The Syndicate

Ok.
Sorry. I may be a teensy bit on edge/frazzled/over emotional/on a hair trigger at the moment, so apologies for reading nefarious intentions where there were none.

Dana wrote:

Bullzeye wrote:I'll trust in the collective consciousness of everyone and go there with my vote.

Ooh I do not like this collective consciousness thinking. It makes me super nervous when everyone's ok with voting someone.

Yes. Me too.

Long Con wrote:

LoRab wrote:You're all wrong. But I guess you'll see that.

And thanks for all voting for me when I clearly stated I'd barely be around.

I have been voting you for days! And Canuck was "not around" first.

Why the quotation marks?
I really, really hope you're not inferring that my absence is game related and not life related.

Oh. Today is not Saturday. Fuck again.

......but I can't change my vote?

Fuck. I came in to read/vote and had no time to do so. I voted Boogs because I don't think LoRab is bad. Unless someone made a really good case on her in my absence, the only thing I've heard about her is Long Con's "She's bad because she doesn't suspect me" spiel, which I think is pretty weak...
It looks like my vote is useless anyway. And I'm sad to see a good player like the Rabs die, since we need all the help we're going to get if the civs are going to win this.

Hi, everyone.
I apologize for my absence. Things got shitty/crazy/bad in my real world, and I had to focus on dealing with that. Things have settled a little, but it's still insane and overwhelming here.
I'm getting replaced in my other games, but since this one seems so close to the end I will stick it out. I'm not asking for anyone to let go of any suspicions of me because of RL circumstances (and I feel confident that you won't, because you're all good mafia players), but I DO ask (pretty please? f you would?) for a little patience with me if I'm slow to respond or short in my responses. Also, if you could restate any things you need me to address from the past few days, that will make it much easier for me to answer. I'm going to do a skim-through of what I missed, but I won't be reading in detail.

Thanks, and apologies.

I'm sorry everyone. I haven't read anything since this morning. There's a serious situation happening in my real life that erupted today. Don't know details yet, but I'll probably not be around much in the coming days. I'm sorry.

LC, I don't understand why you're doing this? Lynching me is not going to help the civvies win. I'm a civvie. I'm not the droids you're looking for.

linki: Bullz, my mention of "info" in that post was meant to be sarcastic. I found his post about LC suspicious, not persuasive

Boogs wrote:I think voting LC is the best choice today to make sure we do this right.

I'm sooooooo tempted to agree with this, since LC is now turning against me.....


But to be honest, Boogs, this looks to me like you're just seizing an opportunity to get me and maybe LoRab to follow you.

Where's your case?? Why should we vote LC? Do you have info on him like you did on Bullz?

Long Con wrote:You know what? I don't think coming after Boogs is productive. I think Boogs is becoming some sort of baddie punching bag. I did a reanalysis of the current situation, based on the number of people left in the poll. If there are two baddie teams of four people each, and we have killed what, two baddies? That means that there six baddies on the poll today? That's ugly.

No one is shifting the spotlight off Boogs, all I'm seeing is people pecking away at him. He's not the one we're looking for. My top suspects are Canuck and Lorab. If we want to lynch a baddie, then we should start there. Maybe Canuck is silenced today, fine, then Lorab.

The simple fact is that they've been buttering me up all game, with a dash of "I'm unsure but he feels Civvie". Don't believe the hype. They don't care if I'm Civvie, they just want to keep me off their case by buddying up to me.

Watch for those who don't want to accept this, their teammates may reveal themselves. I have no info, I just know this is true. It's been pinging me for a while and I kept quiet to stay alive. There's just no more time for that now.

I will totes cop to "buttering you up", if by "buttering you up" you mean I've mostly agreed with you and wanted to hear your input. I feel like we've been on the same page for much of this game, so yes, I've been thinking of you as a civ pretty consistently because I'm vain like that and I tend to assume that people who agree with me and don't antagonize me without cause are probably also civ.

I haven't been trying to "keep you off my case"....I've been assuming that we were both reading the other correctly as civ and were working together. Is that not the case?

Hihi.

Sorry I've been away and not answering LC's baseless accusations about me :P
I was forcibly hushed, and used the time to try an get caught up/involved in my other games......and then life was crazy and I haven't slept and I just attempted to teach Foucault to a bunch of first year undergrads after having no sleep at all and not nearly enough coffee. Which is a very, very, very bad idea.

So I'm a little out of it. I'll try to form a coherent response to your suspicions though, LC!

I don't have the faintest clue what is happening. What a wasted day. We learned absolutely nothing and will have to do this whole dance again tomorrow.

Ugh.

Well, he could have voted for bullz....and convinced LoRab, Bea, or julietz to do the same.......or convinced me or you to vote hedge....or just generally tried to be clear?

Linki: .....or he could've done that.

Boogs. Why didn't you save yourself?!

I am so confused.

I'm back to a bullz/Boogs coin flip...and since I'm now inclined to view Dana as civ, given her recent posts, my scale is tipped slightly to the believing Boogs side....so I'm going to vote Bullz

Fuck. I think Dana is telling the truth...

ONE MILLION LINKIS!

Nothing specific. Similar to you, he's been pretty much a non-entity for me this game. Haven't re-read him at all.....

BUT!
(and this is a big, big but)

...If Dana is good (and the only reason I think she might be is that no one appears opposed to lynching her), then maybe her vouch for boogs is genuine....and maybe boogs' info on Bullz is genuine.

That's a LOT of "ifs"....but that's my thought process.

Like I said earlier, I think this is a crucial lynch, so I'm just trying to make sure we consider our options carefully and get a baddie.

What are people's thoughts on Bullz? Other than not wanting to vote for someone who has been info dumped on, does anyone have strong civ vibes from him?

bea: I'm not SURE about LC.....and I'm becoming more unsure as the days go on.....but I feel that way about everybody. With LC, it's just a vibe thing. I usually feel like he's zanier when bad....but it's been along while since I've played regularly, so I may be very, very off on that.

As for Dana, I'm in support of a vote for her....except for the fact that now EVERYONE seems to be in support of a vote for her....which makes me think we might be about to do the Mongoose thing again.

I'm so uncertain now.

I found her vouch for Boogs and his denial of it super odd, too....but what makes me most suspicious of Dana is her absenteeism. In Misfits (the only other game I've played with her, I think?) she was SUPER active and question-y and involved in the thread and in almost all conversations....and this game she seems to be just sitting back and only contributing when prodded. Perhaps because she's not been a baddie before and is uncomfortable? I dunno.

What gives me pause about her, however, is her mix-up/confusion about the silencing. I'd think that if she had teammates, they'd have clued her in to the fact that her silencing was over......but maybe it's all an elaborate ruse? I dunno.

She's very pingy to me.....but I do have reservations about those pings.

bea, if you had to vote right now, who would it be for?

I agree that this lynch feels really crucial, which is why I'm hemming and hawing and going back and forth over and over and over again.

While I appreciate that you're here and engaged and thinking out loud, Bullz, I'm having a hard time making decisions based on your answers/thoughts because in my mind the conflict between you and Boogs is very much either he is bad, or you are.....so the opinion of either one of you is not helping me sort shit out. That was a very convoluted sentence, but I think/hope you catch my drift.

I need to hear more from Dana, because that will help me figure out my thoughts on Boogs (maybe). I need to hear from LC, because I think he's a civ and I trust him more than other players right now. I need to hear from juliets and LoRab, because I don't know what to think of either of them, except that they're both generally thoughtful and insighful.

Boogs wrote:Dana trusting me when we have barely interacted is pingy. Also, Bullzeye i suggest we dont try to lynch me tpday so that we cant be manipulated. Hedge wasnt in suspicion before Day 9, Jc was. So Hedge "being silenced" could be a Civ doing it to her.

Huh? Can you explain your rationale for this, Boogs. I don't understand what you mean by this.

(This is most likely a case of me being dense, not you being unclear......)

DF died N1, Enrique N3.

.....but both your points are totally fair (I'd actually been misremembering and thought we'd lynched DF), especially the one about the numbers not really making sense.

linki: LC, It's a very special skill for ladies. I am proud of my abilities and I do not back down from that comment.

^^ Fucked up the second quote there...here it is, fixed:

Bullzeye wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:I also think LoRab's point about the silencer possibly being civ is omsething we need to consider. Maybe people aren't being silenced becasue they're on to the baddies, maybe they're being silenced because a civ thinks they ARE a baddie?? Or maybe there is a bad silencer and a civ silencer, working on opposing nights? I dunno if that helps us narrow our thoughts any, but it is an interesting thing to keep in mind.

All I'll say is there's (what I think is) a pretty good reason for my belief that the silencer is bad. Not to mention the Boogs-related circumstances surrounding my own silencing.

OK. I'm assuming this is a reason that you can't share in the thread, so I'll let the civ-silencer thought take a backseat for the moment...not because I neccessarily trust you or your info (I'm really, really p in the air on you at this point), but because (again) I'm not sure that speculating about it is going to get me any closer to deciding who to vote for, and I need to focus on that.

Bullzeye wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:You're not the only one, Bullz. Of the things you mentioned, I'm most concerned by Dana's vouch. It's just so out of the blue, and Dana's absence in the last few game days (even before she was silenced) and then her sudden appearance to defend Boogs is just odd. I'm more and more beginning to see this as a recruitment game, and I think maybe the baddies have been persuing a "recruit the quiet and blendy"-type strategy while we tear all the talkative people apart in the thread. I think Dana might be the most recent recruit, and I think that might explain her out-of-nowhere defense of Boogs.

I see where you're coming from but with only one confirmed dead recruit 9 days in I feel like we'd have seen more. Unless maybe recruitments can only happen in certain circumstances?

Yeah, but Bullz, other than the recruit, we've only killed one team-affiliated baddie in those 9 days, too. It's not like our track record is stunning, and we've been killing loads of non-recruit baddies during that time. :P

But I understand what you're saying. There isn't a lot of evidence to support my theory based on lynches. TBH, I think the most convincing evidence that there is one baddie recruitment team (as opposed to two regular baddie teams) is that there have been no baddies killed in NK crossfire. That's weird to me, but maybe they've just been unlucky? Or only targeting civs? Or are as bad at reading alignment as the rest of us?

Regardless, I'm not entirely convinced that this speculation helps us out in practical terms for this particular lynch, so I'll stop thinking out loud now and start figuring out who the hell I'm going to vote for....

Canucklehead wrote:I also think LoRab's point about the silencer possibly being civ is omsething we need to consider. Maybe people aren't being silenced becasue they're on to the baddies, maybe they're being silenced because a civ thinks they ARE a baddie?? Or maybe there is a bad silencer and a civ silencer, working on opposing nights? I dunno if that helps us narrow our thoughts any, but it is an interesting thing to keep in mind.

All I'll say is there's (what I think is) a pretty good reason for my belief that the silencer is bad. Not to mention the Boogs-related circumstances surrounding my own silencing.[/quote]
OK. I'm assuming this is a reason that you can't share in the thread, so I'll let the civ-silencer thought take a backseat for the moment...not because I neccessarily trust you or your info (I'm really, really p in the air on you at this point), but because (again) I'm not sure that speculating about it is going to get me any closer to deciding who to vote for, and I need to focus on that.

You're not the only one, Bullz. Of the things you mentioned, I'm most concerned by Dana's vouch. It's just so out of the blue, and Dana's absence in the last few game days (even before she was silenced) and then her sudden appearance to defend Boogs is just odd. I'm more and more beginning to see this as a recruitment game, and I think maybe the baddies have been persuing a "recruit the quiet and blendy"-type strategy while we tear all the talkative people apart in the thread. I think Dana might be the most recent recruit, and I think that might explain her out-of-nowhere defense of Boogs.

I also think LoRab's point about the silencer possibly being civ is omsething we need to consider. Maybe people aren't being silenced becasue they're on to the baddies, maybe they're being silenced because a civ thinks they ARE a baddie?? Or maybe there is a bad silencer and a civ silencer, working on opposing nights? I dunno if that helps us narrow our thoughts any, but it is an interesting thing to keep in mind.

I honestly don't know where to vote today. I can see good cases for both Dana/Boogs or Bullz.....and maybe Hedge? I'm at a bit of a loss and attempting to rethink everything.

nijuukyugou wrote:

I......am very afraid of this image?

I voted for a Rez because I think it's the most transparent option. All the deadies roles and alignments are revealed, so there's really no way for a baddie to manipulate things without being totally obvious.
Since the only candidates to win are bea and I, and since I'm unsure of bea's alignment and don't really have a read on her at all, I went with the option that seemed least likely to be able to be used to benefit the baddies effectively.

Hedgeowl wrote:
I think there has been plentiful evidence that we have been lynching the wrong people since recent votes have been complete bandwagons, yet no one seems willing to really address this point. Canuck brushed it off as unlikely that Mongoose was civ, even though that was actually the most likely scenario in any lynch when no one is being defended. Lorab brushed off my theories on LC, which gave me a little ping about her as well. These are my current thoughts, but we will see what tomorrow brings.

posting this now and going to continue reading...

I didn't "brush it off" as unlikely that Mongoose was a civ. I thought about it, weighed the evidence, posted about it, and made a choice. If I had been "brushing it off", I wouldn't have thought it through or put it out there for other people to consider....I would have just voted and gone about my business (like MANY other people did).
I can understand getting on my case about spearheading the Mongoose lynch.....but accusing me of being flippant about it, or not thinking through all the possibilities, or "brushing off" the chance that she was a civ is really disingenuous. Hindsight is 20/20, obviously, but in the moment the evidence (of Mongoose's in-thread weirdness, the apparent save of her during the MM lynch, and her disinclination to actualy give a shit and provide a defense) made it actually seem much more likely to me that she was bad and being sacrificed or had a lynch protection than that she was civ and just playing a detatched game. Obviously I was wrong, but to suggest that I "brushed off" the possibility of her being civ is pretty shady, since I was the only one actively discussing it. I think I'm a pretty easy target today, since I pushed hard for a Mongoose lynch for a LONG time....but focusing on me is not going to get a baddie lynched, so I suggest we look at the people who ACTUALLY brushed off the possibility of Mongoose being civ and hopped on the bandwagon nonchalantly.

I'm absolutely willing to listen to your cases on LC and juliets, hedge.....and I'm interested in your idea of their being one big recruitment baddie team. I've been considering the fact that there might only be one group of btsc baddies (plus all the indys we've seen die) for a while now, and am them having recruiting powers absolutely makes sense to me.

Fuck. I (obviously) feel pretty responsible for Mongoose's death. I'm sorry Mongoose, I really really thought you were bad.

Hedge: why do you suspect me now? I'm a civ. Tell me what makes you think otherwise and I'll try to clear up whatever misunderstandings may be going on for you.

Dana: I see you're reading the thread. Have anything to contribute?

Lots of people left to vote....only two hours left...

Hedgeowl wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:I am voting Mongoose for now, because I think either scenario 1 or 3 are what is happening. If it's 1, then we not only get a baddie but we have a good idea of where to look for her teamies. If it's 3, best case scenario we get rid of a lynch-save and can try again another day. Worst-case scenario, however, it's a lynch switch power.....which means we need to be REALLY WARY of any stray votes (b/c most lynch switches must switch to someone who has votes already.....). This would likely result in losing a civ, which would be VERY bad at this point, I think.....
I'm not going to advocate for a unanimous Mongoose vote, because the lynch-switch/save theory is obviously just speculation on my part and my thoughts on Mongoose's baddiness are obviously just my thoughts, but I am going to be watching closely to see what goes down during this vote....and whilst Mongoose is leading the votes and until this day is over, I am going to feel unreasonably afraid for whomever Mongoose decides to vote for.

On preview, I suppose that scenario 2 could also theoretically be correct AND parts of 3 could be correct (i.e. she's a civ with a lynch save in her pocket).....this seems unlikely to me, but I'll admit that I'm biased b/c I've been holding onto this suspicion for a long time now.

Yes, all....we've already arrived at the part of the game where Canuck's head gets super duper paranoid and starts thinking crazy things. Apologies in advance. You have been warned.

linki: bea, you read my mind. :P

Of your 3 scenarios, do you know which one is most likely? 2. But this reads like a nice attempt to cover yourself if she flips civ, kinda like the Made vote. I hadn't had specific baddies vibes from you, because you have suspected Mongoose for a long time, but honestly this post to me just sounds like an excuse.

An excuse for what??

Also, I clearly state that I think possibilities 1 and 3 are most likely.

Firsties!
Mine has a picture AND a haiku.

Gimme my prize, please.

That is a terrifying task to set for yourself. No one should be subjected to trying to understand my mind. It's all dark and weird and goopy in there.

I am voting Mongoose for now, because I think either scenario 1 or 3 are what is happening. If it's 1, then we not only get a baddie but we have a good idea of where to look for her teamies. If it's 3, best case scenario we get rid of a lynch-save and can try again another day. Worst-case scenario, however, it's a lynch switch power.....which means we need to be REALLY WARY of any stray votes (b/c most lynch switches must switch to someone who has votes already.....). This would likely result in losing a civ, which would be VERY bad at this point, I think.....
I'm not going to advocate for a unanimous Mongoose vote, because the lynch-switch/save theory is obviously just speculation on my part and my thoughts on Mongoose's baddiness are obviously just my thoughts, but I am going to be watching closely to see what goes down during this vote....and whilst Mongoose is leading the votes and until this day is over, I am going to feel unreasonably afraid for whomever Mongoose decides to vote for.

On preview, I suppose that scenario 2 could also theoretically be correct AND parts of 3 could be correct (i.e. she's a civ with a lynch save in her pocket).....this seems unlikely to me, but I'll admit that I'm biased b/c I've been holding onto this suspicion for a long time now.

Yes, all....we've already arrived at the part of the game where Canuck's head gets super duper paranoid and starts thinking crazy things. Apologies in advance. You have been warned.

linki: bea, you read my mind. :P

Hmmmmm.....I'm actually surprised/worried by the lack of defenders coming out to try and save Mongoose (possibly for the second time). There are a few scenarios I can think of for why this might be:
1) Maybe they've thrown in the towel and can't risk the obviousness of saving her again? Possible. This sort of sacrificial strategy makes the most sense if her teammates are under very little suspicion right now and don't want to risk blowing their cover. If this is the case, than I think her teammates will be those whose acquiesence to the "lynch Mongoose" plan came with very little discussion of her previously, who were a part of the MM voters, and who are currently riding a wave of civ-seemingness in the thread.
2) Maybe she's a civ and therefore has no defenders? Unlikely (I think), but within the realm of possibility I suppose.
3) Maybe, like I mentioned before, she has a lynch/kill protection built into her role, and her baddie team is so confident with their position that they no longer feel that the risks of using up the save outweigh the benefits of hiding among the Mongoose voters? I am thinking more and more that this might be the case.
And its making me paranoid....because a baddie team that confident with this many players left makes me wonder about a bunch of assumptions that I have been operating under that I now want to reconsider.

Yeah, that DEFINITLEY could be a "Save Mongoose!" campaign.

I'm also interested in Hedgie's case on Juliets, since I've not really had thoughts one way or t'other about her. LC I've been reading more and more as civ (though maybe I'm just biased because he seems to be agreeing with me a lot this game?), so it would take a pretty damning case for me to vote LC.
Boogs/Bullz is still worth watching. I don't know what's going on their, but neither of them seemed particularly civ-like in their recent interactions. Llama flipping civ makes me reconsider my thinking about ninja (who was next on God's list), since it seems that God may not have been all that omniscient at all, in the end.
I'm still ready and willing to vote Mongoose, but I'm starting to have a nasty gut feeling that she might have some lynch protections built into her role. Why else would she be so flippant/brazen/nonchalant in her baddiness??

I think she thought I was being set up for killing bwt? Or Keterman?


Also, where is Dana?
:hmm:

fingersplints wrote:To be fair, Boogs has also made it incredibly likely he will die soon as well. He has painted a large target on his back. As much attention as he is getting, baddies won't want to keep a possible info role in the game.

And I think Boogs is telling the truth. I have already pointed out that I think the curse maker is likely to be able to choose the curse based on the variety we have seen. Which you tried to discredit him by saying that we hadn't seen that curse before. In retrospect, you were one of the ones who pushed that it was weird such a low poster was cursed in the first place. Therefore, I think you knew he was cursed since your team probably did the cursing.

I would expect a civvie to be mad too, but your tone and responses don't read to me like a mad civvie.

That's a really interesting observation, splints...

I almost always read angry overreactions as a baddie move...it feels like Bullz is mad that he got found out, the whole "fake infodumping! and we're friendsies, too! Et tu Brute?" thing rings false to me.....but I'm not really sure how I feel about trusting Boogs, because I'm actually also weirded out by the "smiley curse" thing...

I sure would like to lynch that baddie Mongoose, though.... Does no one else see that she's bad?!

fingersplints wrote:votes can be changed though Canuck. He always could change his vote if the lynch switched to llama

Fair point.
And I'm actually on the same page as you, in that I think llama is bad (trusting God on this one......a phrase I have never uttered in my entire life before! , and I think once that's revealed, other people's alignments will be a lot more clear (I'm thinking specifically of Mongoose and Boogs, but other people might have others for whom knowing llama's alignment will help clarify or solidify what were previously gut reads or loose cases).
I'm going to vote llama now, with the usual caveat that I'm open to changing the vote if a truly compelling case comes up.

Hmmm......boogs voted for llama relatively early (at least in terms of vote order) on the SVS lynch, while there was still a very good chance that llama could be lynched, so I'm not so convinced of my own thought anymore.

linki!

I'm beginning to think the Boogs crazy is an attempt to draw attention away from llama, who barely avoided getting lynched vs. SVS, and who got a get-out-of-lynch-free card yesterday. Boogs may very well have info on Bullz (though I doubt it), but I think Boogs and llama are far more likely to be teamies than Bullz and llama....
I think I need to look at vote records to decided if this actually makes any realistic sense, but this is the impression I'm getting at the moment....

Odd. My initial guess is silence/force vote? But is that a combo we've seen in the game before?

Today I had planned to strongly consider a vote for llama (as per God's direction ) or ninjajujube....

Frown.


I am (obviously) very happy to see others considering voting Mongoose, since I would 100% not be surprised if she was on a baddie team with llama and/or ninja.
I've thought Mongoose was bad almost all game. I therefore don't think it will come as too much of a surprise that I'm prepared to vote for her now.

There is loads of time to change my vote I necessary, but I somehow think that I might be difficult to persuade on this one...

I do know what he said in his last two posts. He was re-thinking his suspicion of you, but then decided to vote for you anyways. I'm not sure how that indicates that he "read between the lines" to discover your role?
I'm not sure what you're trying to imply...

linki: Well, at least she wasn't a civ. Rest in neutrality, SVS.

Is this directed at me?
I did read his posts...

OK. I will poop in the SVS pot.

The room for obfuscation in her "I am an important role don't lynch me!" defense does not sit comfortably, especially since the person on whom she predicated that defense (Keterman) ended up voting for her, anyway....
Sorry if you're good, SVS.