Iz様 🌟

Good outs so far, all of them traitors who couldn't keep it together for many rounds, instantly becoming suspicious and banished at almost the first possible opportunities for each. I barely even count Ross as a Traitor given how little he did as one, and Freddie's game was just weak once recruited. Richard, Armani and Hugo all fit into the same kind of archetype that clearly loses (if you disregard Richard sabotaging himself more blatantly than the others, his game played about the same as Armani and Hugo or likely would have regardless), all were clear big personalities that production chose for some bombastic fun and very very quickly their standing out in the early stages and lack of subtlety did them in.

'Moonchild' or 'Don't Save Us From The Flames' or 'Teen Angst' or 'Farewell / Goodbye' would have been amazing to see at some point to say nothing of what 'Car Chase Terror!' would have done to everyone's minds <- delusional Before The Dawn Heals Us stan But going out with 'Lower Your Eyelids' was really some rotten luck, well played Chez; 'Outro' was a good choice and my top score for this round.

Commisserations to all the eliminated mentors, I know there are plenty here I'd have loved to hear more from (Tove Lo only getting 2 songs?!), and as a big M83 stan I know they had so many more great songs they could have used. Also knew that both Agnes and Leona had good chances of getting back in but I didn't count on Kate Bush getting knocked out and then straight back in with her classic, feel for them. Pretty decent acts getting back in but with good song choices from all so I'm happy on the round front.

as a loyal faithful looking for good game-playing here ~

I enjoyed this series, I think it was perfectly good and in fact in many areas better than Series 1 in terms of gameplay (which, for all the Alan moments was really quite genial and toothless in many areas), both Traitors and Faithful were quick to react to events and take into account past metas, but some slightly passive Traitors and easily confused Faithful mean it isn't qualitatively completely better. Which is a strength of the show, each game will be completely different. So this one had a few reluctant or outright awful Traitors, so what? Romesh and Sebastian are good winners, they weren't passengers being carried and they did seem to have a good sense of what was what about them. Bash winning especially feels nice as one of the lesser known names. Either Blunt or Sheen joining them could have happened in a slightly different world and either would have deserved it, but what will be will be. Kenny and Maya played good games but couldn't quite get themselves over the line with a couple of key errors, that seems pretty standard for some of these games.

I'm not sure what to even make of the 5 PMs you've sent me and also Satana is slumbering from this contest and doesn't know what's going on

Slightly ahead of the females for best round this time, voted in all 3 - but my top 2 here is incredible.

James A, you played a good game. I would also want to be a Faithful and would not want to lie, and playing it as he did until this moment was a great strategy. Of course once the heat turns on you, and with the weird editing, something happened there, it's not so easy, so respect. It may help the other Traitors but Maya especially has put a lot of suspicion on herself this episode, if she kills Michael as I think she will, she might stand a chance. Michael had a great episode of deducing, helped out by the remaining faithful to an extent - though Leigh-Anne doesn't seem to have a clue and could well be a patsy that Maya or Kenny (or both) uses to win. Not sure I can call how the final's going to go but I feel Kenny's in the strongest position.

Was hoping someone would mention the details of Montana, I thought it might be too obscure to put in the opening post but certainly a failure for the FPTP system. help also this is looking juicy like it seems many Democrats in the US, I remember too clearly like... every election recently in the US (bar 2022) and am trying not to get too excited. (I do ofc know Ossoff is already a senator, I was just skimming through that part of the post, pleased he's looking like getting another term)

Starting to get a bit of discussion in the general US thread and we're only a week away from the half-way point of the Trump 2 term, in which the US has elections for nearly every other position in their government. So if you're like me and have an intense interest in the provincial elections of a state on the other side of the planet to most of us (because like me, you're an election nerd), let's open up a topic to cover what could potentially lead to a crippling of the Trump administration's power, as well as get a good sense of where the US is heading after their, let's be honest, absolutely disastrous 2024. These elections consist of more than you'd think, you have all the state legislatures, several mayorships and important positions in each state. Possibly important for passing that State Popular Vote compact if the Democratic Party gets enough of them. But of course we're all expecting to read about a few things so... House of Representatives The US lower house, currently in near deadlock with a slight Republican majority (219-214), this is widely expected to go to the Democrats who will probably flip 20 or so seats on an average election night. Even that would give them a good command of the lower chamber and block the Trump agenda. Anywhere the Dems can expand the map would be good, though most of it will be in expected territory, watch out for more up-and-coming democratic socialists who seem to have emerged as a full on bloc of candidates - my example pick of one of the promising newbies this year is Melat Kiros who primaried an incumbent Democrat in Colorado's 1st. Governors Nationally not as important, but undertalked about as most states have a governorship race, in many cases running alongside an important Senate race, and governors always end up being important national political figures (if they weren't already). Hinojosa winning for the Democrats in Texas would be seismic (if what's happening in the Senate race wouldn't already be seismic), California's race looks as soulless as ever, Florida's Byron Donalds has been distancing himself from Trump in the nation's most red-trending (notable) state, meanwhile Ohio's Vivek Ramaswamy has imploded his campaign in the past week by putting out an ad using his opponent's estranged mother as an attack. Senate Races The big one. 2 years ago, most political commentators and election nerds didn't think there was much hope for the Democrats to take the Senate. Since then, the Democrats have done pretty much everything right, or is it more that the Republicans have done everything wrong. Anyway, there are a number of states that are in play that we didn't expect to be. Georgia and North Carolina would have been good consolation pickups on a bad year, but it looks like Jon Ossoff and Roy Cooper are sailing to victory in both. Minnesota should be fine with the likeable Peggy Flanagan (lt. governor of Walz), even if Minnesota Dems haven't had the best year, and same for New Hampshire. On the likely Republican side, the death of Lindsey Graham has left his underwhelming sister in post, though South Carolina is likely too Republican to be picked up, it could be on the best night. Promising independents in the Trump-friendly states of Idaho, Montana, South Dakota and most importantly, Nebraska, with Dan Osborn returning for another go after 2024, could be more slip-ups for the Republicans, though I'm not holding my breath for any of them. Also in a year where the Democrats are expected to do well, keep an eye out for even more races in the absolute best case, Florida or Mississippi maybe? Most important races: Maine: Susan Collins (R*) vs Troy Jackson (D)Democrats and left-wingers lost a controversial candidate, Graham Platner to scandal, although they managed to replace him pretty neatly with the still left-wing Troy Jackson. Susan Collins is a bit of a political survivor though, so this could go down to the wire. Iowa: Ashley Hinson (R) vs Josh Turek (D)Possibly the most likely bit of hope for the Republican side, Hinson is rather unique among Republican candidates in that she's not immediately terrible or scandal-ridden (still bad but in the electable-to-rural-America-and-you-can-posit-that-they-haven't-completely-lost-their-minds way), but we weren't really calling Iowa in play 2 years ago, let's hope it stays that way. Alaska: Mary Peltola (D) vs Dan Sullivan (R*) vs Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. (R)Fish queen 🐟 Mary Peltola and best Democrat in Alaska (she's a bit moderate but we accept that in a state like Alaska) returns after narrowly losing her House seat in 2024, as the only Democrat who could put Alaska in play for the Democrats. She's been helped by going up against an unpopular Republican senator who has amusingly had the bad misfortune to have another Dan Sullivan also put his name on the ballot. Even so, this is still a close race, but Peltola has form. I trust she'll make it through. Ohio: Sherrod Brown (D) vs Jon Husted (R*)Amazingly, the Democrats managed to convince veteran Brown, who lost his long-held seat in 2024, to run again in this race, which is only happening to fill out the final 2 years of JD Vance's 6 year term, now filled since 2024 by Jon Husted - a Republican who doesn't seem as dislikeable as Bernie Moreno, but still on Trump's side, the race is trending in Brown's favour and this could be a crucial one. Kansas: Adam Hamilton (D) vs Roger Marshall (R*)No one was calling Kansas, but the Democrats lucked out in yet another great recruitment of a candidate for a red state like this, a well-known local pastor who has registered with both parties before, but has switched to the Democrats and managed to get the race in play. The incumbent Republican, not used to running defence, hasn't responded very well and on a good night this could be an incredible pick-up for the Democrats. I don't quite believe just yet but it would be fun to see Kansas blue. Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs Mike Rogers (R)El-Sayed is by some distance my favourite of all the Senate candidates this year. A gifted orator and physician, not afraid to get a bit dirty with mud-slinging his opponents, and a campaign relentlessly centred on affordability and making things better for the average American despite the media's desperate attempts to make everything about his identity, I need him to win. Mike Rogers has form from his close campaign in 2024, but keeps tying himself to Trump, I hope and think that El-Sayed has this. Some commentators think that El-Sayed's leftist credentials will make him have a closer race, but I don't entirely buy that, because it means his skill at driving a message, which is light-years ahead of most Democrats, would count for nothing. If he wins, you could see more from him later on. Texas: Ken Paxton (R) vs James Talarico (D)The big one. Texas falling to a Democratic candidate would be existential for the Republicans, and we've been gifted the best circumstances possible - the Republicans ran a bruising primary in which they turfed out the incumbent Cornyn for scandal-ridden useless human (and former AG) Ken Paxton, because he was allied with Trump. The Democrats nominated soft-spoken but energetic Presbyterian (notice a theme?) James Talarico whose ideology is pretty solid and on rhetoric has been doing fantastic. Both sides have spent countless millions on this race, and it'll most likely serve as the centrepiece for these elections - can the Democratic Party take away what was the Republican stronghold and effectively repudiate Trumpism in the process? Send in your predictions. Who will win? Or how many seats will the Democrats get? What will this mean for America for the second half of the Trump term?

Budget out - mixed feelings. They've rowed back on the Cash ISA change, which isn't great as this means more risk-averse attitudes to saving. Decent work on cost of living and taxes to readjust and make things marginally fairer, happily not going gung-ho on defence despite Healey's previous resignation. Shrug budget but there seems to be more done than the ones under Starmer and Reeves and hopefully nothing too egregious that will have their opponents droning on for months afterwards?

Looks unexpectedly good for Netanyahu as his bloc seems to be ahead of Eisenkot's (less extreme path for Israel but still fundamentally status quo) at current count... High turnout and results for Arab Israelis who are probably very motivated to get this government out by any means necessary. Unfortunately only one Jewish party, The Democrats, what's left of the former Israeli Labor Party and the only Jewish party in their legislature I'd say has any claim at being left of centre, seems willing to work with them and they're only a minor part of Eisenkot's bloc. Probably deadlock with another election that'll favour Bibi more with lower turnout though. ~ on another note have been very amused by Flávio Bolsonaro's sudden turn into a fugitive from justice from the Brazilian government, this being the guy many in Brazil thought could be president a week ago.

I love the green. I have a few feelers out for something to finish off this year but not decided yet.

Lula won! I was not expecting to wake up to that today but it's quite a clear victory too. Great thing for Brazil, for progressive governments across the world and particularly important here for humanity because we need protection for the Amazon and Lula's government is probably far more likely to do that than asset stripping Bolsonaro. plus as usual the far-right are doing their usual sore loser song and dance about questioning the results and calling for it to be annulled, the more they do this the more unlikeable they come across, god. got quite a period of important elections around this time, Israel tomorrow (erm...)

congratulations Serbia, that's a big step forward. Maybe EU membership some day. also reading into the Student List makes me very optimistic about what they're proposing, hope it works out for them.

I think A to bring back the most popular x

If the Faithful pick up on which people were in the library, now with Jerry banished it points to others, we've seen in other series how people in a room at a specific time can become suspicious, though I think Kenny's done good with deflecting it to Bash and the bar and we don't know how much time that library conversation took up over the whole night, probably wasn't that much honestly. Starting to notice Michael's influence over the round table increasing, I love that he clearly made clear at the last one that if they weren't sure on who a traitor was, just get rid of an awful faithful like Jerry, which is an excellent strategy and one I'm surprised has taken this long to be acknowledged/verbalised (though production probably would avoid highlighting it). Still though, the Traitors are playing very well, especially James and Kenny, the former by just acting as a Faithful, the latter just being very switched on. Maya started well but I think she's showing some weak points and may crumble once people see through her social game. definitely feels like Romesh getting murdered here after getting 'confirmed' as a faithful, I think they'd want to point to Leigh-Anne as the last member of the hide-and-seek 4 and also allow the Miranda-Joanne j'accuses to go on for a bit.

still love that greenfroze won we've had so many good winners this year, also yas stats love them all I also note that I am almost as much of a semi-balancer as persephonia 😮 because I am fair and balanced and things

Not a fan of the 'error' found about this 'correct tie-break method' just because I had 'less voters' than those I drew with, ridiculous, I want my accountant to look into this. SAWREE you were all in that highly coveted rank of 16th-25th sorta nearly in my votes but not quite area

congratulations to nelly noir on a wonderfully hosted contest, will remember this one for a long time <3

let's assume all is correct congratulations freeze!!! wonderful winner and one I'm jawdropped (in a very good way) to see winning. excellent as it was my 15 and glad it was that way round (even if the order of my top 2 was correct I'd feel bad if you were one point off), also very well done to Terra as well for a fantastic hit in second.

oh my god that's the best top 2 out of the top 10 <33 either would be a brilliant winner but I wouldn't have thought either before tonight!

holy cmon greenfroze!

oh damn poor pav and bre too both good ones just missing the top 10

About what I expected given how the votes were shaping up, thank you all for supporting this beautiful entry, very happy with that <3