Literary UPICK || Town Edition

Sorry for not being around orz!!! Stress from personal stuff and work abound. Anyway, this phase I really have to trust myself and the things that I've... Well, the things that I've thing'd. So while there are arguments against Mariya that are super legitimate I'm going to have to vote: enteluchy.

my updated list:

confirmed town

high seraph, mortician
T3tsuya, revive/bomb
lulu, jailer
eleni, lightning rod/protection

everyone else

drandahl, doctor/bulletproof
Luxaria, question asker
chinomi, dreamer role
deo, split timelines once
Mr. Gerbear, self-reflect/investigative lynch save
Entelechy, can prevent certain players from acting/bulletproof
Ardonye, message sender

hmm thinking more about it now, i'm honestly torn on mariya... i agree with Tet about message senders usually being town-aligned roles and i'm still getting a town vibe from her posts but i feel like regardless of alignment, she's withholding something about her role. though if mariya isn't mafia........... Lux has cleared Gerry, chi, deo (and also Rasei) iirc... i guess i'm slightly suspicious of Lux now since she's been clearing people every phase now since claiming but the mafia chose to NK Rasei last night, but idk.

welp since our current ratio is 3M:9T:1N though, town is in a pretty good position

unvote; vote: Entelechy sorry i want the dog to live :c

every time i type entelechy i accidentally type entelecheia, darn you rche!!

T3tsuya wrote:

Lulu wrote:T3TSUYA was jailed.

Ardonye is a message sender. I'm not saying it's impossible for the message sender to be mafia. But I am saying it's a traditionally town aligned role, mafia doesn't gain a lot from lying about that, or even having that ability.

We have other options that hold a lot more water. We know a lot less or actually 0 things about certain people's roles and some of you are choosing to go for Ardonye who has made exhaustive lists and has a town aligned ability?

I only have a little time, because, as mentioned, I have family staying with me this weekend, and we are having dinner in a few minutes (stealing time while it cooks).

So, my assumptions are based on Lux and Chinomi being Town, and not lying to us.

Chinomi has said that one of myself, Dran, and Ardonye are mafia (assuming Ardonye is the second sunset. Read the second sunset and decide for yourself whether it seems to match up with Hyperbole and a half. To me, it really does). Dran claims to be the town protect, and no one has cc'd him.

Lux reports that one of the mafia has a message sending power. Ardonye admits to having a message sending power.

The theme of the Hyperbole and a half seems like something that would be blocking Chi's investigative power, assuming her book is Hardboilded Wonderland and the End of the World.

Honestly, all the evidence against Ardonye is circumstantial, but all the evidence against me is a vague feeling, as far as I can tell.

No one has presented any real evidence against me being mafia, that I can recall. Just vague claims of scumminess, so I can't really address them. Bring me something specific and I can talk about it.

Meanwhile, please look at my post history, and the spec I have contributed to this thread. I feel like I can stand behind my history with pride. Ardonye has made some great, helpful summery posts, but they haven't added as much new spec since the early days of the game.

Oh, and they did vote for Dran, which Plotstickers was also pushing, and didn't change their vote after Dran claimed doctor with no CC. Which is a truly minor point, they might easily have just not gotten back online that day, but I just noticed this now. He has voted for Town folks (which is excusable, we all make mistakes), or for the same people as now known mafia members a fair bit (he and ezzelin seems to have voted for similar people frequently, even if its not in the same phase. But, again, all that is circumstantial.

I don't have a strong case against him, but I have yet to see anyone make a stronger case against me (or anyone else) using any of the actual intel that we have.

Warning: If you're here for the hot topic of Entelechy vs Ardonye, skip this post. I'm just commenting on my thoughts on so many people starting to be suspicious of my claim / results.

eleni wrote:though if mariya isn't mafia........... Lux has cleared Gerry, chi, deo (and also Rasei) iirc... i guess i'm slightly suspicious of Lux now since she's been clearing people every phase now since claiming but the mafia chose to NK Rasei last night, but idk.

Mafia does this thing in every game where they never NK me under any circumstance. The last time I ever got NKed, it was in Call of the Night mafia... back in June or July or something.

I noticed right after I cleared Five that mafia NK'd her. I don't really believe that this is a coincidence. Then Rasei got NK'd, another player I cleared by means of the Blaire lynch question. Rasei has also said she was the stunner all game. At this stage with so many people effectively cleared, and Lulu being alive again (they probably weren't sure if she ressed with her old powers or would receive doctor protection, as both she and eleni have gotten it for a lot of the game), mafia runs the risk of having their NKs blocked between the two roleblocking effects. Killing Rasei takes out the stunner.

Until I actually nab a mafia with my role ability, there's arguable benefit in leaving me up for mafia. They can just kill the person or persons I clear, and my continued presence makes me look suspicious since so many people keep thinking I lied about my role power. I didn't. It's honestly extremely frustrating that people are starting to doubt me.

I've had lulu and Tet wanting to lynch me all game. Then people like Entelechy, who I believe is probably mafia, and even drandahl voiced doubts, as well as deo and now eleni. The only person that seemed to believe me without question was alcasync. And I understand how it looks from your perspectives. You arguably have no way of knowing if I'm telling the truth. I guess were I in your position, I would be suspicious too.

I suppose one other frustrating thing is that I feel I have been rather pro-town. There have been quite a few players that people were quick to jump on with lynches and/or suspicions, like deo, Five, Lucas, and even lulu early in the game. Each time I commented that I was reading them as town due to their personalities and other details, and then I would go and try and get them to talk or explain things, or suggest other people I felt comfortable lynching, who have turned out to be mafia. I have only even voted on mafia this game. I guess you could argue my early votes on plot and Sammiya didn't matter much considering the other trends in the thread, and they were more activity votes, and it might be a mafia planting that seed early on just in case. But... I don't know what else to tell you.

One final thing: I could have just as easily elected to not check for alignments and gone for mechanics questions. Instead I chose to check people that the thread wanted to lynch. Several of these people have now died and shown some of my results as accurate. I specifically used my power with the hope/intention to see if the probable lynches for the next phase (like Five and Gerry) were going to be mislynches or not. Instead, we lynched mafia those phases.

I should have checked Entelechy and Ardonye by now. The reason I have not is that each phase I analyze which players are likely to be lynch targets, and which players are receiving side-attention as "Well they might be mafia." I favor checking the latter because otherwise town will eventually lynch them to check their flip, when meanwhile I believe their story and don't want a mislynch. Meanwhile, I didn't check a player like ezzelin because it seemed probable that she would get lynched, meaning we get that flip anyway, and unlike the other options I didn't have clause to see her as town. I asked about Five because I believed her to be town since she could have told mafia her results on me right at the start and they'd put 2 + 2 together and kill me early. I believed Lucas to be town, so I checked the group including him that voted for Blaire, since people were wondering about it. I have acknowledged the one I'd be most likely to doubt in that group as possible miller (if it confounds my results) is chinomi, but that she feels like she does when she's town. I checked Gerry because I believed his side of the Gerry/plot ordeal and didn't like that the thread was swinging on him again. I chose deo because last phase and the day before, I noticed people continuously talking of wanting to lynch him--especially Tet, who is usually a dominant and guiding voice--and I didn't want someone I thought as 90% likely to be town as getting a lynch.

Though I know we have bigger fish to fry this phase, if in the future you're still doubting me and plan to lynch me at some point, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm going to fight it as hard as I can. I know this is incredibly defensive and maybe even unnecessary at this point in time, but I've just noticed a trend of people routinely saying off-handed comments about my claim for several days now. When I hard claimed, I paid extra care to see if anyone would try to spread doubt. It's extremely weird to me that the people that have done this are mostly ones I'm inclined to believe are town (through clears or otherwise). Either way, I just wanted to say this now since it seemed applicable.

Anyway, reviewing some things before I vote. Not going to do a tl;dr this time.

Unrelated

@ Lucas

You've been quiet for out-of-thread reasons. Have you returned any more mortician results in recent nights? I seem to recall you having at least several charges of it.

i

have completely forgotten to check this thread

i'm down to vote Entelechy. Idk, even if he's been busy, like... something's always seemed off to me since the day the threads split. But *shrug*, if Ardonye's only really a message sender there isn't harm in taking someone else out who could potentially have more power??

Although idk. I feel like the vote turned from Ardonye to Entelechy suspiciously quickly? IDK MAN

I'm kinda worried about this lynch too but tbqh i'm always scared to vote because someone is bound to read into it the way i didn't expect (which is totally fine i mean this is mafia)

Idk if it's the being busy thing but... for example, Entelechy not knowing what my book was when it's literally out there was really weird considering I literally outed myself overtly. If Entelechy's mafia... idk, shouldn't he have known? I've never been mafia on this forum but do y'all still have a mafia doc to communicate in, including a spec list? If that exists, it would be weird for Entelechy, if he is maf, to not have known the role I literally spelled out in the thread.

Except it may be a ruse

but that would be such a complex ruse

Vote: Ardonye i guess??

@ Lux I... actually only had 3 uses out of my role and I used them as quickly as I could because I didnt want to die before being able to do so (which was a stupid thing because I'm never going to be killed anyway, but that's a different issue). I managed to investigate nautilus, Blaire and plot, and now I'm essentially a vanilla player who sits in the thread with the dog when no one else is around and we make fun lists together?? ?

don't kill the dog

So after digging through Duck's posts about three times, I figured out why I kept thinking Duck had an information role. I believe in the midst of writing my hard-claim post, I misread some of what they said and interpreted it to mean they could glean insights about other people on certain nights and... anyway.

Looking at Duck's claim... I am struggling to believe it. I also have found a lot of things they've said to just be wrong or missing obvious information. I am not quite sure how to parse that. To me, that feels very clumsy and disorganized for a mafia to do, but I can't tell if they're honest mistakes or not.

Ardonye's claim also just... doesn't seem real. I get where people are coming from by saying a message sender is almost always town, but... is this actually a message sender? It seems like a woof woof sender that apparently conveys nothing else. None of these messages seemed to have useful information, and apparently there's no back-up information role to even provide that information. Meanwhile, why stop using it if it didn't matter in the first place? For example:

Ardonye wrote:The very first night (N0) I sent a message to Pan. My reasoning behind this was I thought Pan was less likely to be targeted for actions like NKs on the first night so my message would probably go through.

But if this message actually doesn't do anything, why was there a strategy into seeing if it'd get through to the target you wanted? Also, why does alcasync jailing you prevent you from sending a message to Pan and then performing another action, as you're implying?

Gah.

I wouldn't be surprised if both people up for lynch were mafia. I feel like there's a strong chance of it. I don't like how the votes have skewed around so much. Let's see...

Votes:

I guess at this point I'm the only one who hasn't voted?

One person I view as suspicious voted on the other person I view as suspicious.
Two people I view as town then voted on the first person I view as suspicious.
Then one person voted in typical fashion.
The second person I view as suspicious voted the other in defense.
One person I've trusted all game and got revived voted the first person I view as suspicious.
The person that always hates me voted the second person I view as suspicious.
One person I view as town and got revived voted for the second person I view as suspicious.
One person I view as town swapped his vote to the other person I view as suspicious.
One person I think is town voted for the second person I view as suspicious.
One person I view as town swapped his vote to the other person I view as suspicious.
One person I view as town voted for the first person I view as suspicious.

Something just doesn't add up. The only people I view as suspicious voted for each other. There are supposedly 3 mafia. We believe Mitsu's death was a town death, rather than mafia. We have no evidence that a mafia has died and flipped as town.

Excluding people obviously killed by the NK (unless someone redirected a NK onto the mafia miller, by chance), options would be... Mr. Alice, Mitsu, and... that's it, right? I didn't miss anyone? Everyone else that's been lynched has been mafia.

Mr. Alice seems to have been town. chinomi's results most likely point to her being the brightest sunset? I honestly am not in the mood to read through every book's summary to see if it matches the three descriptions. Maybe next phase.

This leaves Mitsu. But she communicated that there are three redirect roles, and she told the truth, and while we have no way of knowing...

So then mafia has to have exactly three left, right? But eleni and lulu both revived. Tet revived eleni. My results have cleared deo, Gerry, Lucas, and chinomi.* That literally only leaves Gerry and Ardonye, even if Mitsu were a concealed mafia. And the votes are weird.

Whatever, dude.

Vote: Entelechy since it doesn't matter what I vote at this point, and both are mafia in my eyes.

If I lose my trophy, oh well.

* The only thing that might be a thorn in my side is if any of these players were actually miller and my role detected them as their millered alignment. I feel like Gerry's is solid because I asked about a mechanic, and I can't see a mafia having a lynch save + information gaining ability that they'd use on themself?? But then again, why on earth does town have that kind of an ability. Gerry, is it literally any phase, or... It's a weird role. I still feel like Gerry's reactions were genuinely town.

So then Lucas--I had a good read on him all early game that felt town. chinomi feels like her town self, and deo and his role have felt town. I do feel like I saw a lot less of chinomi and Lucas the moment I said I viewed them as town, but also they had real life to deal with, so it might just be coincidence. And idfk dude. What if Blaire's really weird obscuring role obscured her alignment, too, but fuck dude we still saw it and we could interpret it / read it, unlike her other things, and nothing really suggests she was mafia unless I'm mistaken? Or maybe I should reread it.

whatever I'm done having a crisis when this phase is decided in terms of lynch anyway.

Luxaria wrote:Looking at Duck's claim... I am struggling to believe it. I also have found a lot of things they've said to just be wrong or missing obvious information. I am not quite sure how to parse that. To me, that feels very clumsy and disorganized for a mafia to do, but I can't tell if they're honest mistakes or not.

This is what's really throwing me off right now.

On one side of the arena, there's Duck, who has offered a very flimsy "kind-of-cop-but-not-really" claim and has been juggling several pieces of innacurate information around the thread. It this just a stalling tactic? An attempt to confuse the thread and mislead discussion? Is he genuinely confused? I honestly don't know, but it gets worse.

On the other side, there's Ardonye, who has been keeping a really close watch on game events, knowing exactly what's going on in this game, from what actions happened at which nights to how everyone has been voting all game long.

How are these two nerd losers* in the same goddamn mafia team? I mean, if their intent is to distance themselves from each other, it's definitely working on me, but what this seems like to me is that they're putting Duck (whose role is a complete mystery to us) in a very precarious situation, whereas Ardonye (whose role has been at least partially revealed to not be the most useful role in the game) gets to be pet and woof around a little more comfortably. This is both a really counterproductive approach, since it doesn't help their ratio at all, and kind of crazy because it feels extremely risky and weird???

This is why I can't fathom that both Duck and Mariya are mafia together at the same time simultaneously with each other???? How can Duck be so helpless about stuff like Gerry's book title, deo's role, the rollover crumpled quotes, lulu's jail, and even nautilus's role when Ardonye (a.k.a. [?] 1/3 of the mafia team) has been consistently putting together this great Literary Upick Wiki every phase? And I don't really want to get into the point of "why would nye go through the trouble" because I've seen mafia put together elaborate information dumps (it was probably Kiyoko in some of the older games. She definitely did it in Gakuen S1 anyway), but it's jUST... generally not a thing that mafia does unless they're really trying to go out of their way into forcing themselves to appear town, which is REALLY not the vibe I've been getting from mariya all game :'-(

* everyone in this game is a nerd loser. except for high seraph (me).








I don't think Ardonye is mafia at all ok.

I do think that Duck is mafia though, and I'm glad the lynch is slowly moving into his direction. I know that neither deo nor Gerry are likely to be mafia at this point either. This obviously means that I still suspect Lux and chi. I totally do. ANd I probably shouldn't and some of the people who I'm like 98,34% sure are town are definitely gonna kill myo kokoro and make me regret holding onto my personal convictions so strongly





im jus t gonna post this and go to slee p (but really im just gonna stay awake and wait for rollover tbh)

i heard my name

Self-censoring because my internet dropped out, and my post didn't go through until it was too late : (

We're never getting a ratio anymore are we