This is a clear appeal to emotion. You are right that purely by appearances Pooka looks more off than you. But we can't disregard the rest. Also, aren't you the one saying that we shouldn't lynch Pooka? Even though you still haven't explained what it is, that makes you so confident that he is town. If you have a good reason to town-read Pooka, it would be good to share that reason.

... and no, the reason you gave in post 753 is not a good one. There you wrote that your instinct is to vote RW, because dedo and I prefer Pooka. However, you acknowledge in the same post that dedo can't be scum and that my play wouldn't make sense as scum. ... so, because one sure and one likely town players suspect Pooka, your instinct tells you to vote someone else...

And now, after it boiled down to you or pooka, you are suddenly back to the RW+me scum team. ... which really is the only option for you if you want to avoid a Pooka lynch without sacrificing yourself. RW is very unlikely scum alone, after all. So you have to bundle someone with him to justify your vote and it can't be dedo. So you have to go back to targeting me, even though you earlier said, I repeat, that my play wouldn't make sense then. So, again the question, what is it, that makes pooka so much townier in your eyes than me. Why are you so dead set on saving him? You even say you would bet money on him being town, even though that is forbidden. But you don't explain the source of your certainty.

Of course if you really were convinced that he's town, you would have to try to save him at possibly LyLo. But I rather suspect, that you want to avoid bussing him because one more mislynch would win you the game.

@RW so your theory is, that scum made an error in estimating dedos towniness and therefore targeted agent? That would fit Pooka, but it wouldn't fit Joe. I don't think Joe would underestimate dedo. Or was he counting on being best buds with dedo and wanted to keep him around for that? Possible.

So, I get back to my feeling that it's Pooka or Joe. I feel more strongly about Pooka, but dedo is right and Joe has more possible combinations in which he can be scum.

This is the last day where dedo can participate before the deadline and with him being the only cleared player, he should be able to participate. Therefore I cast my vote:

Vote Joe

By the way, RW, I strongly disagree that Town shouldn't cast the first vote at LyLo. If that was accepted as rule, scum wouldn't dare to vote either and we would lose due to no-lynch. No, Town has to be very careful, but in the end we have to make a decision. Also I do agree with Joe, even though he is likely scum: if you have anything else to share about your role, please do so.

@dedo and RW: I am willing to switch to Pooka, if you prefer that. But I'm only on occasionally today and only on mobile. So I may not be able to participate in further discussions as much as I would like to.

I just had an idea: I wondered why Joe would defend Pooka so conspicuously, even if they are a team. Would Joe not resort to bussing after all at this point? ... but what if Joe actually IS a lone scum? Both dedo and I had stated a preference for lynching pooka. Maybe Joe reasoned that he would defend Pooka, guessing that we would lynch him nonetheless. After all, the defense comes from the second suspect player. Then, if Joe were lone scum, he would look better tomorrow after Pooka would flip Town.

Sure, Joe being lone scum without powers would be very unbalanced and unfair for him. But it's possible and with that in mind, I think it is actually better to lynch the one who can be lone scum out of the (Joe, Pooka) group.

@Pooka: what do you make of Joe defending you so decidedly?

Well, at the end of the day, I get back to where I was the last day. Having no (breaking) new information revealing anything out of the ordinary, during the previous day I did say I'd be happy with one of blotunga or Joe. blotunga is gone but Joe is still alive, and just like yesterday, he looks to be in so many plausible scum combinations, besides him and me because I'm not scum. So I am willing to vote him.

Interestingly enough, here we have a vote on RW (by Joe) and a vote on Joe (by Lift), yet no quickhammers in sight despite all players other than me participating in the last few hours. Perhaps these two are scum together after all. Perhaps there is only one lone scum and either one is (or both are) Town and a quickhammer would only happen with two votes on a single person. And both couldn't be Town if we clear Lift and Dedo. So I am also willing to vote RW based on this, but prefer Joe. There are probably other combinations or reasons why a quickhammer rush didn't happen, but these are the ones that occur to me.

Long story short, willing to go Joe or RW.

How about pulling your vote...
Town should be discussing the vote right now, not casting it. Now there are two players voted and 2 opportunities if we are wrong and the wrong people are on at the same time to quick lynch the one we are wrong about, assuming it's might not be exactly a Joe/Pooka scum team, that we are wrong about...

I'm not suggesting an error exactly. I'm suggesting that between the two Agent and Dedo, scum might have decided Dedo was the most open to shade. Given Agent's Angel claim with no counter, that might make sense.

I wasn't sure what to think of Joe, except at the time he made that post defending me, I was reminded of something he said a couple pages back. I'm going to quote it right back at him.

Did it cross his mind that I might be lying about the time I spend in my posts? A lot of stuff that I have said, someone or another has assumed I was lying about it or missing something crucial and questioned it. But here Joe takes my statement at face value. It's like he wants to make it too easy for me to support him by him coming out in my defense. Yes, I do spend hours writing my posts, but I have done that as both as Town and as Scum. I don't see anything alignment indicative about the time spent, however I see it as problematic for me because it means I spend so much time just putting down my arguments into the post box instead of reading the game or tending to real life (or playing a game!).

Also he repeatedly said that I sucked as a Townie, right?

But you have a point. It feels as if he's trying to buddy up to me.

I decided to read the end of the game where Pooka was mafia last, to see if I'm imagining the difference.

(The first thing I encountered was Bookwyrm saying Joe commented on just how forgettable Pooka's posts have been. which amused me considering this:

^ When Pooka wrote this I thought "That's kinda a mean thing to say. :c" . Turns out it was REVENGE.)

Some other points of interest:
- I was town reading Pooka in that game too (for a rather confusing town-tell that maybe made sense only to me that I probably should have dismissed later in the game. Perhaps I would have if I'd got the chance MICROFISH)
- Pooka does read with much more attitude - there's a certain playful cockiness to him. However reading over some of my posts I think I was much more cocky in that game too. Maybe it was just the mood...
- It's possible scum-pooka in this game feels more pressure on him than scum-pooka in the last game. It's only recently that Lift has abandoned town-reading me, and I have abandoned thinking pooka scum.
- Pooka's interested in evaluating and improving his game, it's possible he would deliberately change tone (but I don't think that's as easy as people like to think)

- So. I think there is a difference, and even though there's reasons I can think of to explain a discrepancy, I still stick by my Town-Pooka read this game.

___


Oh okay we'll vote for the wagon that the scum puts the first vote on then SHALL WE?

Well... I hadn't considered that tactic:

I was planning to maintaint vigilance, and unvote blotunga when I went to bed to minimalise the chance of a scum-rush-quicklynch, but then Lifthrasil wrote what he wrote in #772 and I decided I couldn't be bothered. There's a few things that influence this:

1 - Has anyone ever witnessed a co-ordinated quick-lynch by the mafia? I don't think it's as easy as all that, and it's risky as hell. Wouldn't it be fun if one of the scum tried to orchestrate the quick-lynch but got witnessed by a town who was online at the time OH I'M AN IDIOT IT ONLY JUST OCCURED TO ME that I'M the one who has to be online because someone else can't unvote FOR me - if another town witnesses the quicklynch while I'm asleep there's nothing they can do about it. Ha lol, at least I have another reason for not bothering to unvote.
2 - RW's low down in dedo, lift and pooka's reads list (actually looking back at it Pooka barely mentions him until he mistakes Jailing for Blocking - which does read weird. I'll finish this thought process and think about that later.) and one of you's got to be scum.
3 - If there's two scum to engineer the quick-lynch, then my lynch will lose the game anyway. If I try to explain why I'm not the scum it's called WIFOM, if I try to explain who I think are scum it's called shifting attention, if I try to clarify where I've been misinterpreted THAT gets misinterpreted. I get the impression Dedo and Lift have already made up their minds

EBWOP - Lift's voted me - the first problem he had with my defense of myself is that it's an appeal to emotion


I've been working that out above a little, but I suspect that it's partly just that I'm contrary and if everybody seems to be saying one thing, I tend to want to do the opposite. And I feel like you and dedo are picking out bits of what I say and reading the worst into them that you can imagine whilst simultaneously cheerily clapping each other on the back for misinterpreting me. Which makes me sulk and want to defy you.

When I imagine Pooka flipping town I feel a cold inevitability like we really ought to have known all along. When I imagine Pooka flipping scum I imagine being impressed with him for deceiving us. I guess I'd rather feel proud of pooka than feel an idiot for doing something I didn't think was right.

So there you are - the ugly truth is that I'm Town-Reading Pooka because I'm a child who can't keep emotions out of the game.

Free chicken bump.

No! I've said loads that people tend to think you're mafia when you're a townie. I don't think that means you suck. I think it means everybody else sucks ;p

Lift's vote was only an hour ago Pook

---

I said I'd come back to 'why does Pooka ignore RW for most of today, and why was his mistaken realisation that RW was blocked so... wimpy?'

The obvious answer is that Pooka and RW, which means even if I take it into account my vote is right, which means I'm not going to think about it too hard and I'll leave my vote where it is.

It's pretty simple...I don't want us to lose this because a couple people who aren't cleared feel like throwing votes around.

And Joe, I have seen both. I've seen quick vote losses and scum trying to quick vote and miscommunicating.

I'd rather see the game decided by a true vote. Not some rogue Townie taking a stab in the dark and losing the game for us. I'd rather we get it right and win, but to lose because someone goes off on their own really sucks.

Quite frankly, I think both your votes make the two of you look scummy, because scum has nothing to lose in this situation trying to induce Townies to throw votes around. Assuming that we have two scum left.

That is nonsense! Scum has something to lose at this point. True, if there's two of them, they have everything to win, if they manage to make us mislynch ... or if they manage to stall until the deadline.
But if we lynch correctly, the remaining scum has something to lose: credibility! The game will go on and he will be alone against two. Which means scum will have to preserve a modicum of towniness at this point and preferably even be on the wagon of his buddy. This means scum will have to manage the feat of pushing a mus-lynch or stalling while at the same time preserving a credible way to bus, if necessary.

... and that's exactly what I see you doing. You defend Joe, who you have been at odds with all game. You call us all to stall, although we are on the last day. But still you preserve a remaining suspicion on Joe, so that an eventual vote on him will seem justified. That all would fit with a RW+Joe team.

Plus your call that town should only vote when they are sure of their vote, only 'real votes', is impossible. Town never can be sure! Only scum can be.

No one is "stalling" but it would be completely stupid to have everyone throw votes around until scum see the correct combination to pounce upon. The smart move for LyLo is for people to post their intents to vote (just like people do at the end of days retracting their vote or stating their intent to hammer to make sure no one "accidentally" lynches someone before they can speak). What happens if say Pooka threw a vote out on you? With 3 combinations out in the wild it greatly increases the chance one ill-advised vote destroys us...

I talked about this in my post that got ate by the forum, which I related to you from memory in post 753, I went into a bit more detail into why my instinct was to prefer RW.
The prevented kill: I'm not sure why any of you would try to kill RW (though I'm not sure why any of you would try to kill ZFR either). The RW-was-trying-to-kill-and-was-blocked seems simpler than the-killer-also-targeted-RW-and-was-blocked.

Ughhh... but now I remember how RW used the fact that he was targeted Night 2 as grounds for town-reading Joe - claiming he didn't think I would actually try to kill him with the situation we'd been in. I'm not sure he was accurate, but it's a sophisticated thought process to be invented.

But I think you've all had moments that I've thought 'a scum wouldn't have thought that'


If you do change your vote you should vote for RW rather than Pooka because... if I'm right we're not dead! And if I'm wrong you get to say "Joe you lost the game for everyone you should have listened to me all along!" and feel smug.
If you're mafias with RW, you should change your vote to him rather than Pooka for the lols.

^ I know this was not the kind of convincing you had in mind, but

If you are town, and genuinely considering it, it raises the rather alarming scenario: Either dedo is mafia, RW is an impossible solo scumteam, or, most disastrous of all, Joe is wrong about Pooka.


If you can remember an example of failed quick-vote attempt I'd love to read it! It sounds hilarious.

Oh FFS! Gog just lost another long post! Posting from mobile sucks! I don't have the time to write everything again.

@RW and Joe: I will reply to you in detail in a few hours.

But for now I jump directly to the conclusion:

Let he who is without scum cast the first stone!

Joe is right, letting scum dictate the first vote would be stupid. RW is right, we should be careful. But no one really believes that dedo is scum and also, dedo is the one who can't be here at deadline. We others have more time.

@dedo: I know this puts pressure on you and I'm sorry, but I think it's for the best if you make your decision and the rest of us take the time to discuss it.

unvote Joe

Hey, sorry for the long wait. I haven't left just yet but had a lot of remaining work and preparations to go through.

I don't have anything else to say and honestly I don't feel like spending more time concerning myself about what is and what isn't. I want to lynch Pooka but I realize some of it could be because deep down I just want to see if I'm right about it. In my opinion Joe just has better odds at being the correct pick - better for us, Town, that is. If this turns out wrong and we lose because of it I'll apologize to Joe (and maybe Pooka) for it and pat the scum RW/Lift on the back.

I'm going to

vote Joe

now and will probably not be back before the game ends (unless we do hit scum Today and he has a buddy who decides to spare me for whatever reason during the night).

Good luck, Town!