As said, I've been keeping a close eye on Lifthrasil from the very beginning;

As insignificant as it may seem, his very first post pinged me a tiny bit. Not so much for the RVS vote on drealmer7, as for the comment that accompanied it, and the surprise the game was already three pages in that prefaced it (I assume he's on the 20post/page setting, as his was post #46). It rang a tad fake, but it was only a tiny tingling feeling, so decided to say nothing and wait to see how things unfold with him.

The next thing that I noticed was a pattern of arguing both sides for just about everything and in pretty much every post he made. Seriously, just go reread him and see for yourselves if it isn't so. Now, town is uncertain due to being uninformed, so normally tries to consider every aspect they can think of and read things both ways to see what makes more sense, but there's a limit to it due to being uninformed, if for no other reason. With Lifthrasil it soon looked excessive, like he was trying to conceal the fact that he wasn't all that uninformed after all, especially since I don't remember him going to such lengths in games he was town. As days passed, I kept rereading him to see if I'd read this differently, but it still looked like he was trying harder than necessary, to support his towniness - "look, I don't know a thing and am always caught between "it could be A but it could well be B, with B the opposite of A", so I can't be anything but so town; everybody got it?" And he's worked this into his voting posts so smoothly, as to not be faulted for any mislynch - "I did my best, but turns out I was misguided; oh well".

I thought the awareness-degree of his tunnelling issue, and the constant, related self-checking/self-correcting odd; from following his previous games, while not always closely, I don't recall him making such a serious effort prior to this game, so the sudden change, and more importantly the degree of success from one game to the next, is impressive, to say the least.
And after it's been pointed out, after he's argued about it (post #232), after all the flip-flopping that went hand to hand with arguing both sides of things to death, in his last reply to RWarehall (post #548), he's arguing the exact opposite to justify what he's been called out for.

He's allegedly scum-hunting, always doing his "could be A, but then it could also be B, where B the opposite of A" routine, and somehow always making a decision in the end that is what town would expect of him. A tad too conveniently coincidental, imo.

adaliabooks thinks that LIfthrasil has seriously been trying to get drealmer7 lynched, but going over his posts, he hasn't really, imo; drealmer7 has been his safe, fall-back suspect all game long, and he's careful, if drealmer7's town, not to argue in a manner that could get others to think that he's prepping him for a mis-lynch (while injecting the idea that others may be doing exactly that), or connect him to drealmer7 should he be his scum-buddy - a few examples, post #85, #98, #122, #146, #194. And just to make sure nobody will take a second look at this, in his post #285, after some more flip-flopping, he emphases how insecure drealmer7 makes him.

But when he argued [emphasis added] "looks like scum hiding behind RL problems, because he just doesn't know what to write" (post #157), I found it odd as I expect Lifthrasil to know from his own experience with drealmer7 that he's not this sort of scum-player, and told him back then as much (post #158), he replied [emphasis added] "You might have a point there" (post #169); on the face of it, it looks like a bit of town-reservation, but then goes on and adds "Which is why I unvoted [...]", which looks like he's using a later argument to support an earlier action of his (he unvoted him in post #146).

One last thing about this. In his post #319 he argued a theory about Hunter65536 possibly being scum, and scum-buddies with drealmer7, but when I questioned him about the latter (post #322), he didn't address it, even though he replied to my post in his post #336.

All in all, I don't see town-Lifthrasil agonising over drealmer7's actual alignment, it looks more like scum-Lifthraisl falling back to drealmer7, if for no other reason than to keep the distraction alive, thus prevent town from working together in an organised way to nail scum.


On to more telling things.

Up until his post #410, he kept null-reading trentonlf, and made no effort to push him, or at least get him more engaged to get a better read on him (unlike he did/does with RWarehall, or even adaliabooks), even though he said trentonlf is worth watching as a dangerous scum-player. And while he said "if Hunter flips town, RWarehall, trent and adalia deserve a thorough look" (post #314), he never looked at trentonlf, thoroughly or otherwise. In fact, these two have engaged each other like once during D1, and once during D2 before Lifthrasil got into the spotlight. Lifthrasil has an almost identical record with gogtrial34987. And while he finds trentonlf's town-read of RWarehall strange, he quickly discards it because they can't be scum together (post #445), as if it'd be the very first time a scum town-reads a townie.

He didn't even blink when trentonlf said he finds Lifthrasil suspicious, very mildly at first (post #434), then more clearly (posts #438 and #443), while he's been pretty feisty with everyone else making the slightest of accusations, as if he's not even reading trentonlf's posts.

Here's a timeline of events I ponder if they're connected:

- Post #418: I ask adaliabooks to lay out what makes Lifthrasil one of the "towniest" players; phrasing and tone suggests that I don't share this view.
- Post #429: I ask trentonlf (and gogtrial34987) what they think of Lifthrasil; placed him with adaliabooks and RWarehall as to not make it too obvious.
- Post #434: trentonlf expresses his first mild suspicion of Lifthrasil; thought it possible that my asking adaliabooks about Lifthrasil alarmed him a bit, and was treating carefully.
- Post #445: Lifthrasil asks me who I'd vote as my top-scum; struck me as getting alarmed I'm looking into him in a non-positive light, and wanted to know for sure.

But the most telling thing, imo, are the latest developments, after adaliabooks voted and unvoted himself, and which I covered already in previous posts.

Then comes RWarehall, puts Lifthrasil in the spotlight, votes him and makes a case as to why we should lynch him first. Lifthrasil seems to flip out completely, seeing enemies where none were before (while not neglecting to argue the other side as well), and seems to mostly fight to get adaliabooks lynched a.s.a.p.This, again, feels like he's playing for gogtrial34987 and not so much against those that see him as scummy. And all of a sudden, Lifthrasil is aware of trentonlf pointing a FoS at him. When practically, one didn't exist for the other all game long.

Which brings me to the subject of distancing and bussing - trentonlf is a cold-blooded killer as scum, and would bus his buddy in the blink of an eye if the situation called for it. If they're scum-buddies, it feels like Lifthrasil was trying to keep a distance and not commit to a read on trentonlf for as long as he could, but my vote on the latter caught him off guard and panicky mode set in. Only when he himself got into the spotlight, he had no other choice, perhaps with the aid of RWarehall's own arguments, but to exhibit some active distancing by appearing to be at odds with trentonlf.

So, my current working theory since some days now is that trentonlf and Lifthrasil are our scum pair. RWarehall gave me some pause at first, because of the way he argued about Lifthrasil's scumminess; it felt a bit too much like his last game. But not enough to change my view on Lifthrasil, who himself has also failed to influence my view into a more positive direction; quite the opposite.

I still prefer the trentonlf lynch for now, as that would put to rest the adaliabooks and RWarehall issues once and for all, if he flips scum. It's possible that I'm wrong about trentonlf, more so about the scum-pair, of course, even though I don't quite see it right now, and having to sort through 8-9 possible scum-pairs Tomorrow, while at LyLo, is not something I'd like us to face. But it's a real possibility, unfortunately.

It's late, I'm tired, and may have messed up something in all that I wrote. Opinions and views are welcome.


On a side note, I really don't know what to make of drealmer7's latest post. If he's town and really can't get involved, he's dead weight for us and I wish he'd just subbed out at the first signs, and if he's scum, he's adopted a pretty shitty and cowardly play to win. And right after writing this, I now wonder if drealmer7 isn't Lifthrasil's scum-buddy after all, acting this way to give Lifthrasil credibility...


Could I borrow this for a bit? Only have a couple of issues to address, won't take long.

I'm afraid not. The Crown frowns upon agents arming potential bad guys.

Besides, then I'd have fewer weapons.

Of course I do. It's why I remained mostly silent until I had a suspect I am substantially sure about. Anyone I would suspect, if I were wrong, I'm sure scum would have jumped at the opportunity to mislynch at my lead and win the game the next day with my death. The fact there is no movement at all, tells me I'm not wrong. But yeah, I wouldn't just join the suspect pool, I clearly would be the suspect pool.

As to WIFOM, you and other people seem to grossly overuse that term. It seems to be a term used mostly to put your fingers in your ears at someone's defense. I stand by my statement. When I initially town read Adalia day 1, he wasn't under any real threat of lynch, was he? So this fictitious narrative that I was somehow protecting him from lynch is a fantasy. It seems a number of people want to discredit anything I have to say, and some of them for nefarious reasons. I suggest someone re-read the thread, look at the context and then try to tell me what I have to gain town-reading Adalia at the points I did, as scum buddies. WIFOM doesn't explain it. I think the paranoia is really setting in if you believe I'm scum with Adalia and we decided from the start to buddy up all game just to defend ourselves with "but scum would never buddy up like that". Do you really think that has a chance to work anyway?

Up until his blow-up with Adalia, I didn't see any manipulation of events. He seemed to make a few perceptive observations, in my opinion, but he's a good enough player to make such observations as scum when they are directed at the right targets.

How do I put it....you are probably asking the wrong person to defend Trent at the moment. He seems to be part of what I see as an impending mislynch. He's currently my top prospect to be Lift's scum buddy although I'm a little worried that it's not so optimum for both scum to be on that wagon at the same time. The main reason I'm not more adamant for his lynch is that GogTrial, Drealmer and even Adalia (through some extreme distancing) are also reasonable enough candidates for Lift's partner and a mislynch puts us at LyLo. In fact, up until today, I was fairly convinced you might be his partner, but there are a few interactions between the two of you which don't mesh with my view of scum distancing, so your pairing with Lift is one of the few matrix pairings I've substantially excluded. In fact, I didn't choose to speak up until I came to the conclusion you weren't a team. That was the case I was building... Up to today, you seemed to be giving him quite the pass, but some of the questions you asked him day 2, and the way he dodged them don't appear to be distancing. Very similar to the way I questioned his attempt to lynch Adalia and instead of getting reasons why its a good lynch, I get commentary back about how he normally is accused of tunneling. I really think a townie is going to explain why its a good lynch, not pre-defend how it just might be an "innocent" mistake.

That said, I see no movement on a Lift lynch, so I'd be more than happy to see a Trent lynch at this point. It's sort of the same thing with Lift pre-defending himself. Trent stating twice about his "bad game so far" when we've only had a single day 1 mislynch of someone who promised a defense post and never delivered. I do see this as possibly scummy and pre-defending a future "mistake". I don't want to entirely rule out Trent merely being demoralized though. His approach to the game is a bit of an unknown to me. His quickness to buy into the bad concept that two people are going to buddy up so closely prior to LyLo is either a sign of inexperience or planned ill. Looking at pairings, he fits well in many pairings as the "unexpected partner". He's still on the wagon of what I think is an obvious mislynch. I'm sure there are other things that I might be reminded of with a re-read. The reason he is off my radar today is that finding the first scum will give me a better idea how to read him tomorrow, so it makes sense to pocket a decision on him until we find the (or one of the) other scum. Think of him in my "To be revisited more seriously later" category. The flaw with this plan is if its Drealmer + GogTrial. Drealmer is pocketed because of lack of information and I'm trying the same thing with judging by association. Of course, if that's the pairing and it's an all-town Lift/Trent/Adalia going at it, there's no one to blame but themselves.

Well, I guess I should have refreshed while trying to write that novella, it would have saved me some time referencing Hyper's last post. But of course the way this game goes, I'm waiting for the inevitable Hyper + RW scum team debate...

End of day, March 25 (early March 26)

Votecount
adaliabooks (3): drealmer7, trentonlf, Lifthrasil
trent (2): adaliabooks, HypersomiacLive
Lifthrasil (1): RWarehall

Not Voting: gogtrial34987

adaliabooks is closest to lynch at L-1

All very good points from Hyper and RWarehall.

There is a risk that the scum team is gogtrial and drealmer, but I don't think we'd still be arguing if they were. They'd probably have hammered one of us by now as there are enough reasons either of them could have argued for voting me or trent.
That's my hope anyway XD

It's Lift or trent for me today still, trent preferably.

You are right, if I was scum then I would have no issue busing my buddy, I would even push them off the bus, run them over, stop the bus, and then back over them for good measure. But,, it does not apply here as I'm not scum. I've already stated my opinion on who I think the scum pair is, adalia and LIft. Your theory sounds great, and you make several good points, and I agree with most concerning Lift. But as good as your theory sounds it is still wrong about me, and lynching me will put us at lylo.

But... but... but I"m Jaws! I'm reformed, and only live to read romantic novels to the love of my life. You sure you can't trust me?

*big hearty smile*



I just took another look at my post #556; putting the plenty (minor) typos aside, that "treating carefully" should be "treading carefully".
I also see that I accidentally overwrote a comment to trentonlf with my comment to Bookwyrm627, instead of adding the latter at the end of my post. So, here's the missing comment to trentonlf:


Here's a similar question for you - did you all of a sudden realise how bad you may look when LIfthrasil flipped scum, so decided he was a good lynch after all?



Actually, I meant to omit that "(re: Adalia)" from my quote, as the things that worried and pinged me about you on D1 were not tied, or even related, to adaliabooks, or the way you were reading him; I was a lot more worried about you being partners with the less obvious ones, but even that didn't play much of a role for me. When I said at the start of D1 that scum-hunting is very much needed, I believed and meant it, and decided early on that it's best to focus my efforts on finding one of the scum first, and not try to figure out the scum-pair. So, my WIFOM comment was more general in the context of this setup.


While I agree, it's quite likely that they may have ended up on the wagon at the same time out of necessity with lynch needing four votes - drealmer7 was the first, trentonlf had to vote with his rebuttal, you were town-reading adaliabooks, so your vote was out, they probably counted on mine, but I voted trentonlf, quite likely forcing their hand. That leaves only gogtrial34987 who leaned/leans(?) towards voting adaliabooks, plus has Lifthrasil town. So Lifthrasil had no choice but to be proactive, place his own vote to get adaliabooks to L-1, then go all in to get gogtrial34987 to hammer. Though now that I've written this... need to do some more thinking about a couple of things.


Nope, no pass from me; I don't know who my town-partners are, so nobody gets a pass. I was only trying not to alarm him prematurely.


Hold that thought for a while.


What about him makes you think he might be demoralised?


This pair is my biggest concern, as there's little to nothing to work with. As for the hammer still not having fallen, let's not forget that scum-gogtrial34987 is uncharted waters for us. They could well be holding off, and doing their usual "pondering and assessing" to conceal the fact they're part of the scum-pair. And if so, they don't necessarily need to be partners with drealmer7.


Well, I did warn you about an incoming post from me that would make my recent comments and exchanges with you clearer.



I had no doubt that I'm right about this, but you do see that you stating this doesn't clear you in any way, don't you?


OK, trentonlf, I'll bite. Do you want me to change my view on you? Work with me here. As I already told you, "I'm really town who just has a lacking game this time around" just doesn't cut it for me, and using LyLo as an additional argument to sway my opinion while you mind your words only looks like fear-mongering. So:

1. Lay out for me, in detail and with specifics, what makes adaliabooks scum, and what makes him Lifthrasil's buddy.
2. Make a list for me of the points about Lifthrasil you don't agree with, and tell me why you don't for each one.
3. Tell me exactly what about your otherwise lacking play, as you claim, sets you apart from other scum-suspects.

I'll be out for the next few/several hours, but I expect to be able to check in at some point later (my) tonight.

Actually that's a very good point. The fact that you are still around can only mean one of two things: either you are scum, or both scum are on your wagon. I know, I'm not one of them so it boils down to: either you, or trent and drealmer after all. I still believe it's you, but we seem to have reached a stalemate. So if it's the only possibility to achieve a lynch, I'll switch to trent, as already said several times.

@gogtrial: I'm afraid it comes down to your decision. Who do we lynch? adalia? Or trent? Or me? If we lynch trent and he flips town, we'll have to lynch adalia tomorrow. And if we lynch adalia and he flips town, we'll have to lynch one from his wagon as it stands now. So drealmer, trent or me.

Words are cheap. When I've got two confirmed bad guy corpses here, I'll reconsider the loan.

My eyesight is fine. But if you're referring to anything you wrote: just came back from an exhausting weekend and just checked in quickly. On the last page adalia's post jumped out since it seemed comment worthy. Then I started to go through your walls of text but I'm not done yet because a call got in between. Now, before bed, I just checked in to say not to expect anything substantial from me today. I'll go through all that you wrote tomorrow. If you want to lynch me in the meantime, just do so. No need to get smug about it.

@trentonlf - can I expect you to indulge me?


You misunderstood, it was not smugness. Just pointing out with a mix of joking and sarcasm that you seemed to have skipped quite a few posts, additionally to not having commented on anything from my theory on trentonlf. Apologies it came across the unintended way.


Not sure I follow - why is it again that we have to lynch adaliabooks Tomorrow if trentonlf flips town?



I mulled over a few things over dinner, so here's a little story with a question for everyone at the end of it.

Once upon a time, there was a henchman, Baron Samedi, who no longer could go on in life as a killing machine at the service of villains dreaming of world domination. All he dreamed of was becoming a law abiding citizen and a useful member of society. So one sunny March day, he renounced his affiliation with evil, left his murderous ways behind him, and proceeded with the foundation of SHUFUR along with several other henchpeople.

But SPECTRE found out, and was determined not to allow the henchmen to reintegrate into society, so assigned two double agents to infiltrate SHUFUR and destroy it, making sure they were among the nine founding members. As a loyal founding member, he could not allow this to happen, and pledged to do everything he could to weed out the traitors and hand them over to James Bond to dispose them.

Fast forward all events up to that night when Gobinda, whom Baron Samedi had been suspecting along with Oddjob, did a very odd thing - he stepped into the middle of the room, and said "I'll sacrifice myself in Oddjob's place; I don't see how he could be a traitor, so send me to Bond".

Mr. Wint happily agreed to; he never liked Gobinda, that turban he wore all the time really bugged him. Nick Nack shook his head in disbelief, Jaws said "Heh, Gobinda must be one of the royal", May Day was sceptical, and Baron Samedi joined Mr. Wint thinking the group may finally have gotten a break. As for Oddjob, he only heard of the events a couple of days later.

Gobinda laughed, pointed a finger at Mr. Wint, and said "here's one of the traitors! And he's in cahoots with Nick Nack! And here's why", and started laying out all the things he had noticed about those two, concluding "So, I say we send Nick Nack to Bond". That gave Baron Samedi pause, as Nick Nack still looked more like a blank page to him, while Mr. Wint seemed a bit fishy to him since the very beginning. "Hmm... perhaps you're on to something. I prefer we sent Mr. Wint first. But let's hear from the others first. For now, I say no trip to Bond for you". And with that, he retired.

Nick Nack got furious, and struck back, but Gobinda wouldn't budge; in the end, Nick Nack shouted "To Bond with you!"

Jaws stayed around and watched the fight between the two of them. Jaws had taken Nick Nack under the loop recently, treading as carefully as he could to not alarm Nick Nack, and wasn't happy with things that Nick Nack had said and done. When things calmed down, and everyone left the meeting room, he took a sheet of paper, wrote down in detail what he thought of Nick Nack, signed it with "Hand Nick Nack to Bond", and pinned it on the message board for all to read.

Shortly afterwards, the cutie pie from administration came and pinned the report of the day:
- 2 votes for Gobinda by Mr. Wint and Nick Nack
- 2 votes for Nick Nack by Gobinda and Jaws
- 1 vote for Mr. Wint by Oddjob

The report concluded "Gobinda and Nick Nack are each two votes short to being the next package for Bond".

The next morning, Baron Samedi, as soon as he checked the message board said "Gobinda, your theory got me thinking and checking back on things, and I decided that you and Oddjob are the more likely to be the traitors. So I vote for you to be handed to Bond".


So, here's the question for you all.

What reasons can each of you think of, for Baron Samedi, a good loyal founding member of SHUFUR, to put another vote on Gobinda when he saw that Gobinda and Nick Nack were both 2 votes shy of being sent to Bond? After seeing Jaws theory but without commenting on anything about it, whom he thought to be one of the royal, while Nick Nack was null for him?

End of day, March 26

Votecount
adaliabooks (3): drealmer7, trentonlf, Lifthrasil
trent (2): adaliabooks, HypersomiacLive
Lifthrasil (1): RWarehall

Not Voting: gogtrial34987

adaliabooks is closest to lynch at L-1

Please note: gogtrial34987 requested a replacement, currently looking

Deadline is 2 days, 18 hours from now: Wednesday, March 29 at 4:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM GMT
(depending on when a replacement is obtained, the deadline may be extended)

1. Post 150 He is already clearing himself from being scum because if he was scum then he would be "shit under pressure" and then gives excuses as to why he can be buddy buddy with his scum partner. This comes into play later

2. Post 156 Points out that if you find someone very scummy in a pair that can not be a scum pair then the other person in the pair becomes more townie, then tries to say that's not a good way to look at it because we are all fallible (I believe is whole point was to put it in everyone's mind that if someone in a pair is viewed as very scummy then the other is by default more town, why else say it). Surprise surprise I am the only person who can clear adalia so it's best that I look like scum to everyone else.

3. Post 188 adalia all of a sudden suspected me all game but did not want to let on that he did, but made sure to lay the groundwork first to clear himself because he is "shit under pressure" and since he's in a pair with me that he is more townie since I'm the one who's scummy. He tries to tie me and drealmer together as a pair at this point (and much later with his "Love story"), based solely on the fact that I said I agree somewhat with what drealmer said about picks causing to much WIFOM.

4. You question adalia on his reasons for suspecting me, and his responses in post 210 are all about how he did not want to let on that I was his top suspect (before this he was all about getting drealmer lynched) and how confused he also was about drealmer since I suspected him as well, but by the end of the day when he saw that no one else was on board with lynching me he gives the top four options for lynch for Day 1 in post 313 that I'm not in the list of (and even says he is ok with that), this after I was his top suspect all day. He saw that there was no way to lynch me at that point so decided to play it off.

5. Then in post 376 all of a sudden I'm his top suspect again along with RW because of Hunter's wagon. adalia was second on the wagon and he felt good about his lynch because of how Hunter reacted to RW, even said he felt RW was town at the end of Day 1. Odd how all of a sudden me and RW are his top scum picks at the beginning of Day 2 when his reasons for lynching Hunter were the same as mine and he found RW to be town at the end of Day 1 (post 288)

6. Now just a short bit later drealmer is who adalia wants to lynch again after he see's how RW and drealmer are going at each other. My guess if he knows drealmer would be an easier lynch than RW so went with drealmer (even though RW was one of his top picks for scum in post 376) Post 399 now he clears RW again in Post 401

7. Post 417 gives excuse as to why he had doubts about hunter's scumminess after all and would happily lynch RW again. Casts more shade on me.

8. gogtrial calls adalia out on his convoluted logic concerning drealmer and RW, adalia responds in post 439 and again adalia would happily lynch RW

9. I have been town reading RW most of the game, now that's an issue for adalia in post 452

10. Post 455 all of a sudden adalia wants nothing to do with an RW lynch, pretty sure it's because he realized how bad he would look when RW flipped town so had to change his tune (and yes I think RW would flip town), and now wants drealmer and me again.

11. Post 458 states he is willing to be the lynch to clear RW (a grand gesture he had no intention of following up on) and then votes himself. Then clears lift as scum in the post because I suspect him and Lift are a team, but since Lift has not wanted to lynch him all day then Lift could not really be scum and that the only reason I have him and Lift as a team is because I'm town reading RW and have no other options. Then goes on with more reasons to lynch drealmer.

12. Post 464, he again clears Lift as town and again spins it that me and drealmer are a team. In the very next post drealmer votes him for voting himself and adalia again pushes drealmer as scum for doing so.

13. Post 467 tries to push gogtrial onto me and drealmer because there's no way adalia voting himself was scummy, just some sort of trap.

14. Post 469 again clears Lift as scum and pushes me and drealmer.

15. More clearing of Lift in post 472

16. Post 486
, the love story of me and drealmer, it continues in 488. I've already addressed this farce

17. Post 509, after you post your suspicions of me all of a sudden I am the top suspect and drealmer could not be my buddy after all. Realizes since you are being town read by almost everyone that he can get me lynched easier with your support.

18. Post 511, he does the woe is me routine about Lift after Lift votes him, trying to distance himself now.


It is not very late, and I have been going over this for several hours now. I am still on medicine and going to bed now as I keep dozing off. I will finish tomorrow evening about adalia and Lift.

I can answer your question number 3 now, there is nothing that sets me apart. I wish there was something I could point out that makes it obvious I'm not scum, but it's up to each person to make that decision based on what has happened in the game. As I said I will continue my post tomorrow, but sleep is what I need now. *I hate being sick and sleeping a lot :(*