On self-protection, yeah, it's unusual, but blame it on Cid never modding a game with a standard doc before. The PM didn't specify one way or the other, so I asked early on if I could self-protect. He said, essentially, "sure, why not?" and only realized on Night 2 why the answer is usually "not." He told me that by then he didn't want to change the rules in mid-game, especially when it would result in my immediate death.
And yes, it does place me out of suspicion, barring a counterclaim from Ryogo (which would announce to me that he's the scum), unless you have an explanation for how a town with one cop and the rest of the population vanilla can stop a kill.
Also, as for the "gloating," look closer at the post you referenced - I thought Alex was suspicious but was willing to go with LAL over my suspicions because my suspicions so rarely pan out. Didn't mean I was clearing him. After OK's flip, though, everything that looked bad about him jumping on OK looked even scummier. As a result, when I was thinking over my options last (game) night, Alex looked far, far,
far worse than either of you to me. But then he died, which means I can't screw up and get him mislynched. Seeing as left to my own devices I think it's likely I'd have lost the game for town, I think it's funny that the scum stopped me from doing it.
You knew he was around, you could've gotten him to vote Alex (yes, it would've been a bad call in retrospect, given Alex flipped town and all but we didn't know that at the time) as both of you kept on saying Alex looked the scummiest.
I could have? He didn't post until ten minutes to deadline and I didn't actually see it until later than that, because I was writing my own post at the time, looking over Alex's answers to the questions I'd asked by IM. When I did see his post he gave no indication that he was willing to switch, and I'd already said - repeatedly - that I was willing to support an OK lynch anyway, to the point of requesting a standing condition to switch if there was no hammer while I was gone. You'd rather I hope I can change somebody's mind in five minutes or less, risking No Lynch if it doesn't work (I'm assuming that Cid wouldn't switch my vote himself after I was back, which seems reasonable), than read through and assess Alex's answer to a direct question that I asked?
Yep, that's me. You said you'd be going over our posts, so how could you miss this part where I explain the reason for 'not posting again for the rest of the day'? And speaking of things being a toss up between who looks scummiest in that situation, you conveniently leave yourself out. You were around, you were posting... and you stayed on Excal.
I ddin't point out my own behavior because I'm not trying to decide whether I'm scum or not. I'll explain/defend against whatever you and Ryogo care to ask about, but it's enough of a headache deciding between the two of you without deciding which aspects of my behavior to defend unprompted. And yes, you said later you were preparing a post when hammer fell. So did Cranbud in the Discworld game (granted, it also happened to me that on the last day of Touhou). You didn't say anything beforehand and you can say whatever you want to afterward, so I'm not going to write it off entirely.
And speaking of defending myself, Day 2 and Excal. I've said what I was thinking. I didn't know who to trust between the pair of Keeshi and Tom, wanted to give her more time to build a paper trail, and I thought Excal had a higher chance to be scum than either of them. Obviously that last part was dead wrong, but I said as well that I supported lynching Tom over Keeshi (I was also considering that I could keep Keeshi from getting nightkilled - barring me getting roleblocked again, which seemed unlikely - and had I successfully protected her, I'd have had confirmation that she was town). If there had been a chance after the claim of Keeshi getting the noose instead I'd have switched my vote, but there wasn't.