Fun fact: I had actually considsered requesting a town role because I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to the game. I will admit I did some scummy things, but everything I said about activity, including everything I said surrounding the Day 1 non-switch to Miki, was 100% true and would have played out exactly that way were I town. (And PX, it was still seriously uncool to talk about how I wasn't around for most of the beginning of Day 2 in your vote on me since I had spent some of that absent time with my grandmother in physical rehab.)
So I promised this, for that it's relevant now. For the record, I really, genuinely did believe that Shadow4u was third party.
And on that note, while I'm thinking about it, I am well and truly floored to read through the mod QT and finding those in charge at least mildly surprised that the scum faction would chase third parties around after they were given a cop and a vig that couldn't be used on townies outside of desperation moves. (I guess this is what I get for forgetting my resolution to not join games where Pesco reviewed the setup after the equally-"enjoyable" Cavalier of the Abyss game.) If possible, I would like to hear from all three people involved in making or reviewing the setup as to why they thought they could give scum those roles and then expect scum to assume 10 town. Because, to be frank, as rage-inducing as CotA was, that's ultimately all it really was. It was a setup that was nigh-impossible to overcome, but at least I could see it coming and try to work around it (and almost did). I feel cheated by this game. I busted my ass paying attention to this game at work and during other commitments (for those that haven't read the Scum QT yet, the time I spent coaching Kanzaki through the Day 2 claim process, including calling Farina's bluff, was done in the middle of choir rehearsal - I literally had one eye on my music and one eye on my phone) and sacrificed a good deal of sleep and a shitton of free time to put my best effort forward. We were running out of time, but we had that light at the end of the tunnel. All we had to do was get to LYLO and I could shoot the right person...and then there was no right person all along and all the damage I had done to my sleep schedule, productivity at work, and rehearsal time for various musical commitments had all been for squat. I know games are supposed to be fun, and if I put in that amount of time but eventually lose on my own merits and faults, I can still have fun in that scenario. I lost this game because the game lied to me from start to finish. Not quite as fun to lose that way.
Anyway.
Why did I shoot Gasai?
For this to make sense, remember that I'm operating under the assumption that there has to be a third party, because why scum cop and dayvig that can't kill townies etc etc etc.
The first major point, which didn't occur to me at the time but really sunk in at work today while I was dwelling on it, was the highlighted votecount post. Four days, four "unknowns". Gasai looked, for all the world, like she was lining up the obvious lynches to get herself all the way to and through the final day safely. This was compounded by the Albarn clear, which looked like a incredibly lazy non-reason to clear someone and thus just an exceuse to match the number of unknowns to the number of available lynches.
The second major point comboed neatly with the first one; Gasai was trying to lead the game. Third parties do their best when they're active participants because they only have themselves to rely on, and as such they need to minimize the effect that dumb luck has on their playing status. Being an active participant like that gave Gasai a degree of control over the game.
From that realization, other lesser things set in. It occurred to me that, as much as I racked my brains for how it could work as a direct function of her role, I couldn't figure out why Shadow4u would claim the BlackRose role wurgle could have still happened with Town BlackRose. I also thought Kanzaki was obviously far scummier and I figured at least half of the Gasai sisters knew because K4U was scum in the game that spawned the video Kenshin linked to. She, above all else in this game, would have known what scum lurking really looked like. This led to me convincing myself that Gasai was knowingly getting rid of the townie at the end of Day 2.
And then there was Gasai using the Farina death against me so blatantly at the beginning of Day 3. In retrospect, had I know Day 3 was all Shadoweh, I might not have giving this as much thought because I think K4U would have been far less likely to bring it up even if she thought of it, but I didn't know who posted any given post aside from the one fuckup when K4U posted a thing with her actual forum account, and I fiugred they both had to be working together so K4U approved it. I know K4U knows very well the dangers of NK speculation, and I got the strong feeling Gasai bringing it up meant she knew it wasn't the intended kill and was just using it to jab at me. Which made her more likely to be the phantom omniredirector we had been worried about for a little bit.
Also the omnimiller claim was there and yeah.
As for other people, Albarn was completely out of my mind as a third party because who the fuck gets prodded that much and comes within 4 hours of a modkill as a third party. Irene both had good content and was greener than grass; she was obviously nervous and not entirely sure of herself, but was still giving it her all. If she was the third party, then kudos to her on a damn fine acting job. I don't think I can properly articulate why I didn't think it was Martin Ozzy or Busy (perhaps the latter I could say was because of how incredibly spastic Serela started being after Day 1; it didn't feel at all like a third party playstyle) but I didn't think it was either of them.
So Gasai it had to be. And we all saw how that worked out. I don't regret the decision in the slightest, though, and at least it made for an amusing read.
