I know Night is usually time for hush, but we're all dying now anyway, so I wanted to give my closing thoughts.

Town failed precisely because everyone who was Town thought Nutty was suspicious. Even confirmed Town players like Shauna and Freya were - at the very least - suspicious if not downright willing to vote for Nutty. Much of it predicated on the reasonable deduction that Nutty was behaving very suspiciously, never truly realising that behaviour and intention are two very different things. A few of the Town kept clinging to the belief that Nutty is new and therefore may not be total control of his behaviour (which is to be expected as a new player), but ultimately these thought barriers were broken down.

The problem then, is that Town were clearly being led down this appealing yet ultimately treacherous road. The only problem was there was little way in knowing what Mafia was holding the carrot. People who ended up being confirmed Town were the most eager to lynch FFNut, which resulted in people still cautious of lynching him to suspect them of being Mafia leading a flock of sheep to slaughter. That's partly behind the suspicion I had of Shauna, who was lynched on Day Two on a racing bandwagon with FFNut. It was mainly between them two in the end, and despite my flip-flop, I would've lynched a Town regardless, so my logic was off on both counts.

So who then, is Mafia? It's way too late now, but why not share some thoughts.

Aerith's Knight is an obvious candidate. He pitches in with a few quick votes, then fades into obscurity. While I do think a part of this is in work and life catching up, it don't think it is the sole reason. When he did vote, he rarely gave any exposition as to why besides one or two sentences. As I've mentioned previously, as Town, that's not helping the cause. There's something to be said for posting only when necessary and you can definitely over-post and make it hard for Town, but the opposite is also true. For Mafia, it has the advantage of being just visible, yet still influencing voting procedures. Day One vote was for myself, and I might as well openly declare a role and say I am Vanilla Town. It'll all get revealed tomorrow anyway if there's doubt. Funnily enough, AK said that Fynn was his bro after Fynn was watched but no fuss was kicked up, which is exactly what happened to me on the same day and AK didn't consider me a bro. Which just seems fairly contradictory. Day Two vote was for Shauna. That means nothing by themselves (I ended up voting for Town both days) but the lack of any attempt at real explanation is suspicious. For Shauna, that she claimed Vanilla Town is suspicious. I'm not sure why people don't read the OP in detail, because it clearly states for the possibility of there being more than one Vanilla Town. There's one definite, but other Townies could also be Vanilla. It is not suspicious for there to be two or (more unlikely) three Vanilla. I'd say two is most likely. This is also why I found Shauna and Nutty suspicious: they both ended up claiming Vanilla Town, resulting in three Vanilla. I just found that one scoop of Vanilla too high.

AK actually swapped vote twice, following the pattern Freya > Scruffy > Shauna. The reason for Scruffy is fairly flimsy, the reason for Freya even more so (she was covering for me, apparently). Given that I had a bandwagon on me Day One, it's risky for a Mafia partner to openly support another at risk of lynch. It'd implicate both. I can't even remember the reason stated for my vote on Day One, probably the s***s and giggles. Which is fair enough. Mafia is a fun game.

Who else? I'll mention Scruffy next because I find it notable that Aerith's Knight voted from Freya to Scruffington, then to Shauna. If they were partners in crime, that'd be a decent Mafia sandwich to dissuade attention. Vote carelessly, then vote for your partner, and then settle on an easy bandwagon (and there was two Town bandwagons on Day Two). It's an interesting theory, anyway. As for Scruffy himself, despite differences over game play, I have respect for Scruffy as a player of the game, but I can't help but be suspicious. He always seemed so sure of everything whenever he posted, which could just be a bluff, or it could be a Mafia certain of what to do. Nothing concrete, but that's Mafia. He did out Freya, our doctor, which is an astonishingly bad decision, made by someone so experienced in the game. Scruffy was also one of the less active contributors, but when he did contribute, it was very detailed and powerful. I question whether we were taken in too much by his flavour text insights. I guess we'll see. He wasn't suspicious enough for me to lynch.

Fynn is an odd one. Even by early standards, he voted for No Death incredibly fast in the game. Much of his conversation was in Day Two, about the flavour text. Honestly, a lot of this went over my head, so I can't give a good summary of the arguments ("he must be [x] because [y]!" "but if [y] is [x] then [z] makes no sense being [t]!"). Nothing jars, but then I can't shake this feeling about him. The fact that there's nothing settling either Cosmos or Chaos way is just unsettling. Forming no opinion over someone after a lot of discussion is... peculiar.

As for Fox, I'm less suspicious. Freya's post about us not being on the same Chaos team was evidence against Fox being Chaos. Assuming both of us were Chaos, he wouldn't bother investigating me. As Freya says: "If Fox is Cosmos, pushing for a town is bad after you know they're good, that's obvious.

If Fox is Chaos, pushing for a town after having your investigation somewhat public, is extremely bad for you. If we lynch formy, formy is town, fox is in a very very bad light."

This is probably the main reason why I don't suspect Fox much anymore. Even before then, he was always towards the middle/bottom of my red flags list. Put differently: I wouldn't be surprised if AK, Scruffy or (partly) Fynn was Mafia, but I'd be very impressed if Fox flipped Chaos.

Actually, having thought about it for the last time, I'm revising my list slightly:

Aerith's Knight
Scruffington = Fynn
Fox

If we made it another day, my vote order would probably be something like that also. I'd definitely advocate lynching AK, or at least discussing him at length. The problem for Day Two was, as soon as talk predicated on Shauna/Nutty, we were railroaded. Trying to introduce a new suspect would be difficult at best. And on Day Three, what was Shauna/Nutty became just the suspicious Nutty, so Day Three's main topic of talk solved itself. If AK is Mafia, it makes sense not even showing up for Day Three: just let the Town lynch the other Townie bandwagon. Why bother showing your face and be a talking point?

Well, there's my stream of consciousness. Guess I'll leave the Night phase alone now. Assuming the Mafia win on the dawn of Day Four, I must say it was a very enjoyable game, and congratulations to the Mafia, whoever you are!