[MAFIA WIN] Second Anniversary Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[HelloYellow17]

She took a shaky breath before responding.

"Lexx wasn't supposed to die last night. I can't tell you how exactly I know this without also saying what exactly I am, and if I say what I am, then that would put a target on me. But... to put it vaguely, I used my ability, and now Lexx is dead." She paused for a few moments. "I was only trying to help, but instead I- I got him killed."

[[ oh boy ]]

Wes stared at her and let those words sink in.

Meaning well, but still failing. Getting someone else killed because of your own foolish mistakes...living with that weight afterwards...carrying it wherever you go...

It was a suffocating, devastating kind of guilt, and even here in this strange reality, it haunted him.

And in that moment, he understood.

“It’s alright,” he said quietly. “You tried. Your heart was in the right place.”

But you still failed, a voice silently snickered. Wes held back a snarl and shoved the voice out of his head. This wasn’t about him and his past mistakes, not right now. This was about Chappie. And Chappie was innocent. He was certain of that now.

 

[Namohysip]

but are we sure anybody had that in the first place?

"That would, ultimately, be the gambit of falsely claiming bulletproof on the first day," Alexander pointed out. "The likelihood of there being no bulletproof individual at all, as opposed to the Mafia targeting the Bulletproof player." Alexander huffed. "Both are extremely slim. For the Mafia, if we assume... mrm... Let's say a quarter for now, so five of them. If five of them are Mafia, then that leaves fourteen as potential targets. A one-in-fourteen chance that the Mafia struck the Bulletproof player, Tefiren, to no control of their own.

"But the Mafia would not have considered that as something they can control or predict. Not on the first night, even if they have some kind of role-reading ability, as this was on their first night. When I am taking in your proposal, human... I am weighing the likelihood of these odds:

"One: The Mafia going for a kill--very likely--and accidentally striking the one Bulletproof player--One in thirteen to fifteen or so.

"Two: The Mafia doing no kill, or failing a kill in some other way--unlikely--and the Mafia also deciding that there is no bulletproof player, and THEN taking that risky gambit, which is also unlikely. In fact, the chance of there being no bulletproof player at all, in a game this large, strikes me as less than one-in-fourteen. There was a smaller game here previously." Alexander looked through the records in a tablet balanced in one of his head's jaws. "And in it, there was a bulletproof player. An irritating looking Cranidos. There is a very strong chance that this could happen again, as this plane has similar properties but even more participants.

"Between the two scenarios--unless there are more scenarios I am not considering--I think the first one is, technically, more likely." Alexander released the tablet for now, and it disappeared into nothing. "Feel free to contradict me, but I expect sound arguments. I won't entertain anything less."

 

[windskull]

While he waited for the arctozolt to talk, kyros turned back to the remainder of the group. "We can't discount the possibility that the arsonist was the cause of the other death, but there are other possibilities we need to consider as well. Like if our tyrunt friend was a bodyguard, as has been suggested. Though that wouldn't explain why they both died. The other two mentioned abilities seem far more likely." He paused. There, was, of course, another option. One that he was unfortunately a bit too familiar with. "Or, we could have a reckless, inexperienced vigilante on our hands."

[[To be clear, that's not a roleclaim, that's flavor. Kyros is quite literally a former vigilante.]]

He glanced at the quickly fading signs of a fight. "I suggest we be careful about going off of what little signs of a fight we have here. As we've seen, it doesn't take too long for the evidence to vanish."

[[In other words, I suggest we use caution when going off of the death flavor. There definitely may be hints, but there is more concrete evidence to be found.]]

[[Hmm. Is it impossible though? Couldn’t Mafia choose not to kill if they don’t want to? It’s unusual, but I’ve never heard of it being explicitly against the rules.

[[I'm too tired to really do a deep dive into theorycrafting about Mafia!elyvorg, but my understanding is that generally the mafia cannot choose not to kill, but there are games where it's allowed. The fall 2020 mafia here allowed the mafia to choose not to kill, but that was ran by a different GM]]

She took a shaky breath before responding.

"Lexx wasn't supposed to die last night. I can't tell you how exactly I know this without also saying what exactly I am, and if I say what I am, then that would put a target on me. But... to put it vaguely, I used my ability, and now Lexx is dead." She paused for a few moments. "I was only trying to help, but instead I- I got him killed."

Kyros wasn't good at this comforting stuff. He never had been. No it was... he was the one usually receiving the comfort. And yet he still had no clue how to make the luxio feel better. Maybe a distraction would help?

He approached, only getting close enough to let his whiskers barely brush Chappie's shoulder. Then he backed up. "Yesterday, shortly before darkness fell, you suggested that you had a feeling about Mewtwo. Is there any chance you can tell us more?"

[[This is basically just me asking for the logic behind the vote. Was it random? A gut feeling? Based on suspicions about Equita's playstyle?]]

 

[elyvorg]

[[(whoops guess whose sleep pattern is being ruined by mafia again)

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” Wes said. “If they can get one of their own to convince everyone they’re innocent and harmless, that would give them the upper hand in the long run, right?”

[[Hmm. Is it impossible though? Couldn’t Mafia choose not to kill if they don’t want to? It’s unusual, but I’ve never heard of it being explicitly against the rules.]]

There's an easy enough way to confirm that, since I'm pretty sure it got confirmed this way last game, too. Hey @Negrek : can you tell us if the mafia are allowed to skip a kill?

And even if they are... well, I could elaborate on why I'm pretty sure that skipping out on a kill in a (not remotely airtight, as evidenced by what's happening now) attempt to give one of their members street cred is really not at all worth it. But there's no need, because this whole question of whether the kill could or would have been skipped on purpose for this--]]

"That's not the point!" Tefiren insisted, staring at the funny-arm Human in frustration. "You just ignored all the rest of what I said, including the most important part! Weren't you listening to me? About the guessing game and how I was trying to use that to help! Do you really think I could have made all that up, if I wasn't what I said I was? Do you even get what that was for at all?"

[[Again, in the nicest way possible (please disregard Tefiren's tone), you are missing the point of my roleclaim. @Namohysip , too - while I appreciate that you're defending me, you're also making the issue seem like it's about something that's really secondary to the actual point here. I don't want people to get caught up in thinking this is all it's about, because then they'll miss the actual reason why it is extremely unlikely that I'm lying.

The question is not, "how likely is it that, after no kill on night 0, someone claiming that it happened because they were the bulletproof and they got shot is truthful or lying?", because that's not remotely the whole story. I did not just roleclaim.

The actual question is, "how likely is it that, after a no kill on night 0 (whatever the reason), a mafia decided to execute a gambit in which they softclaimed bulletproof-who-was-shot, asked everyone to guess their softclaim, and then explained that this was in an attempt to help town by using the information they (allegedly) had to try and get reads on how much of this (completely made-up!) information other players did or didn't know, all of which is really just a ruse to try and make themselves seem innocent, that they somehow managed to come up with in less than two IRL days, without having actually been in the position that would make some genuinely come up with this ridiculously elaborate gambit?"

I'll fully accept that my gambit was kind of convoluted and elaborate and didn't really achieve anything that concretely helpful. I'm not asking you to agree that it was good. But surely you've got to agree that it makes some level of sense that I might have come up with something like this in my situation. I found myself stripped of my power at the very beginning of the game, but I realised that for that one single day my power was relevant and gave me more information than anybody else as to what'd happened, so I tried desperately to figure out a way to make that fact somehow useful before I became nothing but a powerless vanilla townie. It's kind of a wild play that I even did this as an innocent, but the notion that I could have made all of that up from nothing purely for a mafia smokescreen is just so much more wildly implausible. No matter what other factors you're considering, the mafia!elyvorg scenario is ridiculously more unlikely than the innocent!elyvorg scenario, just because of this.

If someone wants to make a genuine argument that I'm mafia, they also need to genuinely argue that I could have made up this entire gambit out of thin air while not actually being bulletproof. I don't think it'd be reasonable for anyone to believe that. I'm not that good; I doubt you'd find anyone who is.

Like, I appreciate that maybe not everybody has the time to engage with every single argument and play that's being made in this thread, but if you're going to consider me as a suspect, you have to pay attention to what I've actually been doing. (Or, you know, what I claim I've been doing, in the hypothetical where I'm mafia.) If you just don't fully understand what my gambit was even trying to achieve - and, you know, I'm not going to blame you if you didn't - please go back and read my posts where I explain it, and I'll be happy to answer any more questions you have if you still don't get it. You need to understand this in order to understand why I even roleclaimed at all and why it is so nonsensical to assume that I could have made all of this up.

Just, please, HelloYellow. I think it's reasonably likely that you're innocent too and are genuinely trying to find something to latch onto, so if you are, please listen and try to understand where I'm coming from here. I don't want to wind up trying to lynch an innocent because they misguidedly tried to get me lynched in what I ended up reading as a mafia ploy. Innocents turning on each other is exactly what the mafia wants.

]]

 

[Seren]

Tefiren stared in puzzlement as the Human with the stick looked right at him and... thanked him? For telling her she was right about something that she'd been right about? That wasn't on him; that was on her, for being right that time. He'd just been pointing it out. There was no reason to thank him for that.

[[ Miyako and I were having some serious self-confidence issues after yesterday's events. Apparently brain games are not our strength. Tefiren helped alleviate that to a small extent. At least in-character, Miyako's thankful for having it be pointed out; even though it seemed at least to us to be obvious, we'd hadn't made much of an impact on progressive thoughts otherwise, so having someone else at least acknowledge and agree with what little contribution we were able to make was nice. It's a small gesture, but it lifted my spirits, at least. ]]

It's not optimal for an arsonist to kill someone this soon.]]

"The Mafia can only catch one person at night," Tefiren went on, feeling himself get more excited as he figured it all out. "But if two people were together, it'd be different. They could catch them both at once."

Miyako nodded at Tefiren, following along with the explanation. "Yes, obviously the arsonist couldn't have taken them both out. My thought was that, knowing that everyone was on alert for them from the get-go, they'd try to take out at least one person before n-4 when Nefari supposedly could counter them. Still, you're right, it would have made more sense to just get three targets - including Nefari - and ignite those ones on night 4. (Or, two targets and ignite them on n-3, since I assume by n-4 it would be too late to ignite, because Nefari could remove marks by that point... I wonder, does she have to know who's been primed in order to remove them? Because I don't know if there's a way to identify that.) My theory was admittedly based less on the optimal play for an arsonist and more on the idea that they'd want to get some use out of their ability before someone could counter it. The question of why they didn't just go for Nefari, though, if they were going to go for a single target, is baffling, since that would logically be the optimal choice - the one who can actually stop them. So that theory's out the window, now, too."

(Tefiren had never thought much about battling while being in this game, or in a long time at all. Were these Humans good at battling too? They were all so different - this one with him right now had her huge stick, a clever trick to fight with! Maybe they'd provide a fun and unpredictable challenge in a battle, not like most of the usual Pokémon back home on his island before he'd evolved that'd been easy to beat.)

[[ This would probably be very amusing. I dunno if you're at all familiar with Persona, but I know we're not familiar with Tefiren's species, so I'd be going into it relatively blind, anyway. Would be funny to see Tefiren's reaction to a giant half-human, half-phoenix suddenly bursting into existence behind the tiny human-with-a-stick! ]]

"Yet it doesn't seem there's so much as a grain of dust disturbed by the death of the human. How unusual. After failing to do anything at all last night, it seems odd that two died tonight... I would find it quite unexpected, but it's possible that the one psychically marking people for death decided they really needed to activate it tonight. Being psychically killed off in his sleep would explain why nothing around him was disturbed."

[[So, in theory Arsonist could've primed Chibi on N0 and ignited tonight. Personally, I don't think it's likely, because...]]

"It seems to me like that would be a mistake, though. They know there's one person who will soon gain the ability to stop them. They should be trying to dispose of that possibility before it rears its head. If they didn't mark Nicket tonight, that means the only way for them to dispose of her in time is to mark tonight, and kill tomorrow. It seems to easy to catch them in the act of doing that, or to prevent it. Why waste time activating a mark on a single person?"

[[Speaking of which... I really hope the Arsonist didn't mark DawningWinds tonight, if so we might be SOL. Seems likely, too. No inforole can see an Ignite action by investigating DW, since it's nontargeted, but if she's not primed yet it would catch them in the act. Otherwise... Unless one of you has a role that can prevent priming, we might just have to cross our finger and hope for the best.]]

"This is the angle I was mostly considering before the bodyguard/babysitter thing came up, for clarification. I had thought that maybe they just really feared Lexx [[ Chibi ]] and wanted to just get him gone right away, despite the sub-optimal play of a one-kill ignite... but as I clarified up above, that doesn't make sense, does it? Why go for Lexx - and only Lexx - when there's a "confirmed" fire-fighter upcoming, and there's still one night before their ability can even be used, meaning the arsonist can still prime someone tonight and get multiple kills, including Nefari? That's the one part that didn't make sense to me. With no logical answer to that in sight, the babysitter theory makes far more sense."

"Lexx wasn't supposed to die last night. I can't tell you how exactly I know this without also saying what exactly I am, and if I say what I am, then that would put a target on me. But... to put it vaguely, I used my ability, and now Lexx is dead." She paused for a few moments. "I was only trying to help, but instead I- I got him killed."

Miyako turned to the Luxio. She felt a little guilty about being blunt, especially since Chappie's vote lined up with her own original suspicions, but there were a few others offering comfort already - and her Mewtwo suspicions had been subdued for now. "So... what could Chappie be that would cause a death to be re-targeted to Lexx, if he weren't the original target? My assumption would be literally just one of those swapping roles [[bus driver/deflector/surely there are other possibilities?]]. But if that's what you're claiming happened... you kind of already did just put a target on your back by revealing that Lexx's death was inadvertently your fault. You've basically just confirmed that you're something they'd want to target, but without the useful part of telling anyone what that something is."

She looked back up at the group, hoping someone more experienced might enlighten her. "Would it make sense for Chappie to just roleclaim at this point and get it over with, or is there some reason she should still keep it quiet?" [[ To be clear, AbraPunk, I'd wait for an experienced reply before actually claiming, if you see this before anyone else replies for some reason. My knowledge is limited and someone else might actually have a reason for your role to stay hidden for now. I just can't see why personally. ]]

[[ To further the thoughts from Lusamine above; assuming that Chappie has a swapping role, it might make sense for her to use it tonight to try to swap Nefari with literally anyone else in the hopes of throwing off a potential priming... although, to be honest, what are the odds that the arsonist didn't target Nefari the moment she revealed their existence and her ability to stop it? It probably is too late, though at this point all we can do is hope, and try to screw with it, just in case. ]]

He shook these thoughts from his mind and answered Alexander. “It’s true that this claim could have been proven false if someone else had the bulletproof ability...but are we sure anybody had that in the first place?” He sighed. It was a wild theory, but he’d still felt the need to feel it out, nonetheless. “Maybe you’re right and I’m...crazy. Dunno. I’ve probably already lost my mind anyway, considering I’ve ended up here.” He gestured vaguely to their shapeless surroundings. “But you have to admit that the odds of the only bulletproof player—if there is one—being targeted on the first night are pretty slim.”

"I... disagree with this," Miyako turned next to the boy with the mechanical arm. "For reasons mostly already stated by Alexander, and yesterday by myself. Tefiren has shown in previous games he's capable of both clever tricks and strategies, so for a mafia on a n0 with literally no other information to go by except for prior experience, it quite significantly narrows down a list of possible threats based on that knowledge of how one has played before, thus greatly improving the odds for the mafia to target one of, say, five possible immediate threats, and just so happen to hit one who was bulletproof. And that's assuming that none of those five-or-so previous players are currently mafia themselves, because they'd all know that and it would narrow their target list even further.

"I do kind of see where you're coming from; We only really have Tefiren's word that he was targeted; if he were lying, someone could have counter-claimed by someone who actually had bulletproof, but we've already established why revealing you have bulletproof without having it activated yet is a bad idea, while also confirming Tefiren as mafia, or at least a liar, in the eyes of the real bulletproof player, assuming no duplicate roles.

"But I just... don't see it. For one thing, he's seemed genuine up to this point. Second, several people smarter than me have pointed out how risky of a gambit it would have been if he were lying. And third, there are ways to narrow down those first-night targets. Granted, there's a certain amount of luck involved in that Tefiren was granted bulletproof from the start, but once we were all brought together and abilities were granted, it isn't that unlikely that the mafia could have shot him blind."

 

[Seren]

[[ BLAAARGH I've been working on that post for over an hour and I'm ninja'd again by seconds!! ]]

 

[Inkedust]

[[FYI, DawningWinds clarified that Nefari doesn't get the ability N4. She gets the ability after 4 innocent deaths.]]

 

[Seren]

[[FYI, DawningWinds clarified that Nefari doesn't get the ability N4. She gets the ability after 4 innocent deaths.]]

[[ Oh for gods sake, you're right. I forgot about this. I mean, that still would have given them a couple more nights, assuming there was no reason for the arsonist would have expected two deaths today, so I still think it's unlikely that they actually used a one-kill ignite on a target that wasn't their counter-role. Now, though, everyone's on a shorter timer. Tonight is going to be interesting. ]]

 

[Inkedust]

In one smooth, frustrated motion, Altair leapt from his perch and onto the bowsprit. "We'll be figuring out nothing if we continue in this direction. Throwing accusations on the random suspect of the day isn't going to do you any favours, boy." he snapped at the youngster with the odd device on his arm. "There's applying pressure and then there's being baseless. I see no reason to doubt the grovyle's claim. Much like the nickit, it seems too bold a risk to take when it'd be easier—and safer—for them keep quiet and go straight for the kill. Especially if the target knows his way around a game or two." Altair continued to walk towards the very edge of his ship.

"As for the lass, I can't say for sure why you couldn't protect Lexx, especially with the limited information you gave us. There are just too many variables in a game like this but I'm certain that it came of no fault of your own. Someone must've interfered in one way or another," he sighed. "What we need to look at is the who, why and how. There's a case to be made for the two dying together but there's the very real possibility of this being a case of two separate kills, we can only guess. Whatever the case, both are gone and if we don't figure something out soon, more will soon to follow."

[[I'm pretty tired rn but I wanted to get in a small flavour post before I head to bed. Would've gone into a lot more detail into Yellow's claims but both elyvrog and Seren ended up ninja-ing me before I could finish pulling something together and I don't have much to go off on with Abra until she gives us more detail about her role and that's not a decision I can make for her but she seems pretty genuine to me so far, so I'll hold off a bit until more info come out.]]

 

[Namohysip]

Still, you're right, it would have made more sense to just get three targets - including Nefari - and ignite those ones on night 4.

"...Hm." Alexander glanced around. "It occurred to me that this deadline of 4 deaths--which the arsonist would surely attempt to ignite at that time--would not have even been known had the very first act of the first day not been... revealing said deadline. The arsonist could have gone on and been neutralized without this being known and without the arsonist potentially rushing to kill after four deaths. Revealing that without any hesitation has suddenly become... irritating."

 

[IFBench]

"Yesterday, you looked like you wanted to say something. What was it?"

"THIS IDIOT," Arctozolt said, glaring at its tail, "thought that the human who died last night was 'suspicious' because 'they were contradictory with themselves'. It's all just idiotic garbage, and it doesn't matter anymore anyways, since they're dead."

Shut up.

"Besides, I have something much better than whatever that idiot had to say," the creature said, smirking as best as a freezing electric dinosaur with a Lapras-like lower body could.

Don't say it yet-

"I think I know which group killed the human last night. And I think I know why they targeted them, to-"

The tail swept up, and smacked the head, hard, elicting a yelp.

If I could speak right now, I'd vote for you.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave scratched his chin, frowning. "Yeah. Something I've been thinking about Nefari's claim is that it was really fucking dumb to reveal it right out of the gate. Because she announced she doesn't actually get the ability until later, the arsonist knows exactly how to disable her before it ever happens. Usually if somebody's an arsonist they've got a tradeoff going, right? They need to take out the firefighter and have to worry about trying to identify them and get them out of the way, and that gives them an actual incentive to ignite early and douse fewer people overall. But if they learn exactly who the firefighter is, and that the firefighter isn't going to be able to do anything until later in the game, they know they're safe to do the optimal play until then. It makes everything easier for them.

"Which made me think..." Dave furrowed his brow. "Maybe it's not as impossible that the psychic marks are meaningful than I was figuring, because maybe the fucking board game gods figured no way would the firefighter actually make that info public. Even if it was just that they know this, arsonist's going to figure they know because they're a firefighter, and it still makes it easy for the arsonist to just douse and ignite them immediately. Still a long shot but it's been bugging me how specific that thing about the psychic marks is. I'm not sure I buy that Nefari'd be told it's psychic marks but whoever the arsonist is would be told it's something completely fucking different. What I was figuring was they'd just have some kinda bullshit psychic device or something, but if the fucking god-entities figured the info wasn't getting out, maybe they would let it indirectly hint at who it was." He peered at the Psychic-types for a moment.

"But at any rate that's not anything worth acting on right now." He let out a long sigh, rubbing his face. "Let's look at some of the other shit that's come up. Uh, I'm pretty sure Tefiren's whole galaxy plot is way too elaborate to be something any normal person would come up with if they were assigned mafia, but also that guy is so goddamn nuts for all I know it's something he would. The hider or babysitter theory sounds very likely to me for reasons. I figure the Luxio was trying to get around saying she's a swapper but now that it's been said, bit too late for that, so might as well spill exactly who she targeted. And..." He narrowed his eyes at Arctozolt. "What are you claiming exactly?"

 

[IFBench]

"I'm claiming that-" Arctozolt began, before their tail slapped them in the face, cutting them off mid-sentence.

"I'm saying-" The tail rose up and slapped the head again.

"I'm-" Another tail-slap.

"Will you-" And another.

"I'M VOTING FOR YOU!" Arctozolt screeched at their tail.

Vote: Arctozolt

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Lusamine mused over what the Luxio had claimed. "Hold on, if your actions led to Lexx being targeted, that... changes the odds of some of these possible causes significantly. If you led to Lexx being targeted, but not Tyrunt, they were probably separate."

[[If we assume Abra is correct in their conclusion that they redirected a kill onto Chibi, then I think it's very unlikely that this double kill was actually caused by a bodyguard/hider scenario. Assuming some sort of Bus Driver style redirection, that means Chibi couldn't have been a hider who hid behind Rascal. After all, in that case, it would be impossible for the kill the be redirected onto Chibi. It would have to be redirected onto Tetra to kill Chibi in the process. Also, if there is a Bus Driver, the only way for Bodyguard Tetra to target Chibi would be to target the second target and get redirected onto Chibi, then to have the Mafia target Tetra.]]

"I'M VOTING FOR YOU!" Arctozolt screeched at their tail.

Vote: Arctozolt

Lusamine considered trying to restrain that tail. However, it seemed the fish part had some kind of distributed mind that continued even with this mismatched head. If that was true, would it be wrong to take away the bottom half's only form of expression?

This creature felt like an absurd hypothetical in a shitty ethics course. To have them existing in front of her was ridiculous. She had to bite the inside of her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

 

[Negrek]

Hey @Negrek : can you tell us if the mafia are allowed to skip a kill?

They are.

 

[Dragonfree]

[[If we assume Abra is correct in their conclusion that they redirected a kill onto Chibi, then I think it's very unlikely that this double kill was actually caused by a bodyguard/hider scenario. Assuming some sort of Bus Driver style redirection, that means Chibi couldn't have been a hider who hid behind Rascal. After all, in that case, it would be impossible for the kill the be redirected onto Chibi. It would have to be redirected onto Tetra to kill Chibi in the process. Also, if there is a Bus Driver, the only way for Bodyguard Tetra to target Chibi would be to target the second target and get redirected onto Chibi, then to have the Mafia target Tetra.]]

"I mean, we have no guarantee the Luxio actually caused the kill here, beyond her assumption. Maybe the mafia just fucking targeted Rascal while Lexx hid behind her, end of, and the fact Lexx got targeted by a swap had nothing to do with it. But also, maybe Rascal was babysitting somebody else who was targeted by the mafia, and somebody swapped that person with Lexx, so both the mafia and the babysitting affected him instead. Kinda why we need to hear more about exactly what happened."

 

[Equitial]

[[Okay, I was originally going to go through the whole thread and talk about everything, but there are so many things and that isn't really feasible. So, I'm going to do like Elyvorg and break up my posts. Right now, I just want to go through some of the things I said yesterday. As mentioned, I didn't have time to read everything thoroughly, so there are some bits I want to correct/give more explanation to.

First of all, I read with actual comprehension the misunderstanding between Chibi/Elyvorg, and I'm pretty impressed with Elyvorg's reasoning about why this piqued her interest so much. I really like Elyvorg after all her plays, even if I raise some eyebrows at some of them. She's probably the person I think is most Town at this point.]]

From my notes, there's Seren, Flyg0n, Dragonfree, and maybe Namo but maybe he was just saying the Arsonist could be read as town. (Sorry, don't have much time to look over everything, so maybe someone can clarify.)

[[Actually, scratch Namo and Dragonfree from this list. After reading what Namo said again, it seems pretty clear that he was referring to the possibility that the Arsonist might not read as third-party, not that maybe the Arsonist was innocent.

"What concerns me is... ahem, smoking out the Arsonist, who may or may not have an easy alignment to discern. And according to the plane, it does not look like their kill action counts as interacting on that night. Instead, anybody with watching roles should instead note down all interactions to themselves, so if a mass death occurs... Well. Perhaps we would be able to find some pattern. If we're lucky, the Arsonist has their own third-party role to discern instead...

Also, as Dragonfree pointed out, her point was more going through possibilities as to how players could still be scum. This is something that she did a lot of during Day 1, including with herself:

There are a lot of reasons your thing or mine could fail, and me being jailed is only one of them. Maybe your line of thinking was that'd be likely if your action failed and so did mine, but then I told you mine didn't fail because it couldn't have, so that leaves zero evidence for a jailing on me specifically. And then, even if I was jailed specifically, that doesn't mean I was targeted by the mafia. Even if the jailer was the only way the mafia kill could be stopped, which it's clearly fucking not with this many people, it could just as well mean I'm mafia and that's why the kill didn't happen.

So yeah, and Flyg0n is dead now so... that leaves just Seren.
]]


[[
Now, expansions/corrections from my last-minute post. Firstly, completely scratch what I said about Wes's choice in vote.

The other because I feel like if you're going for an inactive join Windskull on Navar, y'know.

In my frantic skim, I missed that Arctozolt sussed Lexx. Since Chibi turned out to be innocent, perfectly reasonable.

For my part, I'm good enough keeping my vote on Miyato even if it's just nominal. I... I'm trying to see if it from others POV, but if inexperience it's borderline

Regarding Seren, when I was Mafia in my first game, I kinda tunnel-visioned on Namo, so to me that actually indicates sus behavior. I hear what others (who I think are prob Town) are saying, but my suspicion is definitely still there.
]]

85. Mewtwo neither confirms nor denies that they're the Arsonist.

[[pretend I wrote this Day 1]]

Actually, Mewtwo did deny being the Arsonist. When the Nickit first gave evidence there was such a person on this plane. Since apparently people are confused, let it be restated for the record: Mewtwo officially denies being either third-party or scum.

Though really, this is all pointless. Unfortunately, Mewtwo doubted any non-Townies would simply confess in the interests of cutting this migraine of a game short.

 

[Equitial]

Still, the only game on here (or anywhere) that I've played to make anyone see me as a decent town player is last year's. So whoever's idea it was to target me is almost certainly somebody who was either in last year's game themselves, or has read it. That, uh, admittedly doesn't narrow things down very much at all, especially as we don't know exactly who has and hasn't read last year's thread, and also because only one mafia member needs to be such a person for me to have been targeted. But, you know. It's something. It's at least making me less fond of getting caught up in the notion that all of the people who were prominently posting in the thread yesterday - which was by and large last game's participants, plus a few others, some of whom have indicated they've read the last game - are definitely innocent. I feel like there's likely to be at least one mafioso hiding somewhere among that group.

Mewtwo gave the Archopy a questioning look. For such a circling, paranoid thing, they were surprised he considered anyone safe. The designated villains of this game had the advantage of coordination and behind-the-scenes knowledge--even a town player as quick as Archopy could easily be hobbled by a lack of information.

Still, now Mewtwo considered Achropy's gambit in a new light. Though Mewtwo may question the usefulness of the actual results, they couldn't help but admire the thinking behind such a play. This creature demonstrated much out-of-the-box thinking.

Considering, Mewtwo let their thoughts wander as they drifted back to their den.

Perhaps they could appreciate a person such as this Pokemon.

[[As a reward for compelling town-play, Mewtwo affords Teifren one (1) respect.

As with Mewtwo, I'm kind of surprised you considered--even kind of half-hoped--that all of the active players were innocent. For me, it feels like there has to be at least some actively working to pull the wool over our eyes, yes?

I do, however, like the observation that Mafia may be more likely to be from last game. It's not that much--with ~5 Mafia I think it's actually likely there's at least one--but this observation continues to give me good vibes.

Oh, this had been discussed enough, but to reiterate I like Elyvorg's roleclaim. Especially since in my last two game there were two Bulletproof--one innocent and one scum--Bulletproof is a dangerous scumclaim to make.]]

 

[Equitial]

Two kills. Some players supposed one was from the Arsonist, but shouldn't the Arsonist leave clear trace of fire? From what Mewtwo had gleaned of this realm, it should be obvious if such an foe was responsible.

Mewtwo had other vague, half-formed theories. But, for now, what seemed more useful was the information two Pokemon claimed to have about the events of last night.

First, the two-minded Pokemon, Arctozolt. Mewtwo didn't bother to conceal that Arctozolt's actions irritated him--going back and forth, hinting on the edge of useful information without giving it, lack of pertinent help the previous day. Mewtwo narrowed his eyes. For their own sake, Arctozolt better hope their knowledge was good when they revealed it. Otherwise, Mewtwo and other players may have reason to remove them from the game.

Then there was Luxio, who at least was more forthcoming, if not all the way. Mewtwo swung their tail, trying to sort through the possibilities of the hint of info Luxio provided. At this point, Mewtwo couldn't see any disadvantage in Luxio revealing all that he knew. The creature had already painted a target on their back, and Mewtwo didn't believe any information could help Mafia more than Town. After all, as Archopy had pointed out, the Mafia had more knowledge of what had happened at night.

"And Mewtwo. I'm sorry for jumping down your throat yesterday. I guess I'm more afraid of you than I realized and was seeing you as a villain for that. You've got advocates, so for now, that's good enough for me. That's... all I've got to say for now."

Instinctively, Mewtwo twisted on the roof of their den. Yes, humans should be afraid, was their first thought. Mewtwo hoped this human didn't think a simple "sorry" would make them turn their suspicisions from her. As if Mewtwo would ever trust

But, after a lack of retaliation, after general attention turned to other matters, Mewtwo couldn't help turning their thoughts back to what the human had said. As if an apology was supposed to disarm Mewtwo, especially against a human. However, species wouldn't determine who was designated the enemy here. Mewtwo did not trust this human--but they couldn't trust any Pokemon either.

Mewtwo hesitated, rose into the air, and then attracted Miyasato's attention with a nudge of telepathy. They reiterated their thoughts from before, and stressed again that they didn't trust any apology, especially after everyone else had made it clear her efforts to have Mewtwo removed wouldn't go far. However, to the human's favor, she also had advocates. And at this moment, they all had bigger issues at hand.

For now, Mewtwo would turn their ire from Miyasato, but she better guard herself carefully. Mewtwo still far from trusted her.


[[
I think I got most of what I wanted to say IIC, other than that I don't think we should put much value into flavor, especially what Negrek writes. Also, oh god, oh no, not Bus Drivers again. I am having flashbacks to the last anniversary, swaps hurt my head so much, owwwwww
]]

 

[AbraPunk]

"Yesterday, shortly before darkness fell, you suggested that you had a feeling about Mewtwo. Is there any chance you can tell us more?"

"Well, it's just the fact that Mewtwo was being so weirdly aggressive right at the beginning of day one. I mean, maybe that's just... how he is, but it didn't sit right with me."

[[This is basically just me asking for the logic behind the vote. Was it random? A gut feeling? Based on suspicions about Equita's playstyle?]]

[[ basically what Chappie said. Hyper-aggressiveness like that just doesn't go well with me, at least not so early in the game. ]]

I figure the Luxio was trying to get around saying she's a swapper but now that it's been said, bit too late for that, so might as well spill exactly who she targeted.

"Alright, if you say so. I swapped Lexx and Spark, since I thought nobody would be targeting either of them... you can see how well that went. But now, my question is: Why Spark? Who would possibly be targeting her, and why?"

[[If we assume Abra is correct in their conclusion that they redirected a kill onto Chibi, then I think it's very unlikely that this double kill was actually caused by a bodyguard/hider scenario. Assuming some sort of Bus Driver style redirection, that means Chibi couldn't have been a hider who hid behind Rascal.

[[ I'm not 100% on that the swapping even played a big part in any of this, but regardless, it did happen, and Chibi did end up getting killed. ]]

"I mean, we have no guarantee the Luxio actually caused the kill here, beyond her assumption. Maybe the mafia just fucking targeted Rascal while Lexx hid behind her, end of, and the fact Lexx got targeted by a swap had nothing to do with it. But also, maybe Rascal was babysitting somebody else who was targeted by the mafia, and somebody swapped that person with Lexx, so both the mafia and the babysitting affected him instead. Kinda why we need to hear more about exactly what happened."

"I've already said what I did. Maybe there's another swapper somewhere who messed with others, but for now, I believe that the Mafia were going for Spark originally-- again, I don't know why-- and instead killed Lexx. And as of right now, i can't really say anything about Rascal, because I just don't know anything of what happened there."