Seeing this in the light of day, I can't believe just how screwed we were. I was already planning my victory dance for making town win a game at last! "We have this in the bag" I thought. "It's a sure thing", I thought... but no. We were utterly screwed. And Pandar, sorry, but it was your fault (partly, I screwed up too, but mostly you).
a) As IronyOwl said, you became what you most despised. You not just buddied scum, you shielded, screened, defended and chainsaw defended scum, unapologetically. Point me to one attack you did on Toony. One probing question. One hint of mistrust. There are none. You overtunneled again, on me, eliminating all other possible considerations; your only other passing thought was to mark Archie as my scumbuddy for no reason whatsoever, other than his pressing Toony to answer my questions.
b) Archangel was innocent. We were pushing him to hammer one of two townies, and would have yelled at him for stalling the game if he hadn't. And as we've seen, whoever he hammered would have vengekilled the other. Same result. But Archie, your lurking/homework/timezone/whatever really didn't help. You didn't play this game. You did the bare minimum and showed up with only token efforts. Sure, life sucks sometimes, but still. A post a day is fine in most games, but this is supposed to be a quick, fast-paced, almost video-gamey twitch affair. Both you and Janus dragged it out painfully. We could have been here talking post-game by Sunday afternoon.
c) Even if I had vengekill'd Toony instead of Pandar (as I had half a mind to do up to the last minute) we were still hosed: Once Toony flipped scum, Janus and Archangel would have hammered Pandar quite quickly. Same result. The only chance for town was if Archie hammered Pandar and he somehow got enlightened enough to vengekill Janus, but there was no chance of that based on the thread record.
d) About asking you to self hammer: I was sure you were bluffing, and forcing you to recant would be (in my mind) proving your scummitude. Self hammering is not a losing proposition for town; sure it's not as good as hanging scum, but if you are sure to hit scum, and his partner is clear enough (as it was this game, dammit. Reread the thread, Pandar, and tell me you weren't Toony's partner, unwitting or not!), it can work and move the game forward. Hell, if Archie had lurked away again to do homework I'd have self hammered and shoot Pandar anyway; I was ready to do it. Would have had the same results, to be sure, but I was just fed up with the waiting, and was sure you were scum.
e) I did screw up in not pressing Janus enough. With Archie it was hard, due to the lurking, but once Janus came back after the weekend I should have pressed him more. Unfortunately, the weekend was fast and furious for the other three of us, to the point where we had pretty much made up our minds, so there was little incentive. I also should have smelled a rat on Janus' vote on Pandar instead of Toony, but I was impatient and was aching for resolution, so I went along with it. They're both scum, what's the harm?
f) Bah. Humbug.