The Syndicate

Canucklehead wrote:

Golden wrote:I'm looking through ISOs to try and find some pings to actually work off and I'm getting a really clear picture.... so many people are not giving much, it's no wonder there is little to go on.

So, I'm going to ask some specific people some specific questions, and I really want these people to answer these questions. It's time to start generating content.

Bubbles, Canuck, dfaraday, Timmer, splints, rey?

Where are you guys? Are you civilian-aligned? Do you have any opinions on people you think are town? Do you have any opinions on who you think are bad?

I'm here on my couch with my dog, about to leave for curling in about 10 minutes. I support the civ cause. I do not. I do not.

I'm voting banana for having an obnoxious username.

Canucklehead wrote:

a2thezebra wrote:nutella, explain to me what you mean by "pseudo-random" and then tell me why she shouldn't be my number one suspect. I have played with her before and granted, it's been a while, but I am familiar enough with her meta to understand how lightheartedly she plays, which is why I made clear that if her throwaway vote was on a throwaway candidate, or even herself, I could understand. But Banana, after two votes at that point? Hell no. That is inexcusable.

I don't actually think we've ever played together....
I also can't fathom why in the world you'd think I needed my vote to be "excusable".

Odd post, this.

Canucklehead wrote:Sorry I missed the vote. Probably would have voted for Mac.
Not particularly caught up thus far....still in the too much going on phase of the game, so nothing for me to really sink my teeth into yet. But I did find the back-and-forth with Epi and a2z quite humourous.....

Canucklehead wrote:Bullz, I haven't "refused to explain" my banana vote...I thought it was pretty obvious that it was a throw away vote? Why does that need explaining? If you'd like me to retcon an "excuse" for the vote, I can do so (I'm pretty creative), but I don't see the point of such an exercise. I voted banana for silly reasons. I have never denied that. I also think it's pointless to try and make a punts in out of this particular molehill, but that's because I have the benefit of knowing my own role and alignment, which you lack. So you'll just have to either take my word for it (silly vote, no ulterior motive) or vote for me.

Juliets: I don't have strong thoughts or reads on anyone, which is why I haven't offered any. I like to wait until deeper into the game/once the herd is culled before I really dig in. Also, the tone of the thread has made me choose to peace out until it gets a little friendlier.

Canucklehead wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

juliets wrote:Given the evidence presented by Sorsha and Golden (Sorsha more so really) I'm going to put my second vote today on Tiny Bubbles. I hope she comes into the thread prior to the last two hours of the lynch and says something for herself. I am not married to this vote but i don't see anyone else in Group 2 that I'm tempted to vote for at this point in time.

Epig i saw your list of suspects. Can you share with me what I've said or done that causes you to be suspicious of me?

As I mentioned, I find your vote for sig disingenuous. You are betting that sig is faking sincerity, but you have no experience with sig.

Furthermore, I would expect a civilian juliets to engage sig directly with questions, but in reading through your posts, all you've done is talk about sig with other people.

In your own words:

juliets wrote:

MacDougall wrote:

juliets wrote:

MacDougall wrote:If I am forced to choose between sig and nutella I couldn't care less. Juliets is scum though.

What makes you think that?

You just are. I think everyone feels it too.

No hard feels though. Your posts just have that faux contributive feel about em. You are lovely and all but yeah I think u got dat scumcard. Do you enjoy playing as a big bad?

Imma vote you and I hope some others do too.

You sound pretty set on it so I don't know what I can say to change your mind. I will say I just think you don't know me well enough. My mo is to ask questions looking for why people do the things they do, why they vote the way they vote. Thats how I scum hunt. I'm also very deliberative. And I've even been lynched for being too nice. This is just the way i am in every game.

You haven't asked sig a single question since Day 0 that I can see.

This is a fantastic post, and articulates exactly what it is about Juliets posting that has been off.

Canucklehead wrote:

juliets wrote:Did you read my response Canuck? I did indeed ask sig a question, "I'm about to vote for you, tell me why I shouldnt". Epig just missed it in his review. Otherwise, what do you think is so off about my posting? Half of my posts have been questions which is normal for me.

"Tell me why I shouldn't vote for you" is not the kind of question you ask of someone you are genuinely interested in having your mind changed about. "Tell me why I shouldn't vote for you" is not a request for information, it's a demand that someone prove themselves. Very, very different. Also, it doesn't look to me like Epi missed that post, it looks like he disagrees that it was a "question" asked in good faith (but I'll let Epi answer that himself)

And, as I already mentioned in the post to which you are responding, what is "off" about your posts is what Epi pinpointed....which is why I said exactly that in my previous post. Now, however, I'll add to that a very concerted effort on your part to misunderstand/ignore other people's posts. The tactic of (unconvincingly) dismissing the reason someone suspects you, then asking why they "otherwise" suspect you is not a winning one. There is no "otherwise", lol. I supspect you for exactly the reasons I stated (via a quote from another player), and for no others. I don't need an "otherwise".

Canucklehead wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:

Epignosis wrote:[snip]

This is a fantastic post, and articulates exactly what it is about Juliets posting that has been off.

Did you already think that juliets' posting had been off before Epi's post? This makes it seem like you've been playing closer attention than you've given yourself credit for

Juliets is one of two people I've actually interacted with this game, so yes I've previously thought her posts odd. No, I haven't been paying particularly close attention, to her or anyone.

Canucklehead wrote:No time to chat today. Voting Luke for being (essentially) a no-show. Hopefully will be back to chat before lunch 2 tomorrow

Canucklehead wrote:I'd be willing to switch my vote to Juliets for sure. Forgot that she had been the top (and only) name on my suspect list.:.

Canucklehead wrote:

S~V~S wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:SVS: why do my actions make you think I'm bad? I can totes understand why you think they're not good civilian play, but I struggle to see how you're reading them as baddie...

I already gave the bare bones synopsis, based on a read of your (at the time 14, now 17) posts.

S~V~S wrote:Looking back, Canuck has not mentione Luke before her casual vote for him today. Yesterday she voted for Juliets & Buglabush (who actually is blendier than she is), but no mention of those two today, one post, straight to Luke. She was only the second vote for Luke, too, which makes it even odder that she comes out of left field with a vote for someone she never mentioned or interacted with previously. This looks like the classic example of an easy bandwagon, tbh.

This was her last post before she voted for Luke; this post was made Wednesday afternoon:

Canucklehead wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:

Epignosis wrote:[snip]

This is a fantastic post, and articulates exactly what it is about Juliets posting that has been off.

Did you already think that juliets' posting had been off before Epi's post? This makes it seem like you've been playing closer attention than you've given yourself credit for

Juliets is one of two people I've actually interacted with this game, so yes I've previously thought her posts odd. No, I haven't been paying particularly close attention, to her or anyone.

This caught my eye when i was skimming her 14 post history~ since I had just read her history, I know this to not be true. She interacted with Bullz, Juliets, and Zebra, who suspected her. Three people. And of course she was questioned here by TH, who is also dead.

Probably a coincidence, but

The fact that Luke flipped bad does not change this impression, tbh. This vote felt like an easy way out, pick off the low hanging fruit kind of vote. Plus the fact that you seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time agreeing with & buddying up to thread leaders (without even looking at your posts, I can think of two occasions where you prefaced posts with "I totally agree with...", or words to that effect, about two different people) puts me in mind of bad Canuck, who tends to be a bit more agreeable to my mind.

After work I will go through your posts & post in more depth, I had planned to do so this weekend, but there was too much going on irl.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I wasn't asking what it was in my posts which pinged you (which, as you've said, you'd already laid out super clearly), but why those pings and inconsistencies and buddying, etc. specifically made you think I was BAD as opposed to, say, neutral or even civ? I guess I just don't get what you think my gameplan is from a baddie perspective, since I think you know that as a baddie I like to be much blendier (i.e. being more consistent with votes, actually making cases/justifications for votes, etc.) and more engaged (though I'm never a big poster, really)...I don't disagree that my game has been disengaged, and random-ish, but I do disagree that a disengaged and random-ish game is a Canuck baddie game.

For the record, I agree with you that Luke was an "easy" vote (I think a vote for a low poster is always an "easy" vote, but that's just my stance on low posters.....and yes, I know that in this game I'm basiclaly the lowest poster so I'm a giant hypocrite :P , but since I know there is 0% chance that I am bad, I don't apply the same theory on low-posting to myself ).....but I still don't see why voting for a disengaged player who turned out to be bad makes ME seem bad. I get that you don't think it exonerates me and makes me CIV....but there is territory between the two extremes that one could hypothetically place me in, no?

Canucklehead wrote:

Golden wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:

Golden wrote:SVS and I agree about something!

I like the case on canuck. That's where I'm putting a vote for now. I think there have been other good options floated too. Juliets definitely seems different to me, but because she is so consistent I'm not sure if 'different' = 'bad' or not. The biggest reason I'm not voting for her right now and canuck instead, though, is I think we could use having some viable competition to see where people land.

The Draconus connections to luke thing also has merit. I think there are several viable options today.

linki - I thought bullz's post makes sense. I understand that when I tunnel it can sometimes damage my ability to hurt the town. Sometimes it helps to take a step back and look at all the options again.

Hey, G.
Can you also respond to the question I asked SVS (i.e. why, in your view, my actions go beyond simply "not-civ" and land in "probably-baddie", bypassing other options?)
I honestlytruly do not understand why disengaged-random Canuck is looking like a baddie to folks.

I don't think you look disengaged. I think you look like you are trying to look disengaged, while not actually being disengaged. I've felt that way since my day one vote for you.

I just realised that I don't actually agree with SVS, lol. Her reasons for suspecting you and mine are different. I find that the behaviour she points out is indicative of what I think looks like a teammate of Luke, so I find you more suspicious not in spite of luke flipping bad, but because of it.

So it's not about your behaviour 'not looking civ', it is about doing things that I think could point to 'actually cabal'.

Thanks. That makes sense. It's wrong, of course, but it does make sense.


Here's the thing: I know it's early yet, but I am genuinely worried that I will be lynched today. The problem is, I have no defense to the cases made against me because, while the conclusions drawn from my posts and actions are incorrect, the points made about my actions and posts themselves are not totally wrong. I have voted randomly, I have posted based on loose impressions rather than facts, I have jumped on easy bandwagons, and I have (until now......or including now, depending on how generous you are in your reading of my post :P ) made little attempt to defend myself or engage with the cases against me. All I can say is, while it is true that I have thus far not been proactively helping the civ cause, I also haven't been actively harming it (though I'm sure some of you will argue that passivity is it's own brand of harm). I also (and you'll just have to take my word for it) have no intentions of harming the civ cause now or in the future. It would be foolish of me to do so. By thr same token, lynching me will not get us closer to a civ victory, and that's really the best defense I have. Do with it what you will, but I'd really like to stay alive.

Canucklehead wrote:

Golden wrote:Well, Canuck, here is your chance to at least convince me not to vote for you today.

Who are your major suspects and why?

My suspicion of Juliets is legitimate. I found her attempts to explain away Epi's point about her non-questioning of her vote recipient to be really unconvincing, and the certainty/finality with which she dismissed this point really felt off to me. This is what I meant by her "misunderstanding" or (perhaps a better way to phrase it) "selectively interpreting" posts: her response quoted below reads to me like "That point is invalid because I say it is invalid, so now your suspicion is invalid so what other reasons do you suspect me for? None? Good.". Just like her "questioning" of Bugla was not real questioning, her engagement with that suspicion against her was not real engagement. Her repetition of her questions to me (basically, "Why do you suspect me, Canuck?") when there was absolutely NOTHING unclear or ambiguous about why I suspected her (I literally quoted Epi verbatim and said "That's exactly what I think!") reads to me like a manipulative way to dismiss the point. There was no need to ask why I "otherwise" suspected her, since there was no other reason I suspected her and I never implied that there was, nor did there need to be another reason. But by slipping that "otherwise" in there, she implies that she has successfully defended against the suspicion in question (she hadn't, she'd merely hand-waved it away) and that she's ready to take on all other suspicions (all of which would by her implication be similarly invalid) in a similarly reductive way. That, to me, is the mafia version of gentle gaslighting, and it is, as far as I remember, not a feature of juliets usual civ game.

Canucklehead wrote:

juliets wrote:Did you read my response Canuck? I did indeed ask sig a question, "I'm about to vote for you, tell me why I shouldnt". Epig just missed it in his review. Otherwise, what do you think is so off about my posting? Half of my posts have been questions which is normal for me.

"Tell me why I shouldn't vote for you" is not the kind of question you ask of someone you are genuinely interested in having your mind changed about. "Tell me why I shouldn't vote for you" is not a request for information, it's a demand that someone prove themselves. Very, very different. Also, it doesn't look to me like Epi missed that post, it looks like he disagrees that it was a "question" asked in good faith (but I'll let Epi answer that himself)

And, as I already mentioned in the post to which you are responding, what is "off" about your posts is what Epi pinpointed....which is why I said exactly that in my previous post. Now, however, I'll add to that a very concerted effort on your part to misunderstand/ignore other people's posts. The tactic of (unconvincingly) dismissing the reason someone suspects you, then asking why they "otherwise" suspect you is not a winning one. There is no "otherwise", lol. I supspect you for exactly the reasons I stated (via a quote from another player), and for no others. I don't need an "otherwise".

So basically, it's a tone thing.

As for other suspects, I'd be willing to vote for Floyd, who I seem to remember being pinged by several times...but I'd need to read through his posts again to refresh my memory about why. My options are also open to hearing other cases for who I should vote for as the day develops. Unlike the vast majority of peeps, I don't think that every vote must be bolstered "My Own 100% Original One-of-a-Kind Never Before Thought of or Stated By Anyone Else and Special Only to Me Because I Thought of Them Myself" reasons. I'm quite willing to follow someone else's case if I think it is well reasoned, plausible, and if I agree that it might net a baddie. (I understand that this is not a popular way of thinking, but Originality in vote-rationale is overrated, imho. I'm starting a bandwagon to restore the reputation of bandwagons in this community. )
....but that's beside the point.

Canucklehead wrote:Responses in purple below:

S~V~S wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:

Golden wrote:SVS and I agree about something!

I like the case on canuck. That's where I'm putting a vote for now. I think there have been other good options floated too. Juliets definitely seems different to me, but because she is so consistent I'm not sure if 'different' = 'bad' or not. The biggest reason I'm not voting for her right now and canuck instead, though, is I think we could use having some viable competition to see where people land.

The Draconus connections to luke thing also has merit. I think there are several viable options today.

linki - I thought bullz's post makes sense. I understand that when I tunnel it can sometimes damage my ability to hurt the town. Sometimes it helps to take a step back and look at all the options again.

Hey, G.
Can you also respond to the question I asked SVS (i.e. why, in your view, my actions go beyond simply "not-civ" and land in "probably-baddie", bypassing other options?)
I honestlytruly do not understand why disengaged-random Canuck is looking like a baddie to folks.

Becasue the things I think point to you looking bad are not honest mistake kind of things, imo.
I've never claimed to have made "mistakes"....just to be flippant/careless with my votes

At the time you voted, sig had 2 votes, Luke had one. No one else had votes. You popped in, never had mentioned Luke before (you still have not mentioned sig, although you have alluded to him when discussing what constitutes a question with Juliets) yet you decided that Luke was a "no show" even though you had even less posts than he did? Did you look at or consider sig at all? Or your prior suspicions, Juliets (to whom you reverted as soon as you started to take heat) or Buglabush?
The relative number of my posts to Luke's isn't relevant, is it? I mean, it might be hypocritical to condemn someone for being a low poster when I am one myself, but since I know my role, I know that my posting-level doesn't equate to baddiness. I voted Luke because he wasn't really playing. I did not consider other options that day, no. Luke seemed like a clear choice from a "death to low posters except ones named Canuck" perspective, and voting for him allowed me to refrain from trying to sort out the ongoing mess with sig, or any of the other cases which would have required more time and thought than I had. Buglabush was never, like, a hardcore suspicion of mine, he was just kinda in the same blob of low-posters as Luke in my mind. He, Luke, and Elo (my other vote on the double decker lynch day) just seemed like a good person to vote for who, if lynched, wouldn't really upset the apple cart too much either way (Oh, was I supposed to make up some other story here, with like reasons and cases and stuff which were actually behind my seemingly rando vote? Oops. I've decided honesty is better )

That vote seems to me like a vote looking for a reason to be made. It isn't like you came in, and said "hrm, not sure whether to vote sig or Luke; sig seems genuine, Luke is a waffleberry".
If you prefer, I can feign that sort of hemming and hawing next time if it will make you feel better. Honestly (and I don't know how many ways to say this) my votes so far this game have been basically devoid of real rationale, other than to reduce the number of blobby/non-participating players from the list. (Add in the usual caveats here about how yes, I too am a low poster)


Then, and i said this earlier 2x as well, you keep buddying up to people. You have buddied up to Epignosis more than once as well as Golden. You seemed to latch onto Epis case on Juliets more so than you came to the conclusion on your own.
This is true (see my post to Golden above). I 100% latched on to Epis case on juliets, because I thought it had merit, and because it chimed with something that had been unconsciously bugging me about juliets


Then you said Juliets was one of only two people with whom you had interacted, but you actually interacted with her, TH & Zebra. Two of the three suspected you.
I did not remember this. Whoops. Apologies for not knowing exactly how many people I'd interacted with. That one is an honest mistake, for realzies.


Linki, no it isn't tone. It's timing, it's what you did not say.
I'm confused. That comment about tone was about my read/feeling on juiets. Not sure why you brought it in here?

Do you have an opinion on sig?
I do not. I have been quite fastidious in skipping posts which involve that case. I am, however, interested in how hard Golden is willing to speak out against his lynch, and have paid attention to that...so I guess in a way I suppose I have a sort of second-hand opinion on sig. Golden's stance makes me not want to bother reading the case on sig, since I can't imagine Golden doing that unless he was sure about it. So my opinion on sig is thus: why spend my time reading a case that I've already decided not to be persuaded by? I doubt that is a satisfying answer for you (and I don't pretend it's one you should be satisfied by), but it is nonetheless true.

Like I said to Golden, SVS, I totally get why you're not willing to see me as a good, proactive civ. That is very clear and understandable. My plea to you is that you consider the fact that, even if this is true (which I don't categorically deny), that my lynch will still not move us towards a civ victory. So if a civ victory is what you want, you're better off voting for someone else.

Canucklehead wrote:

S~V~S wrote:Wow, I have to digest that. I don't have a gluten issue, so normally don't have problems with waffles, but ... I dunno.

I think you are playing the "lame uninvolved" card WAAAAY too hard. That Luke vote feels, like I said, like a vote in need of a rationale.

I'm not sure what the gluten comment is supposed to mean?? That I'm waffling?? That my post makes you gassy?? Lol. Sorry. Joke went over my head.

I honestly don't have anything else to help sway you, SVS. I'm playing the lame uninvolved card hard because that is the only card in my hand, because it's just the truth. I could make empty promises about how I'll get better soon, but school is a mess, I'm planning a wedding, and my head is not as in it as it should be right now......but I still don't wanna die!!