Oh god, I knew I should have gathered myself together and made a post last night. Monster post now.
I basically agree with qva's hunches on who's town and who's not, though I have some quibbles. Biggest is that her analysis on myself is off-base:
equitia. not strong feelings here, but their posts feel pretty well put-together and thought-out to me, so i really want to townlean them just for that. however, they did vote for dw, and it seems to me like equitia is a somewhat experienced mafia player, which means they're well-equipped to pull the wool over our eyes if they are scum after all. overall i have mixed feelings, none of them particularly strong, so they go in the null pile.
1: I never voted for DawningWinds. I once briefly expressed suspicion of DawningWinds over Sike because I was originally confused about how swaps worked and thought Espeon implicated either DW or Sike. I voted for Namo and only Namo. (I also want to point out that I wasn't online for the great last-minute lynch bandwagon, so I didn't have a chance to change my vote.)
2: The last and only other Mafia game I've ever played was eight-ish years ago, when I was 13/14, and I was lynched the first day. My preparation for this game was reading through this forum's previous thread several times and a few hours of general research. I'm flattered that you thought otherwise, though, so thanks xD
My personal most likely to be scum as of right now, in vague order:
Namo -- I've already gone on about him so I won't restate. I'm even less sure of my convictions about him though. Partly because it's been pointed out that the known mafia started the train on Namo, and partly because I'm questioning my subconscious motives for zeroing in on him. Previously I said of Namo --
If we lynch and he turns out guilty, there's probably a roleblocker, which could explain Espeon not seeing Sike.
-- and Elvyorg pointed out that my "probably" wasn't necessarily true, rightfully so. During the night I started wondering if I was so strongly suspicious of Namo because of my gut feeling Sike was innocent. "Sike feels innocent, therefore she must have been roleblocked... wait, Namo offered that suggestion that would help a roleblocker, a roleblocker who could have targeted Sike!" when... there just could have been a roleblocker who blocker Sike, regardless of what Namo said. I still defend my decision to vote for him because he was my biggest scumread, and I still feel like my arguments against him have merit, but yeah. Either way I'm inclined to let him go tonight. If two people die tonight, we have evidence he's innocent. The only con to this is that he
could be a a mafia with a good role he gets to use another day, but I don't think that's a good reason when we have other targets.
NonAnalogue -- Someone else stated it, but in the last game she was more active and strategized more; in this game she's said little of impact. Of course, this could be due to irl things I wouldn't want to force her to explain. She's also not the only one acting differently -- Dragonfree isn't saying as much -- and I don't think she's more likely to be guilty (or innocent. ah). However, right now NonAnalogue's the closest we have to an inactive barring Espeon.
DawningWind -- Okay, their actions baffle me. Elyvorg's suspicions of their motives makes sense and I agree with a lot of her reasoning, but... I'm not sure.
This bizarrely threatening post promising to "look into" everyone (well, nearly everyone; they apparently overlooked me) who'd been advocating no-lynch on day 1, as if only they could possibly be mafia. Everyone else, despite their differing opinions on the best approach, had generally agreed that there are valid reasons for either side of that debate and that being on one side or the other did not inherently mean someone was more or less likely to be scum. Except DW. Something about that lack of acknowledgement of the rest of the discussion we'd been having struck me as odd and made me begin to side-eye them.
The way they brazenly said they were trying to get Chibi killed with their swap N1, because they were apparently
so sure Chibi was mafia after Chibi had advocated no-lynch the day before. No regret expressed over having been wrong about Chibi and way too hasty to judge based on almost nothing. No surprise expressed over having been
right that the mafia shot at qva. Just a callous "yeah I wanted Chibi dead and now they are". This was such an incredibly anti-town attitude and demeanour that if it wasn't for the fact that circumstances made their claim look completely legit at the time, I would have been all over them with suspicion for it. Tefiren sure as hell wanted to be.
I agree that these moves are suspicious and ill-thought out, but I don't think they necessarily make DW mafia. Like, switching qva and Chibi I think was definitely a bad play. Sure, you think the mafia'll go for qva, but why aim them at Chibi? They said nothing to implicate themself and there were plenty of other, safer choices. However, because of the list we can also see that they're really, almost blindingly, pro-lynch. If they saw Chibi as a leader of that movement? Again, bad decisions, but I could see DW making them.
(Of course, swapping qva and Chibi could potentially be a good move if you're a mafia bus driver. Maybe makes a lot of sense if you're not innocent.)
The weirdest thing about them is that they insist we'll get so much info if they're lynched. If they're town, we'll... think it more likely that qva is innocent? Pretty much only Tanuki thinks she's scummy right now. The only other possibility I can think of why they're doing this if they're innocent is because they're just tired of playing. But, they can just go inactive rather than stay in, regularly advocating for their own lynch. This
is bizarre and suspicious.
More minor:
If they're mafia, then we have absolutely no reason to believe they're a bus driver at all. If they're mafia then the most likely scenario is that what Espeon saw was DW killing Chibi.
I mentioned at one point yesterday that having a mafia bus driver would be kind of overpowered in this setup, since they could use that to get their kills in through heals even without needing to use a strongman, so it'd kind of defeat the point of the strongman even being there.
I strong disagree that if they're mafia we have no reason to believe they're a bus driver. They made their claim
before they knew Espeon saw them on Chibi. So to make that claim and for that claim to clear them would be extraordinarily lucky.
The assumption that there's a mafia strongman also confuses me. It was discussed, but I thought we all decided there was no evidence of that?
Tanuki -- ...Basically this entire game I've been flipping between "He's innocent! and "He's mafia!" and each time that's happened I was sure I finally figured him out. Then after his trying to target himself in the day I decided to just... not have opinions on him. Then he threw doubt on qva, Sike, and DW and just ahhhhhh
I don't know. His throwing suspicion on qva in particular is weird. And his excuse for why he tried to protect himself
in the the middle of the day is utterly bizarre --
I wanted the mafia to think they'd have to use a power role against me to get me. I knew from the wording of Negrek's message that I couldn't use it on myself anyway, but I also knew that the mafia wasn't privy to such info. At least, until you told them, assuming you are a protector. I was hoping to throw them off since I made myself at least some kind of priority target by roleclaiming.
Even if Sike hadn't said about healers being unable to protect themselves, why would you assume that you saying this would make them use their hypothetical strongman against you? This is a very weak explanation. I still don't know whether to think he was actually the healer backup or not, but that doesn't explain why he tried to perform his action instead of just stating he would do it. I don't know.
It also assumes the mafia have the ability to communicate outside the thread, which I don't know if they can. yes I'm subtly asserting I'm town, shut your fuck
A point for Tanuki being town is this bit because yes the mafia definitely can.
In conclusion, I'm not ready to choose who to vote for yet, but it would be either Tanuki or DawningWinds. They both confuse me.