Alright still waiting for fog and catgirl but we're running out of time and people have been offline a lot in the last couple days so I'm scared of leaving it too late and so I'm gonna take a big risk and hope I'm right that both fog and cat are town and not wait for their opinions
So the reason why I asked everybody to tell me who they preferred to lynch out of TWG and molten and made it clear that this was everyone's opportunity to have their say in how the day went was a little more than what I let on
Something started bothering me yesterday when choco asked me for my opinion on fog, because I realized that at the start of the day, fog was on several people's suspect list. Suddenly he's completely dropped off everybody's map and molten/TWG have replaced him in the spotlight. Ever since these two have been under heat, nobody has made any real attempt at pushing suspicion back over to foggy, who, judging by people's opinions of him earlier, if he's town, would have been a nice distraction lynch for the mafia to save their buddies if TWG and molten were their other two partners. That made me come to a few tentative conclusions.
1) If both TWG and molten turn out to be mafia, I'm gonna bet foggy is their last partner. If fog is town and molten/TWG are 2/3 mafia in serious trouble, I'd expect to see at least some attempt from somebody to direct attention back onto foggy to save at least one of their partners in future by keeping fog on the radar, and get another mislynch in there. The only person who keeps mentioning foggy is UNU but he's making no attempt to push it at all. Since what I expected hasn't happened, if both TWG and molten are mafia, I think that probably means foggy is the third partner and that's why there was no attempt to push him back into the spotlight.
It's also possible the mafia just don't feel brave enough to try to push onto foggy or they're wanting to let their partners die of course, but if we do end up lynching molten and TWG and they're both mafia and I'm dead, I suggest looking into foggy next, because I'd call it at least 70% likely that fog is the third partner in this scenario, just because I really think we'd have seen at least some attempt to put suspicion onto a town foggy if two mafia buddies were in this kind of danger.
However with that being said, personally I think this scenario is unlikely, because I townread fog and I think if both TWG and molten were mafia buddies, they'd be pushing on each other by now. If they're partners and one of them isn't trying to make use out of the situation to make one of them seem town after the other is most likely lynched, I'd be surprised. It's possible it's just a sort of awkward situation where molten wants to push on TWG for credit but TWG is reluctant to but it doesn't feel that way to me so I just don't think it's likely that they're partners.
In the event that they're not partners, and instead only one of them is mafia (which I think is likely just because almost the entirety of town seem to agree they're suspicious and I have enough faith in people's reads to think we're not *completely* wrong here), I'd expect the mafia to to either a) go hard on their partner for credit, or b) try to subtly save them by suggesting that the other of the pair should be lynched instead whilst trying not to take responsibility for the mislynch that they're trying to make happen. And this was the main purpose of the question I asked, to get a feel for who might be compatible with this. I thought mafia would fall into one of these two categories since doing anything in between just seems unproductive and a waste in my eyes - if a partner is going down, I'd expect the team to either try to save them or try to bus them, not stay on the fence and get nothing done. But bear in mind it is possible they did do that of course, I just think it's fairly unlikely.
First, nobody is strongly gunning for either TWG or molten specifically. Everyone is either unsure, slightly preferring one over the other, or preferring one but not wanting them lynched either and not pushing for it. So nobody fits a) in my opinion.
For b), these people are compatible with this:
Alisha - slightly prefers a molten lynch
Tim - prefers a molten lynch but isn't sure why
UNU - prefers a molten lynch but doesn't particularly want that either
Shadow - prefers a molten lynch
I guess for non-bias purposes I'll put myself down too: Inf - prefers TWG lynch
Everyone else is:
cat - not answered yet but earlier seemed fine with both
Fog - not answered yet either, was suspicious of TWG on Sunday but didn't post any reads since then
Choco - wants whatever me and tim agree on
Out of the list of compatible people, I'm gonna personally rank them for what I'd say is the likelihood they're mafia
5) me obviously
4) Tim - I trust his claim so he's most likely town one-shot vigilante
3) Shadow - my intuition says he's town still
2) Alisha - I'm not really feeling alisha as scum anymore but out of the 4 I'd put her here
1) UNU
And the reason I think UNU is most likely is mostly because the fact that he's so indirectly pushing for a molten lynch via strongly townreading weak and saying he's against his lynch, without actually getting involved in the molten lynch and making it clear he's not a preference, seems like a perfect plan if he were mafia to me. It'd give him a chance to subtly save his mafia buddy (who I believe to be TWG, and I'll go into that in a bit more detail soon too) without actually participating in the molten lynch which in this scenario is a mislynch so he avoids as much scrutiny the next day. It's a win-win scenario for him. I'm not saying that because what he's doing is such a perfect thing for mafia to do means he's mafia, because he could easily do it as town, but out of everyone I think the way he's going about the lynch is the most compatible with what I'd expect mafia to do because if one of these 4 people have to be mafia, out of each scenario where one is mafia, he's gaining the most from what he's doing. So if I have to guess from these 4 people, it'd be him. And then I also have just mild intuition that accompany this reason, so it just makes sense to me.
Another thing you'll notice when looking at these 4 (5 including me) 'compatible' people is that every single one of them except for me prefer a molten lynch. If one of TWG and molten are mafia, and the partners are making any attempt to sway the lynch in their favour at all, this means from my perspective molten is looking like a mislynch, and from yours, unless you think I'm mafia, molten should also be looking like a mislynch.
(I think this may be what set off my intuition earlier about molten being a mislynch, like I picked up on this pattern subconsciously or something but I have no idea and that could be a load of nonsense)
So yeah that's what I wanted to say.
Obviously there are alternate explanations for what's happening here and I'm not suggesting that molten is definitely town and TWG should die, it's just something I think everyone should at least consider, since personally I think the above scenario is at least fairly likely.
So with that I'm going to
Vote TWG
And if I am right about TWG then I'm going to suggest going after UNU next. After that I'm not sure.
Hopefully I didn't jump the gun too early on posting this, it was a trade-off between getting people to answer the question but leaving enough time for people to switch votes if they agreed with me
Also TWG to respond to your responses to me, all I have to say really is 'fair enough', but I still just don't believe you're town based on the previous points I made. You've done a good job of sounding town in some of your posts and becoming really agreeable in the last 24 or so hours but for me it's just not enough to sway me. Sorry if I'm just tunnel visioning on you and am completely wrong though