now i guess. AI non-mech talk has been happening for a whie since before that post.

redtea: re: 266, what sort of act do you think Puppy is playing right now? also, what's your read on Elements?

[Chara]

If catboi had arrived to the conclusion that sparing is the better EV for town by far, and then said this comment, I'd trust it less. After all, even if catboi is hurting his team EV-wise by revealing the correct town strategy, if he can grab that spare, it's huge for them.

But he's not. He's telling us to fight. Which is helping town EV by far. If catboi is scum, the towncred he is grabbing here is useless-- he's not going to get spared, and now he's going to have to explain why he never gets nightkilled

you're comparing catboi's decision here to a hypothetical that would never occur. the EV is in favour of fighting here, catboi can't change that.
i understand the part about it being beneficial for scum not to out this math (provided no townie wouldn't do the same math), but comparing it to a scenario where the EV says to spare and catboi tells us to spare (and therefore this universe's version of catboi is even townier) doesn't work when that scenario doesn't exist.

and your last point about the towncred being useless... towncred isn't useless for scum in normal games, so why is it useless just because we're not sparing today?

i cannot think of a better way to word this, haha. in fact, this was so hard to work through in my head that if you still disagree with me after reading this i'd rather shake on it and agree to disagree than go down the rabbit hole of logical argument that exists in a possible future.

also, i do like catboi for town, just not for this specific thing.

[Chara]

happy scumday Tweet!

i don't have much to say to your response, besides that i think i agree with you more. i was just concerned you'd locktowned him for it, but i can see that isn't the case.

[Chara]

there's the Hectic i wanted to see.

[Chara]

are you saying you'd expect Hectic to be more suspicious of you given the shift?

[Chara]

Townleaning Chara immediately for a line that is honestly trivial to fake is a really hard sell for me here. It begs the question what you're looking for in a scum Chara, which isn't in our best interest for you to answer just yet.

but you pretty much laid out your vision for scum Chara in your earlier post, didn't you? is there a reason you decided to play your hand already?

[Chara]

You are absolutely correct that I should be more scared of Chara though. This is all assuming Chara is a normal player, but Chara is a player with an exceptionally strong scumgame. It'll take a lot more to make me want to SPARE it this time around.

friends... i wonder about that. are you sure you really trust me? maybe you're just saying that because you're afraid.

i did have a very good game, but the last Undertale was a team effort. between me and my

real

brother.

Prism, i'm not feeling the same worries about Hectic as you are. you dislike his going after Pooky for objective reasons, but what would you have him do instead? scumread you?

and your read on me, as well. certainly, it has more words to it than Hectic's, but it's only one game of comparison. i could buy the townread, but the juxtaposition of that read and your comparison to Hectic's read on me in Undertale S feels very... intentional?
i was scum there, so why would you expect him to read me the same way in the followup?

[Chara]

actually, i think i misunderstood part of your point. it wasn't that you expected the same sort of read, it's that you think Hectic is townleaning me too easily and going down the same path as before.

but that mindset is still hard for me to reconcile with your own post on why you like my play so far.

[Chara]

i think we can get to 4 spare win if we do not share universal townreads and go 1 person at a time.

that's a fantasy. play some mafia with us, bear.

[Chara]

making just one post for this game feels like pulling teeth. someone throw me a question or something.

pedit: ?

on Hectic: in an NAI vacuum, i would trust Prism's meta more than my own. i don't tend to apply meta in a serious way, it's out of my skillset. at most i use it to identify personality quirks, styles, and things out of the ordinary.

anyway, you wanted a question. it's not game related, but do you mind me asking how long you've been playing mafia for?

Prism: just letting you know i've read your response and i'm thinking on it. regarding the end of 341[/i], i'm assuming you read [post]337 and i no longer need to clarify what i was asking. you answered, regardless.
but i'm curious: are you going to now do a meta dive on me?

Pooky: it would be helpful if you gave some reads. even if you want to Spare, the onus is not just on town to obvtown themselves. if you actually wanted to nominate yourself as today's spare, you need to build a strong portfolio, and scumhunting is the key to looking town. i believe in you.

[Chara]

Prism: just letting you know i've read your response and i'm thinking on it. regarding the end of 341, i'm assuming you read 337 and i no longer need to clarify what i was asking. you answered, regardless.
but i'm curious: are you going to now do a meta dive on me?

sigh.

[Chara]

but if we play like that, it's going to kill any ability to cooperate.
and realistically, the metrics that are usually used to determine towny town are not some big secret. mafia will have a good guess as to which town are being townread, even if not explicitly stated, just by paying attention.

and how are we supposed to figure out the candidate's alignment if they aren't able to give reads and scumhunt?

[Chara]

hahaha. Prism thinks we'll only be on page 60 by the time we get to day 3.

[Chara]

and you won't share any thoughts about players you want to spare. so you're going to do nothing this game day? is that fun?

Taylor: be the change you want to see in the world. prompting AI content by digging at other players is one way of hunting.

[Chara]

if we don't catch likely scum by the end of this day, i nominate myself to perform some emergency surgery on the teddy.
i do not have a medical license.

[Chara]

Prism, if you care for it, Your Nightmare just concluded. Hectic won this as scum. i caught him day 1 but wasn't confident enough to get him eliminated and then got killed.
it'll certainly effect my own approach this game, and as it's fairly short i thought i'd mention it to you.

[Chara]

Just a question, was the concern more about catboi's regard among the town or about MT's behavior?

my concern was MT's behaviour, but not in a "this looks scummy" way. rather, a "i'm concerned if you're town and locktowning someone for this" sort of way. that's why i ended the post by saying i wasn't interested in getting into a logical argument.

pedit: i nearly voted Pooky in this post, so i'm surprised that comment makes you want to unvote.

[Chara]

the first bit of 371

is

a strange read now that you point it out. Prism's townleaning your sitting back and letting things go this early in the game rings a little weird. Prism's extrapolating what your scum approach should be into what they think it

would

be without scum meta on you is a leap, as is the thought that Prism seems to be unconsciously treating me as town. which isn't a bad thing, except it's Prism who has every reason to be very suspicious of me.

i also thought it strange how Prism replied to my question of if they would meta-dive me. that they would only do it if they had reason to believe it would be helpful. this is after stating in this game that their failure to meta me in the last Undertale lead to a loss.

[Chara]

i'm going to sleep. i thought about not saying anything at all to see how things go but knowing me i'd forget.

[Chara]

So if a brilliant player like Hectic is town, he would be a tremendous asset if we are going the Spare Route. However if he was scum - it's really hard for him to actually do damage because a Good-Town Hectic would not actually want to get spared himself.

but town Hectic did want to get spared and did get spared the last time this setup was run.

[Chara]

i'm going to be entirely unable to read Tanner without bias for at least a few real life days due to how much i love his posting to Pooky right now.

however. i also no longer want to murder Pooky. the bloodlust has settled. i am nowhere near confident, but his fixation on Hectic and 473 ring strangely honest.

[Chara]

okay, it's absurdly late and i really want to catch up so i don't get even a little bit behind, because then things will get even harder for me.

but i'm going to sleep. so don't let me get lazy, thank you. tomorrow i'll be here again and very present to the best of my ability, but please threaten me if i fail that. goodnight! <3

pedit: over my dead body. and by mine, i mean the scum Chara's. because we're either killing scum today, or we're killing town and the scum imposter is going to experience the same ending i did.

[Chara]

reminder that the neutral route where we start by sparing and move to killing is inferior to the killing then sparing neutral route, in every way.
in terms of avoiding a Chara spare and making sure they die, killing today wins. in terms of getting useful information to bring us into later days, killing today also wins.

what does sparing and then going neutral get us? a couple of chances to spare Chara accidentally before they die and we don't need to worry about it for days 3 and 4, before an endgame where we have very few flips to look at.
also, deepwolves are easier to catch once you've shot down their fellows. the deepwolf we'd have to find in the pacifist route, with no information? forget about it.
okay i'll stop checking the thread now.

[Chara]

proposal: we refer to the evil Chara as Not Chara, or NC for short. i continue my reign as the one true Chara.

[Chara]

if only Pooky is still arguing the point, is it really necessary to keep beating this horse?

i haven't read Taylor besides a skim yet but i'm happy to see her getting into things.

[Chara]

i have a problem! also i'm excited about murder.
but you're right. tomorrow.

[Chara]

-still kidding around or serious about his Elements-Chara read.

It's a guess.

It'd be funny if it was right.

If we're going fight I don't think it's that important to kill the Chara? Doesn't it just commit suicide on D1 anyway.

if we kill the Chara instead of a townie on day 1, then on day 5 the alignments of every living player are publicly flipped.

[Chara]

Not Chara's venge means we do need to eliminate another scum before then, though.

someone asked what my read on Hectic was the last time i checked the thread: it's a hesitant TR. but i believe i can read him better than that.

[Chara]

yes, but the Not Chara kill needs to be today. unlikely to happen but good to shoot for.

Puppy, i've only played two games with Hectic, one town and one scum. it's not enough for proper meta, but the games were significant enough i feel i've learned enough about him as a player to at least be able to read him better than someone i know nothing of.

[Chara]

hello everyone! i apologize for disappearing. catching up right now.

[Chara]

Tweet's posting through 416 is towny but 416 especially gets big love from me.

it is notable that Tweet then notes here that she finds Lavender scummy but thinks she's a waste of a fight today, which is also an opinion held by catboi. i don't know if that means anything but it got my attention. Tanner asked about the comment from catboi so we'll see what happens there.
three days left, okay. i promise not to leave again! also hello beeboy, it's nice to see you.

[Chara]

563: realistically i consider Element's comment entirely fakeable, but i thought the same thing upon reading it. i shouldn't give townpoints to either of you for that but... i can't help it.

572: ooh. this post gave me a terrible feeling. i'll keep an eye out.

Puppy keeps crediting me for the Elements push. it's not an incorrect thing to say, but the repetition is starting to make me feel like it's a purposeful act and not merely to give credit where it is due.

[Chara]

Lavender's here and it's a big post! more important than catch-up! hello Lavender!

[Chara]

603: what do you think of how i've engaged you? also, second note to self to check catboi's Pooky push and see if that assertion is believable/holds water. ....annnd nevermind, Pooky's putting in the work. less for me, yay.
this is actually a fun read. how'd i get on the bear's side?
it tells me more about Pooky's alignment than catboi's... namely, where i was townleaning him before, he's been upgraded to a townread. but i consider all the criticisms to be legitimate ones, and entirely believable to be coming from Pooky, for reasons including the Micro he's referring to and his status as a player being pushed for the reasons he is.

[Chara]

i hate 617 too. objective fact

is

simple. need to go back and check redtea's given read on Pooky at the time of this post, but saying that suspicion on Pooky is justified in a logical sense and that's that is missing a lot i'd like to see from town.

625: i have been applying what i learned in that game to sort Hectic myself, and will continue to do so. i am not interested in doing a direct comparison as i find single-game meta to be highly lacking. the reason i linked the game was for Prism's benefit, in case he did feel like doing the meta/would find it useful, because i enjoy how he uses meta.

[Chara]

i'm willing to let you do or not do whatever you feel comfortable with. i understand after pressing you on it before that good meta is a massive undertaking, which is precisely why i don't do it. (and why i hate sloppy meta)

[Chara]

666: special mention 666 post. but also, this is another tiny tick towards town Pooky nirvana. tiny because i haven't worked on my Hectic "thing" yet. but nearly caught up!

670: right here, i apologize again. <3
i'm a bit iffy on townreading Prism for saying good things that make sense.... which is unfair to Prism. oh well, i'm not going to want to eliminate them anytime soon regardless! but i'm feeling a whole lot better about Prism's questioning of Hectic than i was. there is something missing here, i feel. part of it is simply a lower thread presence, which i don't believe is AI. again, pending.
Hectic's response in 676 is also... warranted. it's true that he can't be expected to play in the most efficient manner possible all of the time. okay, i'm just going to shelve this until i'm done. Hectic's post confessing not being into this game also dampens any tells i might want to pull out if his play today. :<

703: i'm not sure why every time i feel like interacting with you is to put a "slow down" sign in front of your reads. thats seems unfair, because i like you and your posts, but it is probably also a symptom of (now even more strongly) unconsciously reading you as town.
anyways, this is the same reasoning Hectic used last time (me pushing him strongly for spare day 1 and 2) to townread scum me, after i pushed him strongly to be spared. the reason for scum to do it is because it looks good, it can net TRs when you feel it unlikely you'll be spared yourself, etc.

...and your literal next post is further thought on the matter. now i feel silly. i guess i just like sharing things.

i think i'm cautiously neutral on catboi at this point in time. i am interested in why he's very confident in redtea town.

713: can't fault catboi for this one. he is correct. i wasn't caught up, so popping in to reply to the mechanics Pooky was discussing was all i was able to do. that shouldn't be a problem anymore.

[Chara]

let's look at redtea:

266 stood out to me at the time and it still does. the defense of Elements and the attribution of a lot more forethought to Elements' angle on Puppy than i believe Elements' question really warranted gives me pause.
Elements sees what appears to be a contradiction. they question it. redtea's interpretation feels... too much? if redtea flipped mafia i'd call it an Elements townspew, if anything.

525: i've been thinking while reading this ISO that redtea has lots of opinions but very few conclusions.

he mentions in 388 (i'm sorry, i know this must be frustrating to read, quoting properly on mobile is hard and i'd never post :<) the possibility that Hectic could be using Pooky as an excuse not to participate. now, redtea has been participating, but he does say here he needs Puppy in order to move forward with these thoughts.
but after Puppy does post, redtea says in 595 that this is what he wanted, with no other interaction between them.
i don't know what to make of it.

finally: redtea, you feel like you've been talking about catboi all day, but you haven't actually said anything. you've said you don't like how Hectic talked about catboi's calculations, you've said catboi is very town, and you've said catboi hasn't done anything you consider to be suspicious. but why is catboi town?

all in all, redtea is not as bad as my initial gut ping. i'll wait to see his opinion after he reads pooky's big post, so i hope he returns soon.
that said, i don't TR him and the biggest reason is he hasn't made one vote since RVS, and has a lot of opinions to give but very little in the way of concrete stances.
but he's not the big confident scumread i was hoping for. :<

[Chara]

I feel much, much better about Pooky as a result of this. The jury is still out on catboi, though. Agreeing with him that Pooky could have been gimmicking told me very little.

it doesn't look like you read my post on the topic before doing this, so i'm happy you came to the same conclusion i did.

okay, Hectic. unfortunately i've run out of time to look into that today, i need to sleep. but as i mentioned in my catchup, i think what i wanted to look at is going to be more accurate if Hectic's invested in the game, so this is my appeal to him to see if there's some way to get his head into it more strongly. unfortunately, my current reasons for suspecting him can also line up with uninvested town Hectic.

[Chara]

Prism, i'm gonna go but do you have anything to ask before i do? i have a few minutes and i still want to talk when i'm fresh off the catchup. i think i've given all of the reads i currently have but they might be buried in lots of words.

to be honest, i kind of like Taylor's going from calling Hectic her top scumread to almost completely losing the read when directly asked about it. kind of a mood, kind of feels like she's posting without thinking about it much which is a net +town.

[Chara]

*from calling catboi her top scumread, not Hectic.

[Chara]

players i have my eye on: redtea, Hectic, catboi, Lavender, and less strictly, Puppy.
beeboy would be here, but he hasn't done anything yet. Elements i can't analyze any more.
i'm not sure how to go about pressing Lavender, after seeing how she's replied to others. i don't feel confident i'll be able to read her in a way that isn't "not towny". yet.

pedit: that's alright, i only skimmed your recent readposts too. let's meet back here tomorrow? i'm curious as to what you think of my list in this post. i wanted to vote to hurt someone within it but i couldn't figure out where i wanted to press, because i'm overthinking it.

[Chara]

omg omg your reads match my PoE. why am i so excited. except you have redtea as likely town and we definitely have to talk about that tomorrow. catboi had the same read. please try to convince me, my own attempts got me nowhere but i find him hard to townread.

[Chara]

<3

[Chara]

Chara posting actual content makes me like them and being behind at least explains the active lurking. I am back to the drawing board, yet again.

is it enough just to post content? i can do this much as scum, too.

[Chara]

catboi: i appreciate the redtea review re: not moving his vote a lot. also, big agree on Hectic. i like his current direction and his justification for the Lavender TR.

Prism, i didn't see you talk about your redtea townread, i'm pretty interested in that.

[Chara]

I'm not sure I understand this reasoning at all. Why is not thinking +town rather than showing a lack of legitimate scumhunting process?

a fair question, kitty. can i call you kitty?

i find scum would be more likely to have some sort of justification in mind when giving a read, and when called on it would say something besides admitting they actually have nothing. that, and scum's tendency to think through their posts more deeply than town.
it does depend on the player, but perhaps i was too quick to remove her from the list of players i wanted to poke.

[Chara]

actually, the way Taylor initially says the catboi read is basically nothing, and then when pressed

does

give justification, doesn't look very good. i'm not sure how i missed that.

pedit: no rush, i'm here a while. thanks.

[Chara]

Sure, nya~ (^人^)

I'm not sure scum would always have justification in mind when faking a read - when someone is really raw, then faking reasoning becomes incredibly difficult. When you do not have an idea of how to scumhunt as town, imitating that process is entirely a bridge too far. And so I see her tossing out occasional opinions, but when she is questioned on them I'm not sure her responses give the impression there is something behind what she says, that there's a backbone to her opinions. I would give credit if I felt there was some degree of earnest conviction to what she said but the fact she immediately walked things back when asked about them seems not great.

yes, upon looking at the proper context again i realized it wasn't a good reason for a townread. though that had more to do with how she decided to justify the read after saying there wasn't a lot that had prompted it.

her townread on Puppy while not remembering any of his posts is also rather meh.

[Chara]

catboi's "wait and see" approach this game stylistically is very similar to his approach in SIN. I think it's super natural for redtea to townread it (even though I don't), and the increased confidence/proactivity lines up really well with the takeaways from SIN.

got it. the background helps with dismissing a few of the problems i had, but i'll see what redtea says.

They also watched me flake without literally posting a single thing in that game as scum.

the power.

[Chara]

No, not just that it was content, obviously, but they made reads and evaluations, their analysis seemed fine and not overtly scummy, so I couldn't really continue to pressure them for active lurking. Is it possible to hang back as scum and then do the occasional big serious of catchup posts to look town? Absolutely. I can't say it's enshrined them as a town read but it lowered my suspicion for the moment and I'm basically in "wait and see" mode on them.

why does this reply sound like you were talking to someone else instead of me, Chara? :>

[Chara]

so i kind of scumread Puppy's posts here but //i// would feel bad to press it. ahaha. feel better Puppy.

but re: what he and Hectic were talking about with shifting in tone from game to game, this is why i'm so opposed to blanket application of single-game meta. there's going to be significant changes in a player's mood and approach from game to game without the cause being their alignment.

[Chara]

also there's quite a bit of text i skimmed over so if anyone wants my take on anything specific, shoot.

do you also feel like giving a redtea take? i may as well crowdsource it if you're looking for something to gnaw on. other that that anything you find interesting i'd love to hear.

if reading the whole game is sucking for you, you could read my ISO instead! the game will probably still suck for you, but you'll be experiencing my presence.

pedit: ahahaha. i see how it happened.

[Chara]

i caught myself townreading kitty just because i like them. i have been compromised.
but also, i do like the reply to "Prism" and how it continues with the approach catboi has been taking this game, but i think i'd like it more if he wanted to engage with the actual analysis in some way.

i feel like we're all a bit without direction, which would be fine if not for the deadline approaching. who decided to go ahead and vote Taylor? i think i have to townread them. was it kitty?

[Chara]

i caught myself townreading kitty just because i like them. i have been compromised.
but also, i do like the reply to "Prism" and how it continues with the approach catboi has been taking this game, but i think i'd like it more if he wanted to engage with the actual analysis in some way.

i feel like we're all a bit without direction, which would be fine if not for the deadline approaching. who decided to go ahead and vote Taylor? i think i have to townread them. was it kitty?

I was...just having the conversation with you about why I find them scummy rather than just nooby? Like, yeah.

Also, I will be signing off for the night to clear my mind so if anyone asks me anything else, I won't be around to answer.

to be clear, i was townreading the player who voted Taylor, not Taylor.

[Chara]

Also, for Hectic/Chara/anyone else that feels like it, skim the first five to ten posts of mine of this game for me.

what am i looking for here? it's a scumgame from a couple of years ago from you... you seem like a different player, ahahaha. very aggressive.

[Chara]

Re: townreading someone (catboi) mostly for voting Taylor ??? this is very scumteam dependent. Scum lynch today would be disastrous and catboi has made his way around all three of the weakest slots (Pooky has since taken a stronger role) and dodged seriously pushing anything else like the plague, even when he seems to have reason to. The push on you is the first one that really deviated, and it wasn't very longlived. Catboi struggling to get reads here in general is pretty plausible, as I mentioned I'm struggling to, but I haven't really seen anything that makes me go "Yeah, this is a townpush"

it doesn't make him town, that was a bit of an exaggeration... but we are running low on time and catboi's decision to go "fuck it, Taylor" does seem more pro-town than not. hell, i can't even find anyone i want to push, which is pretty unfortunate.

i think i would have liked the push on me more if it had continued, yes, with some sort of interrogation of my reads. but considering Taylor's the closest slot i have to a scumread, it's still not a bad vote.

[Chara]

chara - am i the only one thinking chara might be scum here? chara let themself be talked into scumreading me pretty easily, and seems to float around the popular opinions a lot but never do much scumhunting

i don't think this is a very accurate representation of my play at all. did you actually read what i explained i found i didn't like from you? rethinking the TR was prompted by others, but nobody spoonfed me the conclusion i came to when i looked into my own read.

[Chara]

To some degree I want to town read MT for Hectic's "Top secret meta read", since good players tend to not say that without a real reason to do so.
But I also think I could probably read her on my own since I am fairly experienced playing with her, and she did perceive herself to be scum in one game even if she was town and could have thought it was multiball.

what's your read on Hectic, beeboy?

[Chara]

i liked the posts immediately before and after that. i think i meant "around" when i said "through", but those are the reason for the townread. i like how Tweet quantified her townreads as a list of spares, before saying she'd probably find herself concerned about scum-me.
the love might have been how she updated me to a higher tier as a correction after noticing it was off. little things like that feel real. but that's a hindsight from me right now, i don't remember if that was the original reason, it could've just been a reaction to seeing myself on the spare list.

[Chara]

Prism, good luck with your upcoming interview!

it's funny that you considered that scumgame one that was similar to your tone/approach this game, because the posts you pointed out looked immediately different to me.

i don't know if i TR you. i don't think i

have

a read on you, but i don't see the value in approaching you as anything but an ally right now. i'd just like to work with you.

[Chara]

HURT: beeboy
we need you here!

[Chara]

Okay. That was kind of a lame qusetion but I really like your answer. ('')

...that makes me want to ask my own lame question. why do you like my answer?

[Chara]

i like kitty so much and i want to TR them but don't. the Prism Problem. i'll call it that.

[Chara]

feeling like it doesn't matter who we flip, because if we flip town we get the chara anyways. so we should flip a slot that is hard for us to resolve. feeling like that isn't hectic rn, also my reason for voting there wasn't really there, im not really sure who i scumread except for elements (was scumread? do scumread? not sure.)

it matters.
if we flip Chara, we get the full game public cop.
if we flip another scum, we get... scum, and we get another more informed opportunity to flip Chara for the win.
Chara flipping on a town miselim is really a consolation prize. it's still better to flip scum by miles and miles.

but agree Hectic feels solvable.

[Chara]

that was it. hahaha.

[Chara]

Can people elaborate on why they think Hectic will be a harder slot to resolve than beeboy? I'm really not opposed to fighting beeboy, but this assumption that Hectic will be an easier read later puzzles me.

Cat, why are me/Tanner up there?

i have more of an idea of how to read Hectic than beeboy, who i have zero idea on.
i will also echo that Elements/beeboy's play does not give me townie feelings, so "readability" is not the reason for my vote.

and i hope you're alright, beeboy.

[Chara]

Cat read makes no sense past the "gut" point

Hectic wants to vote someone who can can obvown at any time because of Elements' friendly tone

I can't say that I like where this is heading

what do you mean by this post? it's not clicking for me, besides that you don't think kitty's read makes sense.

[Chara]

"hey lavender post reads", *lavender posts reads*, "ok ur town"

i find Hectic's comparison to Lavender's other games makes this a... plausible conclusion and something he could think as town.
though it's funny, this is sort of how kitty's read on me feels. talking to him about it directly has been fun but not helpful, so i'd love your opinion.
he votes me for popping in and making mechanical statements but not hunting, then once i've caught up and put out content he unvotes. i press him on it, because he didn't really engage with the content, then he says i've gone back to neutral for him and he'll wait and see.
later, my explanation of a read is more in-depth than he'd expected, and he townreads me for it.
i liked that he did make the effort to go through my posts and find something to talk about.

ISOing the exchange would net more accurate info, this is just my memory of events.

...after typing all this out, it really does seem... fine? this progression makes sense. the evidence of his trying to sort me is certainly there, and i

am

very towny when i actually play the game.

anyways, i don't see a problem with giving readlists now. it's not like it's pointless if you aren't Not Chara, they're just useful.

[Chara]

Hectic, would you mind giving me some fresh reads on Tanner, catboi, Taylor, and me?

[Chara]

i feel like i should be being way more aggressive than i am currently being.

[Chara]

it's advice Ellibereth gave me a while ago, combined with a general belief that focused pressure on a slot is more useful than the "hmm, i have bad feelings here but there's also things that i could see from town" trap that i feel like i keep stumbling into this game, with respect to Hectic and kitty both.

[Chara]

oh boy, that's an Almost Chara game. looks like Almost had to replace in on his main at some point, which would explain why i don't remember it.
i mean, it's a similar situation... but with different players. predicated on Hectic believing he can read beeboy with considerable accuracy.

[Chara]

20 hours, so it's probably-beeboy or maybe-Taylor. Pooky's right.

[Chara]

so, i finished reading the Prism and kitty argument. i don't know, i don't like Prism's approach to it at all. there's pressing for explanation or depth to a read and then there's pressing beyond what's reasonable. accusing kitty if AtE again and again and then, what, jokingly insulting them in your recent posts? if you're trying to kid, it's just coming off as nasty. you keep saying kitty should have agreed to disagree and ended it but you could have done the same thing, especially when it became clear you weren't getting anywhere.

[Chara]

hello i'm here earlier than usual since the deadline is in ~24 hours and i'm feeling dead tired today and will soon disappear back into the void for another 12 hours

my room-temperature bad-VCA take is that beeboy is prob town for how "fast" the wagon was there but also that i'd be willing to vote there if really necessary

i actually *don't* feel that strong of an urge to vote taylor anymore? i dunno. would definitely still fight lavender.

chara, i think you asked me about catboi? this is me acknowledging that i read that, but just... N/A. my brain is fried. the closest thing i got is that his townread on me felt ~weird~.

what exactly have i done to turn this around? if anything ive been doing less the last couple days, this seems like a strange townlean

this post is a little +town for Taylor. questioning (what she thinks is) a townlean in this way doesn't look like a way to prompt Tanner into defending her, it just seems she genuinely finds it strange.

[Chara]

Taylor: i feel like i already questioned you about this but i can't find the post. i'm curious as to why you think i'm just going for popular reads and not actually scumhunting. i don't consider that a fair assessment of my play this game, or of how i was reading you.

kitty: what do you mean by the dead air around the beeboy wagon, and why does that make Lavender better?

[Chara]

i think. i agree with your kitty conclusion.
and my post was not really about AI things in my head so i appreciate the depth with which you answered me.
it's late so you'll excuse my paranoia of feeling like you're playing directly to me now, especially since i don't think you'd have a real way if knowing how to play to town me? besides from this game. it's mostly the Taylor read, though you're not even the first person to agree with it.
anyways. crunch time tomorrow. i'll be there, i'm getting real antsy about getting

a

flip now.

[Chara]

yes. killing any mafia on this day is a win, to be very clear on top of others being very clear.

[Chara]

HURT: beeboy

see ya nerds

xoxo love chara

i hope Prism appreciates the terror i felt upon reading this when beeboy was still unflipped.

[Chara]

I want to see who pushed elements yesterday, I know me and chara, but I was a little afk at EOD and I want to see who really "decided" it would be elements. That's gotta be town too

so you'd spare me, and who else?

[Chara]

thinking we can definitively find 3+ town based off one scum elimination is folly...
and not mine.

[Chara]

scum either bussed or just sat back and did nothing while we killed beeboy. do you really think

all

of them did the latter?
also, i find Tweet's lack of faith in me... disturbing.

[Chara]

oh no, i want to townread chara for making sense...

what post are you talking about here?
i would say i was making just as much sense yesterday.

[Chara]

scum either bussed or just sat back and did nothing while we killed beeboy. do you really think

all

of them did the latter?
also, i find Tweet's lack of faith in me... disturbing.

(¬ω¬)

Lack of faith?

i've been watching a lot of star wars.

but i am a little surprised at your list. can you talk about it?

[Chara]

i feel like the posts you directed us to were very different in tone to the town Prism i knew.
or maybe tonereading is bullshit and i read them that way because i knew you were linking to a scumgame?

in any case, i'm categorically uninterested in pushing you to Cats levels of despair in order to better read you.

[Chara]

I find you harder to read on this account, Tanner. I guess I townlean you. The bad-VCA take and lack of desire to be on the wagon when it looked like a given is town-indicative.

Pooky on the other hand having his first vote of the game be on Ele when it looked like that was going through for sure is sus. Why didn't you ever vote for catboi, Pooky?
It's a good thing I can see your SOUL through how Ele interacted with you...

i agree with this.

i started thinking: now, who outright expressed a suspicion beeboy was town, but while the wagon was already pretty assured? that player has some townpoints. and i remembered it was probably Tanner, and you confirm it here.

[Chara]

HURT: Sujimichi
hopefully i'll actually remain caught up enough in order to press this to its fullest potential.

pedit: Hectic and Chara. i like that, let's go arm in arm to the end. i'd like to be the same alignment as you.

[Chara]

i forgot how much i liked the playerlist for this game.
i miss kitty. and i also like beeboy as a player, so he can have some of that energy too.

pedit: a Farkran rep-in?

[Chara]

i'm on the Sujimichi murder-wagon, Prism.
my other reads haven't changed much yet, aside from cautiously trying out Tanner in the townpile.

i do still townread Tweet pretty strongly, but i wonder about Taylor being so high in that townlist. i like the explanation for the Puppy positioning.
i'd also like Lavender to play.

[Chara]

granted i'm half-playing, half-painting my nails, half-watching hbomberguy's review of RWBY.
that's right, i am 150% present.

[Chara]

i got all excited for you to tell me about your insane Taylor-town reasoning. :< scumhunter, interrogate thyself.

[Chara]

500 words minimum, double-spaced, APA cited.

[Chara]

i really really feel like chara is chara.

I would like to know more - this is very interesting

• Enter strong and accumulate some townreads.
  
• Be the first to push a scum buddy for some distancing for when you hopefully flip end of day 1.
  
• Fade away mid to end of day 1, trying to leave as few other associations as possible.
  
• Realise Ele is the only wagon and is going to be the FIGHT - be forced to produce more content and be in for another day.

I haven't seen anything

scummy

from it outside of just fitting what a

Chara

would do however.

isn't this bullet list missing the part where i try and ensure some sort of town elimination? :>
what prompted you to defend Taylor's viewpoint here while saying you don't think i'm scum? or do you?

Taylor: i can admit my ISO does have an amount of fluff in it... but it seems you're ignoring the significant parts of it that are actual gameplay.

[Chara]

i'm on the Sujimichi murder-wagon, Prism.
my other reads haven't changed much yet, aside from cautiously trying out Tanner in the townpile.

I'm not really onboard with you. Me/catboi came to the same conclusion of their slot being town,

for the same reason

(Comparing their play to SIN/finding it a very natural extension). This is a real rarity.

#383 seems unlikely to me coming from an Elements/redtea team. Their stances in #427 and 595 aren't as good but don't seem that indicative to me?

Lastly, the catboi kill doesn't really seem to fit this. catboi was pushing my slot for scum and had redtea as hardtown. They're not very fightable but other than that ??? why kill this slot as Sujimichi

i disagree on 383. it's kind of a nothing stance to take on Elements.
and i suppose i don't find the meta argument very convincing. granted, it's been a while since i read it.

do you think Sujimichi had a complete grasp on the state of kitty's reads upon replacing in? it's true, maybe the partner did, but i can't think of who else i would have expected to see killed. kitty was pretty townread by my memory, and was doing a lot of hunting.

[Chara]

Actually I didn't really go very indepth on redtea, just very cursory. My previous post elaborated a bit but my read is almost entirely based off of me reading along with SIN. This game is very recent, featured strong townplay from cat that helped seal the game, and had redtea playing okay. Their biggest issue was probably a combination of lack of confidence in their scumreads and paranoia of their townreads.

catboi's "wait and see" approach this game stylistically is very similar to his approach in SIN. I think it's super natural for redtea to townread it (even though I don't), and the increased confidence/proactivity lines up really well with the takeaways from SIN. They also watched me flake without literally posting a single thing in that game as scum.

i understand what you're saying here, but it doesn't convince me wholeheartedly that redtea is town. i believe that they took SIN into account, absolutely, but what exactly prevents scum redtea from also learning from the game, as it relates to you and kitty?

[Chara]

ooh. would you keep an eye on Puppy's interactions while you read up?

and i don't... fully remember. it's possible i

did

forget, my attention span being what it is, but i think the beeboy vote was more for effect and that i did know where my vote was.

[Chara]

wait, no, i think i did forget. i read through my own ISO there. i had no one i wanted to push until i decided to "revote" beeboy.

[Chara]

in the interest of fairness, me forgetting important things is NAI. i'm sure there's some difference in how i approach my own memory as scum vs. town, but i don't quite know how it would look.

[Chara]

i reread some of Tanner's Lavender and Elements/beeboy progressions and now i'm back to not being sure about him. the Puppy vote also feels rather obvious. i am also paranoid of Puppy but it is a very straightforward direction.

Prism if you're reading this, i'm more interested in Tanner than Puppy. i might do the work myself today if i feel up to it, however.

Hectic: yes. it's not a big problem for me, usually, but i have been called very confusing to play with at times by players other than my scumpartner.

[Chara]

hey all, apologies for my absence yesterday. i'll be back to normal this evening.

[Chara]

in my re-read I like Suji more because Redtea seems to have trouble articulating his thoughts - making them less likely imo to be true thoughts - he had trouble explaining when asked simple things like "why?" for example.

before your clarification i read this and thought you were saying Suji was town, which is definitely a weird conclusion to make from this observation.

[Chara]

Suji hasn't posted since their rep-in.
can i take this as an excuse to wait another day? some things happened and i'm really not feeling up to it.

Prism you wanted to hear something from me?

[Chara]

real life things have me in a bad spot right now, but i would like to say <3 to all of you. you're all lovely and the game is lovely to be in, still. thank you.

[Chara]

Most susp for me was when he responded to 611 with 617

I think when you TR someone you should at least have 1 reason off the top off your head that you can kind of write down and explain. So it feels to me like he was just townslotting Catboi without actually doing the work of coming up with a good reason to townslot him.

i don't remember if i said this out loud or not, but when i did my big redtea reread i do remember thinking it strange that he had been talking about kitty all day and was apparently tired of it, when those posts about catboi were not actually reasons to TR him, just stating that he was.

[Chara]

oh if that's the case don't worry you're just in time

dr. pooky has a therapy slot open right after he finishes up with me, highly recommend

i am finding myself strangely emotional about this.

[Chara]

My scumpool at this point is like:

Sujimichi, Tayl0r, Lavender, Pooky, Tanner

Any combo of the first three is just......way too easy. But Pooky's play has improved tremendously since his initial reactions to catboi. His reads+reasoning have all made sense. I don't like those as much in hindsight, 610 really isn't generous and 633 is a bit disingenuous, in that Pooky openly avoided outing reads or discussing much outside of what the spare system should look like for a very,

very

long time.

After being suspicious of Pooky, I went to look at Tanner, whose interactions with Elements were early and

totally fine

. The only issues are that he gave beeboy a chance to post content and said the wagon was a bit too fast. Somebody call 911 on him. He also shuts down the Tayl0r vote so unless this it's Tayl0r/Tanner ???

I feel like if there's a deepscum it's one of those two but at this point there might not even be one. I just feel bad for still being cautious of Pooky for his early game despite obvious strong play.

i understand, but...

does there

have

to be deepscum? really and truly? nothing about the random nature of role assignments contains a clause wherein every scumteam must have at least one strong player or a reroll occurs.

i feel fairly strongly that Pooky is town, and this includes his earlygame play.
your dismissal of Tanner scum has me a little bit frowny face, Prism. i think those are good reasons to suspect him.

[Chara]

Suji hasn't posted since their rep-in.
can i take this as an excuse to wait another day? some things happened and i'm really not feeling up to it.

Prism you wanted to hear something from me?

Naw, I just want to see your lovely avatar back on the page. Come back when you feel like it, though.

<3

Prism, is it bad that your approach to Taylor here is making me feel some odd alarm bells?

it feels like you're putting in some effort to be seen as solving. you

are

solving, but your specific reference to wanting to see Taylor's progression is bothering me in a way i can't quite place. you said the same thing when you were questioning kitty about his read on you, that you were unsatisfied with the progression and were doing your best to read him if he would just give you what you were looking for.

i don't really remember you solving in this manner in the prequel. i'm not even sure if i'm explaining this right.
your entire process is being communicated in the thread. there's nothing missing, there is no reading between the lines to be done because everything can be found in the thread.

this total transparency feels new. it's not even something

bad

, but it's struck me as purposeful so i'm going to ask.

pedit: i'm also hoping for that!

[Chara]

Why're you so confident in Pooky town? I think I get that Tanner voting Lavender over beeboy and going for LHF isn't a great look...but I really get it. I do think the Puppy vote deserves more of an explanation, though. Do you have anything else about him I should look at?

not really, the Puppy vote is also where my interest is re: Tanner and i don't think Tanner has discussed it in response to prompting yet, though i could be wrong.

i'm confident in Pooky town because... i feel strongly in my empty heart that he is.

i believe that, town or scum, he did come into this game wanting to have a positive outlook and be a positive presence, and his behavior follows with that.
i thought his kitty progression was very good, convincing in a way that did not seem made-up for the purposes of looking like a real push, and his solving since deciding to go for fights we can agree is really good, too.

i townread him early for his commitment to sparing, i think it would be harder for scum to show that devotion to a bit, and i generally think scum care less about the

method

of their win. pooky wanted to play this game differently, because it's a unique setup; do scum care about that sort of thing nearly as much?

[Chara]

i am finding myself strangely emotional about this.

something about that bear..............................

it just fills the void in your soul and convinces you that, hey, alcohol is a better friend than any human ever could be anyway

whoops, I mean, that life is worth living and people love you haha

please, i'm so lonely. mafia is the only time i talk to anyone. :<

[Chara]

Prism: thanks for the answer. i'm not sure what sparked the sense of wrongness there. your explanation alleviates a fair bit of it.

[Chara]

here's my signature quote from my Not Chara account, which i used to play on.

"You're the oddest juxtaposition of reasonable and unreasonable I've ever seen."
---- Papa Zito

from a game where i tried my best, and Papa Zito tried his best, and we were both town with a hood together, and i accidentally drove him up the wall by being myself.

perhaps it's because i am unable to play mafia with any real structure? my game is almost 100% intuitive, i don't have a real scumhunting methodology, and structure makes me want to jump ship.
having the working memory of a goldfish doesn't make understanding my thought processes any easier, i'm sure. it might just be a function of how my brain is wired.

i didn't realize we had so many games together. what were they?

[Chara]

Okay I didn't read this before sending my previous post and this is hilarious because both of these are why I think Pooky might be scum (Wanting to be nicer NAI, I put too much stock in the strategic comment from the game, his catboi case was always very hostile/unforgiving imo but now it's easier to look back and think it might have been in bad faith)

In comparison his vote on beeboy+his play today has been much stronger imo, instantly able to whip out justification on reads and they all line up pretty well

responding to this right now feels like an exercise in talking about how we approach scumhunting more than about Pooky, so i'm going to leave it and see if i remember to address it properly later.

[Chara]

i am not enjoying this trip down memory lane. British Monarchy was... a game. it certainly was a game.

i hope i've improved since 2017, at least.

it almost makes me regretful to see how we spoke to each other in Evoker.
kind of reminds me how Almost and i were at each other's throats in our first game together and subsequently decided to hydra.

[Chara]

the only thing that's genuinely bugging me at this point (since i'm gonna pretend i trust hectic's read there for the time being) is why *didn't* scum try to get lhf!town!lavender? especially since if Not Chara were to hardpush her through, they could do so without consequence. like, from my pov, the only two people to ever actually vote there were two town. was hectic really that convincing with that read?

i don't have a satisfying answer to this. i am instead quoting this post for further study postgame once all alignments are known, because i think it's interesting and maybe, finally, i could learn something about mafia theory.

[Chara]

........
Okay okay. Catboi has given me reasons to tr him. He hasn't not given me any counteracting maf-y hints. It's that easy yo.

Pooky, almost

everyone

was sus of you/pushing you.

Redtea,

Why is everyone sus of me/pushing me?

Is it because I wanted to do 4Spare?

Or is it because I'm LHF for scum to push?

Let's try to do some reasoning.

i try to do as Prism asks to help out, am instead reminded of this post of redtea's that i still do not like. the kitty TR is... eh, in its wording, and the statement that almost everyone was sus of Pooky, so therefore he shouldn't be scumreading kitty specifically for it also feels pretty weak.

[Chara]

Okay I didn't read this before sending my previous post and this is hilarious because both of these are why I think Pooky might be scum (Wanting to be nicer NAI, I put too much stock in the strategic comment from the game, his catboi case was always very hostile/unforgiving imo but now it's easier to look back and think it might have been in bad faith)

In comparison his vote on beeboy+his play today has been much stronger imo, instantly able to whip out justification on reads and they all line up pretty well

you say both here, but i only see the catboi case as a reason for Pooky to be scum. what's the other?

what about the case makes you believe it's in bad faith? i tried to read it from the perspective of pooky scum, but the way he prefaces it by saying if anyone thinks he's being unfair to catboi to say so is the opposite of hostile, to me. i suppose you could call his conclusion that kitty was scum or lazy town as unforgiving?
it just doesn't seem very manipulative. it's laid out to be seen quite plainly and, more than a bid to get kitty miseliminated, at best i could see it as scum Pooky's attempt to do a big visible "hunting" thing in order to get townread and overturn his bad position within the game.

from

that

perspective, i might see something here. but taking his play as a whole i do feel, without a way to better explain it, that Pooky is probably town.

[Chara]

And I mean, feel free to put me to work here too. This isn't a one way street.

i don't feel a need to put you to work when you're doing quite a bit of it on your own, Prism.

and yes, i really like how you put it in 1333. that's a good way of articulating my problem with the post.

do you find a redtea/Tanner team likely?

[Chara]

i should sleep, i just wanted to look at Pooky's catboi case before i did so.

i appreciate the affirmation that you enjoy my presence in this game, too.

[Chara]

hey Tanner, i can talk about it tonight if you're around, but i'll respond regardless. it's mostly reconsidering townreading you for being blatant about the Elements when it is a fact that the scum elimination d1 screwed over scum pretty bad. your Puppy vote being "obvious" makes me think you didn't consider that, while it's good for scum to Spare here, blatantly arguing for it is a little too on the nose, like you didn't really consider what Puppy has to gain or if he thought he could actually get us to spare today.

it's not a scumread, necessarily, but i had some concerns. pardon the formatting of this post, i checked the thread and saw discussion and wanted to weigh in quick.

Prism, i have no idea how you talked yourself into a scumread on me while i was gone. should i be worried?

[Chara]

Instead of going to bed I'm skimming Chara ISO and this seriously bleeds town in interactions...but I still remain convinced from this random ass Elements post directed to Hectic. Incredible.

I'm 100% making art for this later.

...and worries averted. hahaha.

[Chara]

This feels like you're missing that I'm the only one who is really still pushing anyone besides Sujimichi, and at times explicitly defending them. This game is whiteflag, so in the hypothetical world where Sujimichi flips Chara overnight, I probably need to go. Scum cannot afford to be fougt again, so the fact that no one else is a really pushing to look elsewhere says to me that Sujimichi is probably town. (Otherwise, their partner is making absolutely zero attempt to dodge autoloss)

are you the only one? i don't know where Suji's wagon is at, but to me i felt it was understood that Suji is being pushed as scum but not as the only possible elimination... hurt by the fact the slot isn't here to react to the push, of course.

[Chara]

alright, i'll be back tonight, i haven't fully read up.

[Chara]

i don't really mind waiting for a rep-in and going after somebody else, if Suji's gone. they're pretty much at rand for a scumflip for me.

[Chara]

is betrayal a word? can such a thing be classified as a mere word?
surely not, as anyone who has been betrayed can testify, the knife in your back holds too much to be so simply defined. an enemy's arrow in your gut is a welcome pain in comparison to the bitter, cold steel of your oldest friend's treason.

tell me, have you ever felt it? it sets a fear in you that your mind retains long after your body has healed. the shape of it is carved out in your soul. you learn from it. nothing can make its home in that space again, and you're stronger for it, you think.

but is it strength, the despair that prevents you from seeking out that kind touch again? is it a power you now hold, the force that shuts your allies out at arm's length? do you boast of your folly, and warn others that someday they too will experience that delightful bitterness you grasp so tightly to your chest?

does it make it better, to know the betrayer meant no harm? their innocence infuriates you. they look at you with love in their eyes and joy in their heart.

your experience sits still, tightly coiled, hissing words into your head that repeat over and over again. its grasp is so tight you don't notice the poison seeping out.

try allowing the snake some freedom. let it stretch and explore once more. give it a little kiss on its tiny head. have you ever looked at a python? it's basically a puppy. pythons don't gnaw on things, they lack the ability.
and unlike a puppy, they won't gnaw through your PS4's power cable. they won't do much of anything, because they're kept in glass, or plastic, or some other substance that disallows the chewing of your valuables. snakes are great. it's like if a sock were an animal. a very thin sock that can bite you.
some people wear their socks to sleep. i can't fathom it. who would commit such a sin? do you enjoy being an affront to god? do you wear jeans to bed too?

[Chara]

is it bad that i, Chara "scum eliminations on day 1 lose games because town gets complacent and overconfident" Dreemurr, am not feeling particularly worried this day because we hit scum day 1 and therefore are in a great place?

because i feel like we're moving too far into the other direction here. again, obligatory disclaimer this is my opinion based on reading two recent pages and nothing else since a day ago.

Prism, i am glad you enjoyed the post. i wrote that after drinking two cups of coffee without considering the consequences.
also, i will gladly continue to be scumread by you if it keeps coming with all of the compliments. <3

[Chara]

intuitive response to Tanner's post on Puppy above is "towny paranoia".

[Chara]

hmm. i feel like there are good arguments for your day 1 Elements read to be taken both ways. i think i will try to read you today based on intuition instead of logic. i am so bad at the latter.

as for Puppy's spare idea: yes, i agree it isn't a good one. my take on the situation might be helped by how Puppy decided to vote me for spare, which i should not be townreading considering what happened in the prequel.
i do townread Puppy, but i'm feeling pretty good so i think i will ISO him from a scum POV for you once i'm caught up.

who else are you considering for scum?

[Chara]

hello, i am here but i am having a bad time. however, i still love all of you, and i'd rather not declare V/LA and then simply fade away until day end.
this game has been rough, but only because of irl. i'm going to see how much i can catch up by tonight. would anyone like anything from me in the meantime?

[Chara]

I'm going to head out for a bit actually, I want to save my energy for my date with Chara later, but I'll try to slip more of a review of Tayl0r specifically. It is worth more attention than the medium amount I've given compared to looking at Puppy, Tanner, and Sujimichi.

oh hello. i'll rest now then and we can meet up later tonight.

[Chara]

hello, i am here but i am having a bad time. however, i still love all of you, and i'd rather not declare V/LA and then simply fade away until day end.
this game has been rough, but only because of irl. i'm going to see how much i can catch up by tonight. would anyone like anything from me in the meantime?

hi friend, i am sorry you are not doing well, and i understand if you can't put a lot of energy into this game

that said, i would love to sit down with you later tonight and

interrogate you

ask you about some of your reads earlier this game!

maybe it will take your mind off of irl, maybe it will only drive you up the wall further. it's up to you! it's not like i would ever get a fight on you to happen today anyway

this game is zero stress for me, so really it's fine. interrogate away. i should be here in... let's say 2 to 3 hours. if i don't show up i apologize, but i will do my best.

[Chara]

Hectic I'm on my phone but I would love to point you to a certain post of Amrun's about mindmelding with Chara and why that is such a bad tell imo

She's still town tho

i discarded that tell because of that game, haha.
see you soon.

[Chara]

Redtea mafia -> Elements town is the contrapositive of Elements mafia -> redtea town, so this implies redtea is town via Ele's flip

How do you feel about this now?

i forgot about this.
i do find it less likely that scum redtea decides to defend partner Elements in this manner, provided i am reading it correctly as a defense.

[Chara]

re redtea's catboi read: i believe i was aware that redtea was townreading kitty on mechanics, but i found it strange how they responded to Pooky in that way when the justification was there.
i'm not comfortable saying the Elements interaction makes redtea definitely town, but it does give me a lot of pause. and yes, i recognize that it's something i said myself and then forgot about until you reminded me.

i don't know if redtea was ever a real SR, or just a slot i didn't know what to do with. i was really hoping to pressure whoever repped in, but with that not being an option, i think i would have tried pushing elsewhere if i'd been up to it this day.

HURT: Isis
i'll catch up. what's next?

[Chara]

Re: Chara there's a lot of engagement between Tanner/redtea, I don't feel like grabbing post numbers but I'd consider just Ctrl+F searching their names in each. Tanner also immediately brought up a problem with redtea at the start of the day. Unlikely team imo.

you're so thorough. thanks.

[Chara]

Can I ask why you never voted Taylor Day 1? 882 sticks out to me here. The progression seemed to go from Taylor townlean to Taylor being your #1 scumlean. It isn't until 1017 that you flip back around to townleaning her (for a weak reason imo, but besides the point)

I'm also a bit curious as to your thoughts on Puppy around this time. In 822, shortly before the dialogue around Taylor comes up, you mention scumreading Puppy but this seems to disappear for awhile. I wish I could pose a more directed question here, sorry.

this is a good question, but i don't remember, so any answer i have on the subject is essentially conjecture and trying to psychoanalyze myself.
i thought Elements early-game was scummy, but then beeboy came in and i wanted to read him. he didn't end up doing very much besides the Taylor push, so i suppose he settled at null-scum and i forgot about him, which is why i said Taylor was my only real scumread.
i liked kitty's Taylor vote because i found it constructive and i liked that he was doing something instead of waiting around. i believe that was all, and it helped that i didn't townread her.

but you're misinterpreting 1017, Taylor wasn't a townlean there, it was just a small thing i in isolation found towny.

moving to Puppy... where you can again picture me clicking on the link you gave where i say i scumread Puppy's posts, and then keep scrolling as i try to find the posts in question and reverse-engineer what i was talking about.

pedit: oh god i hope all of that isn't questions for me

[Chara]

I can't even tell if you're being sarcastic LOL

That is one of the few times I didn't provide a bibliography so sorry

not sarcasm, i appreciated that you gave it a look and gave justification for them not being partners.

[Chara]

every game of mafia ive ever played tells me there's a 50-50 chance that after scum flips everyone will have different opinions from the ones they said they'd actually have

i dunno, either chara is someone who won't change my reads, or im wildly wrong about some of my reads and then ill have to rethink things. like, if chara ends up being, uh, chara, or pooky, then maybe id have to sit and think hard about it, but im just chasing the car in front of me rn

this is my opinion regarding pre-flip analysis and Chara analysis in this game. scum is scum and eliminating scum today's a win, so i don't really care which one goes. i think Not Chara is going to look closer to, well, mafia, than anything else.

[Chara]

lots of posts i want to touch but im just not in the mood today. feeling down. maybe tomorrow.

but also i willl say is i feel bad about hectic b/c he invited me to play with him this game, so it feels bad to scumread him. he just doesn't feel like the last game i played at all

i was scumreading this and the previous post about Hectic, i have no idea why. it's pretty null. and Puppy was on Elements pretty hard, deciding to try elsewhere after the rep-in is reasonable.

sorry, Prism, i'm sure this feels like you're attempting to read a hydra slot presenting as one person.

[Chara]

your dismissal of Tanner scum has me a little bit frowny face, Prism. i think those are good reasons to suspect him.

do you wanna talk about this? didn't you earlier say that's probably +town (1113)? what's changing your mind?

i rethought it. Prism's talking about those reasons as though no one could believe they were evidence of you-scum was my problem, i believe.
to put it another way, that Prism spoke as though it's weird to scumread you for those things, when by my memory they were rather standard.

[Chara]

i was really hoping to pressure whoever repped in, but with that not being an option, i think i would have tried pushing elsewhere if i'd been up to it this day.

?

hello Krazy! by the time you repped in i wasn't caught up. i apologize, i don't think i've read any of your posts yet.

[Chara]

Hm. I guess the continued vote on Elements will continue to be a mystery-it was just really strange to me that you gave that scumread on Puppy, then called Taylor the closest thing to a scumread later, and all the while had your vote on Elements. Do you happen to remember who you thought you had your vote on that entire time? iirc you forgot it was on beeboy.

i have a habit of leaving my vote wherever it happens to be until i have somewhere else i decide to vote, so i didn't really think of it as being anywhere.

[Chara]

This pattern of having me null, but unconditionally and extensively cooperating with me, then voicing skepticism, and then immediately accepting my response and starting all over again is really strange to me.

There's so much to comment on here in my play-Me defending the Suji slot to this extent, my random tinfoil flop to you, my push on Tayl0r-and you really haven't expressed skepticism or belief in any of those things.

this is a very complicated question. i'm amazed at the depth of this post, first of all. how in the hell did we fool you last time?

i'm treating you differently than i treat most players, certainly. it's not something i really set out to do, but, without getting all embarrassing about it, i really respect your game, your dedication, your organization... etc.
i keep getting paranoid at certain small things, and then you explain yourself so eloquently i start to feel foolish i found anything suspect to begin with.
treating you as an ally then follows from that, i suppose. i have a tendency to paranoia-scumread anyone who feels like they could completely control the game if scum, and i've been trying to work on that.

as of right now, it's just incredibly hard to see you as anything but town. inevitably, i think i will start to get worried again about this or that, because that's how i am, but indulging that for very long, especially when you respond well to the prodding, doesn't feel productive to me.
i've got limited energy to spend on this game as it is, so wasting it on someone i doubt i'd be able to catch in this state, and who i do consider an extraordinarily helpful ally, is not likely to happen.

i apologize that this answer has little to do with my thought process or progression on you.

[Chara]

Chara have I played vs. your scum game? I feel like I did once but I cannot recall when

haha. who even knows. not me.
if you played against me and Almost in a hydra i wouldn't use the meta, otherwise the solo-scum games that come to mind are Maria's Danganronpa that i played on my Korekiyo account, Twin Trap where i was teamed with Hopkirk, the Undertale prequel to this, and how good is vonflare at laser tag.

one of those, perhaps?

[Chara]

chara v prism reads like town v town. townbloc?

can you really call it a versus when Prism was so polite about it and i'm so happy to be here?

[Chara]

puppy is coasting and not engaged. whens the last time you saw a post from puppy that wasnt fluff?

I'm really confused by this read. You've openly admitted to doing the same. Town has a very high chance of winning this game, especially with several confident townreads like it seems Puppy has.

In general what makes you so hard to read this game is you seemed to be openly dart throwing off of gut, being very unashamed about it and generally avoiding explaining your process for how they switch.

isnt it also scummy from me? isnt that why people scumread me largely?

...but you're town, right? so town also do it, so why is it scummy?
you've said you're phoning it in, which, yes, is why you're being scumread. it's hard to read you for sincerity when you pop in with things like that.

[Chara]

I honestly don't know here.

I think I prefer a Tayl0r elimination. I feel a lot more sure about Krazy being town after reviewing redtea over again. I'm not sure who their partner is is the real problem to me.

Reviewing Chara's ISO I did feel a lot better, and their interactions throughout the entire game have come off incredibly genuinely. The progressions on Puppy/Tayl0r/me have bothered me, but one thing that really sticks out to me, even if I feel like I

shouldn't

townread it:

Chara really

does

appear to find this game fun and not very stressful, like they say in 1613. Eager to engage with me, not really getting annoyed with my tinfoil. They might push through their stressed-out self just because they feel like they

have

to, and maybe even channel their stress into admiration for my play to make it easier, but this seems...really difficult+weird+unlikely?

I will say I expect them to stress a bit as town here too, just because I'd be wrong or I might even be scum, so I don't know why they're not.

my catching up is very slow because i find interacting with you all to be much more fun, but i'm also not interested in Krazy today. who i did forget about i am very sorry, but also you weren't here yet when i was playing more actively so that would be why.
Taylor i will get back to you on.

i think i could pretend to be as unconcerned and eager as i am as scum, too, but it is much more of a drain. i rely heavily on my scumteam to keep my spirits up, without a good rapport it's difficult to have the energy.

as for why i'm not worried about this: i explained why i'm not going to worry about you being scum. you're also the only one who suspects me, so if you are scum i'm not in danger of being miselimed by you. Taylor would be, in that scenario, but i'm trying to read her now.

town-you being wrong: i'm hoping to alleviate your suspicions by responding to them to the best of my ability. if that doesn't work, you've proven to be lovely to work with even while scumreading me, so it's not a big issue. at worst my concern would be your other reads will be hurt by the scumread on me, but you're not tunneling, either.

[Chara]

...Right, but from your perspective, where you know that you're town doing these things, why is Puppy scummy to you?

aha, i beat Prism to an observation!

Krazy, i was wondering if talking about me vs. talking about Not Chara would be confusing, but it's been mostly easy to follow so far. with a few double-takes earlier on.

[Chara]

Tanner is datisi.

[Chara]

you cited fluffposting as a reason to scumread me, too, though you said later you believed i was hunting more.
i have a few guesses as to why my playstyle might not agree with you, but i do really feel like you could be giving more thoughts than you presently are on that topic.

this post is to Taylor.

[Chara]

my brain just went "Prism/Tanner scum???" and now i'm beating it with a broom because expecting it did nothing to stop it.

[Chara]

chara take this tinfoil suit of mine, i no longer require it. may it serve you as well as it served me.

i have no need of it either. my mind is flighty but my conviction is strong.

i have Prism, Puppy, Morning, and Pooky as my confident townreads. not nearly enough.

[Chara]

i don't think i have anything specific i want you to look at because the game is kinda weird right now, in a sense that i don't think we can procceed in a huge manner without flipping a "lower" slot first and seeing whether that gives us victory or a deepwolf not-chara flips and we need to start over. again, would be lovely to big brain snipe the deepwolf today if they exist, but i'm kinda thinking that's unrealistic.

i feel like arguing about why you (or chara too, i guess) think my puppy-caution is "not great" but i don't think that's gonna be productive for anyone involved

It looks like you have a strong Chara townread if you want to talk more with me about that.

They literally went from my strongest TR to my pet scumread in like 30 minutes lmao

i don't think i have too much depth to it? i liked their posting, i feel fine about the ways we've interacted, their interactions with ele don't ring s/s to me - the second paragraph in 1370 simply doesn't seem like a contradiction that's supposed to be +scum, and i also don't really see s/s behind elements being Certain in shutting down hectic's chara townread.

however, what *does* kinda concern me is their progression on me during early day two, so i'm kinda hoping to talk about it with them. unless they already responded and i missed it.

god, this post is very good. i like this more than worrying about Tanner's Elements read end of day 1. i can see Tanner's point of view very clearly.

pedit: according to Krazy. i'm just parroting.

[Chara]

Man I am literally shooting down your reasoning for Puppy as "not great" and "not blatantly town" and I am out here petting a cutout of Elements' 410 pasted to cardboard, Gollum-muttering to myself "Chara, you're scum, I know it, I don't know why but I WILL SOON" when Chara literally isn't even in the room

I'm going to bed lmao

this is how you flirt with me. this is how you do it. Prism, thoughts consumed, analyzing my every word, losing sleep to their obsession. it's enough to turn anyone's head.

in game news: i got to 1435. seeing Puppy admit he's coasting, then giving that as a reason for a Puppy wagon... that Taylor has admitted herself she's also barely invested in this game, with posts like this procing it. i don't think i could justify not eliminating her today, barring some sort of unbelievably scummy behavior from another slot. if she is town i wish she would give anything.

[Chara]

isn't life* like that too
i didn't have that much but am a lightweight

re puppy: i realized i don't feel like linking shit but like... their interactions about elements and his wagon are Not Great, they kinda ~disappeared~ towards the end and the lack of resistance could maybe be explained by an afk partner, also suji dopping in, making vague posts and not interacting with anything from day one then lurking out again is by Meta much closer to scum!suji than town!suji afaik

also i personally at some point realized i don't remember why i was townreading that slot

all of this is also why i scumread Krazy, so there you go. it's that against the "but no counterwagon" and Elements looking like they were buddying redtea early in. also a little, teeny bit of Prism and kitty's redtea meta.

[Chara]

We all agree that hectic is like ic levels of obvtown here right

i feel like Taylor/Hectic/Krazy/Lavender just has all of the mafia.

what prompted this thought, by the way?

i am not sure what it is Taylor scumreads me for.

[Chara]

Prism i just had a bad thought, if Taylor is just

this

apathetic as town and then Hectic flips Chara and we lose the chance to get him. there's nothing that tells me he would have to be Chara over mafia and nothing stopping Taylor from being mafia but she's such a wall i'm nervous.

HURT: Hectic
1752 is so much.

[Chara]

We all agree that hectic is like ic levels of obvtown here right

i feel like Taylor/Hectic/Krazy/Lavender just has all of the mafia.

what prompted this thought, by the way?

i am not sure what it is Taylor scumreads me for.

Why am I in there when I've been pushing for Krazy's slot the entire day? If it's unrelated to Krazy, why am I down there now?

everyone else went up. i don't think you and Krazy would be scum together based on you voting there, no.

[Chara]

Can I ask you why you think it's Krazy over Tayl0r, first?

Also why were you so persuaded by the posts and not like, anything else before?

i'm not shooting for Chara, i'm shooting for the player i think is more likely scum than you. because you refuse to not be null and it's impossible for me to tell if you're apathetic town or scum who's fine to end it here.

pedit: okay, fair. i suppose it's unlikely for a scum Hectic to be Chara, i was just siezed by scum-Hectic fervor when i read you calling his earlygame Pooky push too-objective and then Hectic responded by casing Elements. and i feel more strongly about Hectic in this moment of fervor than other slots.

[Chara]

ignore those quotes, i thought Prism was asking me those questions before i realized they were to Morning.

[Chara]

Why exactly was redtea town, Prism? If you've already cased why, let me know. The meta means very little as that was 2 years ago. Also, the soft defence of Ele in 266

the way redtea jumps to attributing thought process to Elements that wasn't readily apparent in this post is what made me think it was not a partner interaction, actually. i don't think scum jumps in to speak for a partner being pressured in this way, usually.

but besides that i find it fairly possible Krazy is scum.

[Chara]

if i were scum fine to end it id concede. if i were scum trying to lurk it out: lol. if i were scum otherwise, id be putting up a fight and making some garbage up.

being engaged with a game is null, but being apathetic is town-indicative for me

i believe you and this is why i don't want to vote you. :<

[Chara]

Also why were you so persuaded by the posts and not like, anything else before?

no idea besides i had a very strong reaction to the post i cited when i voted Hectic.
but i also don't know what you mean by the anything else before.