Buckle up, town, we're in for a doozy. It starts off pretty boring, but the biggest stuff starts to kick off at page 19. Without further ado, the results of my investigation into a guak-Espi investigation (comments and questions throughout, conclusion at end):
It all begins on page 3. The first thing where guak and Espi both get involved. Espi misunderstands guak asking Jeff not to do the annoying catchphrase, and Espi comes behind with "Actually guak, please let Jeff target me. I feel he might be one of the better people to convince I am a town." This was the point where Espi started his plan to get everyone to clear him, which has now failed. This quote in particular doesn't say much, but it's a starting point. This point factors into Balki's case against Espi on page 8.
They seem to ignore each other until page 6, where guak criticizes Espi's use of trust, which has been characteristic of his play even up to now. Espi blows this off and criticizes guak for having only joke participation up to now, to which guak replies "You are saying I am joking. I am not. Right now my vote being on bo makes as much sense as on anyone else because none of us has a clue of what we are doing." (As a side note, this is actually pretty interesting considering his strong defense of early joke posting some time later.)
Page 7: Espi is talking about how suspicious he is, and guak is one of the only people not coming in and questioning him.
Page 9: guak shows back up, and the only thing he says with any relation to Espi, who is the current biggest talking point right about now is "why are we even discussing a cop reveal. this is so stupid," which discussion had ended some time ago. It feels like guak is trying to seem relevant to something involving Espi without incriminating him.
Page 11: Espi posts reads with guak as slight scum because "not sure why he isn't posting as much as I am told he is fairly good, but others have explained this." At this point, quite a few people had said that guak had actually been posting more than normal, so I'm not sure this comment on him was particularly accurate. Sure, guak at that point hadn't contributed much, but he sure was talking. Yet, at the same time, neither of them seem to be putting pressure on each other. Espi put a question to guak in his giant wall of text that he was sure no one would read, but the question ("guak specifically mentions Jeff and phil in his posts, any reason in particular for that guak?") doesn't really bear relevance to anything.
Espi, why didn't you try to put any sort of actual pressure on your scum read at this point?
Page 13: There are now 3 cases against Espi, but guak gives no sort of acknowledgement to them. Instead, he pushes on SS for, in guak's eyes, advocating for no lynch. I think guak is trying to avoid incriminating Espi at the same time as not taking up his side to avoid drawing too much suspicion. And Espi still puts absolutely no pressure on guak, which by now you would assume him to do, right?
Page 14: guak says he won't post a "complete reads list," so he has an excuse to wait to take a side on Espi. He didn't say that last part himself, but the way he's been avoiding that discussion up to even this point makes me think. (He has, however, had toxic waste reactivity toward SS, DL, and bo.)
Page 17: Thanks to Jeff and a couple wagons starting around, this page is the first time guak and Espi acknowledge that one another exist. Espi says the following "Another thought as well, most of the evidence gathered so far has been on me, the votes on SS and guak don't have as much of a background. Why are the people voting for SS and guak on those 2 in particular when I have been the one most likely to be scum?" And the following is the first mention guak has made of Espi in over 10 pages (in the same post where he defends joke posting): "@Espi: dude I think you are most likely town but if you keep saying stupid things like 'I can make this into a no lynch' you are going to get yourself lynched." But this goes largely unexplained. And he maintains this stance even now. In the scenario I suspect, this is guak saying he doesn't want to incriminate Espi, but he is willing to bus him if he doesn't think he can be saved. Then guak gives Espi advice about when voting patterns show up.
Espi: Your last mention of guak by this point was saying he was scum in your reads list, so why were you suggesting to take votes off of guak? Wouldn't it be better for someone you said was scummy to have votes on them?
guak: At this point, what led you to believe Espi to be town?
Page 18: Espi criticizes slacker's vote on guak since it wasn't on him. But, honestly, we all want this to be explained. Espi is so taken aback, though, that he puts a vote on slacker.
Page 19: This one's kind of funny looking back. Both of the following are quotes of Espi, who up to now has pegged guak as scum and me as town, and has put 0 pressure on either of us: "Luckily for you all, I do not want a no lynch, so I will not try to vote a tie to spare myself. So Yoyo, guak, bo and Jeff. One of you has to shift their vote onto either me or guak (I suggest me unless you really think that guak is scum)" So he clearly is trying to encourage avoiding guak getting lynched here, and "@guak, I can shift my vote with you on Tr which makes Tr 3, and me and you 4, but what makes you dying a good info lynch, and what makes you feel that you can flip town today?" So he's criticizing the mere idea of lynching guak, but thinks it's fine to lynch me. Yup, no suspicion of me stated, no pressure on either of us, yet he's expressing the will to follow a former scum read to the ends of the earth and kill me, who has received no sort of suspicion from him even at this point. Also incriminating against him is the following: "@guak, if you end up being scum, I am going to hate trusting you so much right now." TRUST!!!! At the same time as using something he was heavily criticized for going with in the early game, he now uses it to kill someone he thinks is town, and he's distancing himself with the qualifier of guak flipping scum. And then guak tries to save his ass with "@Espi: do whatever you want, I am happy to die because when I flip town all these idiots voting for me will realize how dumb they have been. If I don't die today, I will be NK'd anyway, so it doesn't even matter as I won't be around long enough to help figure out this game. Only certain thing so far is that TrPrado has been the difference maker in my chase and is thus the most likely to flip scum in my opinion"
Espi: What in the hell is your performance on this page??
Page 20: guak posts his case against me, and Espi voices his hesitation to put a vote on me. In fact: "@BB I am really tempted to vote on Tr right now, A LOT OF THAT IS MY FOOLISHNESS IN WANTING TO BELIEVE IN GUAK. Do you think that this is a wise move on my part?" (Caps lock added for an addition of emphasis.) I think he is trying to follow his scummy heart but also not try to tie himself too heavily with a shared result of getting me killed. Espi is currently trying to state he had suspicion of me. Now would be the time to state it, but it seems like here his "suspicion" is because guak says it's there.
Page 21: guak town reads Espi, and Espi casts his vote on me, following the wagon.
guak: "New players drawing mafia usually thrust them directly into the center of attention (whether with scummy actions or good town play) because noobs relish the opportunity to manipulate others." The cases others have put up against Espi suggest he has been doing just that. Have you not read those cases? If not, why not?
Page 22: Espi tells bo about his trust of guak just before reading my criticism of continuing to use the word (and action, but still). And guak says "@bo: espi can't have been trained by his mafia buddies yet though, so that is part of why I think it is a strong town read. Obviously that can change in the long run, but from what I have seen so far there is no reason for him to be town." I don't think the inability to interact with Mafia buddies necessitates Espi being town, so I don't really understand this (last word in there I won't call a slip necessarily). Also, bo says the following which is never followed up on (perhaps to excuse staying on me?): "Espi, if you're genuinely worried about that, cast a real vote, justify it, and hope that the wagons stay where you think they should be."
Page 23: Balki's false scum slip, and guak immediately tries to get a wagon and get him killed, at a time when Espi is the most likely to get lynched. guak then says he will only vote for me or Balki. Espi suggests to guak that he might put his vote on guak to save himself (Why?), and guak says "@Espi: mafia is going to kill me tonight anyway." So Espi says he might put a vote on someone he has been following around for a reason he himself says might hurt town, and guak says he's fine with it. I seriously don't understand this interaction. This feels like a completely unexplained change in their relationship, or else it's just seriously weird. It's unorthodox for literally everything else they have been saying to or about one another, even after it occurs. Maybe they want to try disassociating? I have no clue. Can someone try to make sense of this? They also just about ignore each other immediately after this exchange occurs. I later ask him about it (on page 25), but his response is crap: "@Tr I think I know the strategy guak had, lurking in the background, trying not to attract a lot of attention and then when least expected, and near end game, coming out and shouting his suspicious of Tr."
Espi: Looking back at your excuse, it doesn't seem to have bearing. How does this apply?
Page 25: guak switches his vote back to me, and then he and Espi both follow ND onto Balki. So Espi is back in his old ways with what he has been doing with guak. But he just considered voting for him to save himself. So, when another viable wagon that was other than guak picked up, he chose to seize the opportunity.
Page 26: guak begins his schtick about how bad of a lynch Espi is. Espi also: "Right now I am going off of 3 people who independently feel BB is scum," so he went off of that trust shit again, which includes his ever-so-trusted guak.
Page 27: The following is a quote from guak to BB: "While if you flip town(doubt it will happen) then Espi's bandwagon vote becomes significantly more suspicious than the rest of the voters" As of yet, guak has actually not questioned Espi about it, and has maintained his belief that Espi is town. So he either didn't believe himself here or he was lying. Either way, he's going back on his word. BALKI LYNCH, NIGHT ONE
Page 28: When asked about the recently mentioned quote, he says that Espi is not as scummy as me or SS, then deflects further comment by talking about wishing BB had fake claimed cop.
Page 29: guak maintains that Espi would have been a terrible lynch (this comes after me asking about Espi buddying up to him). I suggest that the BB wagon existed to save Espi from lynch to which guak replies: "I did defend Espi repeatedly. I am not going to deny that. I think Espi was a very bad lynch." And then he goes further into victim-blaming Balki for not going with the fake cop claim.
Page 30: guak denies having connection to Espi and that either of them getting lynched would say anything about the other. This is immediately followed with Espi's distraction from that conversation with some bullshit and useless stuff regarding math and the manner in which cop should claim.
Page 32: Espi overplays his suspicion of me to excuse his trust of guak.
Page 36: guak talks about whose behavior for EOD he has suspicions about, and does not mention Espi and his bandwagon vote the way he did previously. Almost like he conveniently forgot about that. In fact, the only mention of Espi guak has is that he was disappointed in Balki's behavior in keeping suspicion on him (Espi).
Page 37: guak continues to deflect everyone off of Espi. He mentions that he still doesn't want an Espi lynch since he's the only one who believes in a town Espi, and all the information we would get out of Espi being scum is that his partners are bussing him.
Page 38: guak says that looking into the 4 on the BB wagon likely won't give us scum, but looking into the 7 that I had previously suggested were responsible had a pretty good chance. This expansion and moving the blame out of those 4 seems to be being used here to take pressure on a group that includes a person he's been protecting for several pages now: Espi. By now he has pretty much completely abandoned the notion that Espi's bandwagon vote needs to be looked at as suspicious, and he has avoided mentioning it at all costs. So why did you abandon that notion, guak?
CONCLUSION/TL;DR: I would say that guak and Espi have been outright avoiding incriminating each other for more than a couple minutes. They are excessively devoted to the notion that one another are town, and have gone to great lengths to protect one another. They have almost actively been trying to put distance from one another at certain times as well, ignoring some of the bigger issues earlier on when they included one another. They try to play us up by going and saying that they would be willing to go after one another and suspect one another, but in the end this falls through and they go back to supporting one another without explanation.
Comments and concerns?
Live and Let Live
no ingame message 10minutes deadline
)
)
)
)
)