Open 857 | Frienemies | Postgame

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why are there two pages

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I dislike Andante's vote.

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It's very reactionary.

I think you're (p-edit: datisi) town but I think I think that in every game.

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vulture kinda locktown for being willing to take the hurt that will come from proposing that tbh

i kinda like this post except for the "kinda" and "tbh" tbh.

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It's very reactionary.

do you think that makes her more likely to be scum?

Very nominally so. I have like half a game of experience with Andante scum and no experience with Andante town so I'm going to be calibrating based on that half a game and it kind of jives with that i think.

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I guess the thing I don't really like about Andante's vote is like, it feels somewhat like "a-ha, i have a valid reason to vote someone now, vote:thatperson" in a blending-in sort of way

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It's very reactionary.

do you think that makes her more likely to be scum?

Very nominally so. I have like half a game of experience with Andante scum and no experience with Andante town so I'm going to be calibrating based on that half a game and it kind of jives with that i think.

wait, what half scum game was that? lol

It was the newbie game you repped in to with me and catboi in it

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fire feels very reasonable. too reasonable.

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why are there two pages

VOTE: implosion

why is there a vote on you?

very aesthetic that you quote my post asking about why there are two pages with exactly twice my post number

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idk if andante is town or scum but i'm enjoying her play. it's so in-the-moment. i strive to live every day like that

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it was half actual observation and half intended as tongue-in-cheek comment about forming an entire read off of a fraction of a game of meta.

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i want to vote fire but alas, i am a coward.

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I think my entrance being a little different is a function of a few things, mostly the player list being one i'm relatively familiar with and tbh me having played more games lately. I think I'm usually a bit more stiff, maybe.

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then i wanted to see how annoyed is he gonna get if i keep ignoring him.

Don't believe this in the slightest.

Also don't buy datisi handing out shit townreads for weak reasons in RVS.

Andante-Datisi-?????

This post feels performative, though I guess it's just intentional bravado and maybe not alignment-meaningful?

I'm mulling over Datisi's reasons for fire-town.

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I guess they're like, valid reasons but not particularly strong. Or well they're strong enough commensurate with being a page 7 read. I mentioned earlier and still feel that fire's posting just gives me a strong sense of agreeableness that I think can be scum indicative, like there's lots of agreeable description but not the kinds of things that town will do because they're less hyperaware of how they're being perceived than scum are. I think I need to just compare to chromavalon a bit (though that game isn't perfect for meta), it could be nothing whatsoever.

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what? why are you saying this like your entrance was terrible or whatever?

it's in response to Datisi's comment that my play felt different

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And Andante, I think like the fact that we've been in the same game in the past like year puts you in the more-familiar-than-average territory for me, I haven't played very much over the past few years

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VOTE: VP Baltar

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Your question actually p-edited me, VP. And Datisi is one of two townreads right now along with Vulture. And Andante i'll continue that line of questioning if you want me to but tbh it is like, extremely boring to me no offense

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How do people generally read S_S? I know he's supposed to be stereotypically easy to read but I don't really remember what people do

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What's your townread on Datisi based on again?

What made you want to fact check Datisi's townread if you're townreading him?

1) vibe; reads; thread interaction
2) ... bc I'm townreading him? It's generally a good idea, when one disagrees with one's townread, to either convince them they are wrong, let them convince you you are wrong, or change them to a scumread, as otherwise Someone is wrong about Something in the whole arrangement.

Do you think Implosion is town or mafia

ari clearly scum for trying to get a straight answer from S_S

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People usually don't find me townie early on on this alt... or ever.

Hmph.

This is interesting because i've played one game with you on this account (coalition) and I also remember townreading you early.

How do people generally read S_S? I know he's supposed to be stereotypically easy to read but I don't really remember what people do

he's supposed to be what

Bad at scum I think? Maybe I'm substituting in "easy to read" for that incorrectly.

1) vibe; reads; thread interaction

how much of this read is influenced by meta, and how?

All of it more or less, you've more-or-less snowed me before as scum iirc so I'm loath to locktown you but you feel earnest, the way you're interacting with the thread looks genuinely interested to me, etc. I don't actually have like, a comprehensive picture of your meta; I guess if anything I'd be townreading you more if I had no meta on you. It's also motivated partially by me thinking that you/VP interactions feel town coming from you in the context of knowing at least some of the meta history between you two with guardians (e.g. it makes sense for you to be pushing him and to be suspecting him for the things you're suspecting him for IMO, and I also agree with a lot of those things)

And regarding my vote on VP I have described it a bit; it's a combination of thinking that you've made some decent points against him/feeling like the pushes he's making would make more sense against other slots if he's town, and feeling shady about his bravado in the context of how he's using it which idk if I'll be able to explain well (I previously said I'm not sure how to interpret this wrt his alignment but it still rubs me the wrong way).

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Tbh I'm like, a little bit surprised that VP hasn't attacked me back yet, as town or as scum. I think it surprises me a little more if he's town; I kind of expected to be lumped in as the third in his Andante/Datisi/??? solve with how I've acted toward those slots. The way he's been acting toward my slot feels maybe scum-indicative; he's engaging with me some but also kind of ignoring substantive engagement with me. I don't think it's super indicative of anything up to this point but I'm interested to see how it plays out. I'm by no means like sold on VP scum or anything.

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just get datisi to do it.

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i'll take it.

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implo reads not at all like how he did in my previous game with him, where i incorrectly scumread him. maybe its the new avatar or the fact that the other game had a lot of mech stuff to talk about, but if i didn't see the name i would think this was a completely different person

im not really sure what to make of that

I absolutely would have scumread me that game if it had been a regular game, iirc I was thinking so at the time. Like, my posting patterns and everything. I honestly was playing like,

drastically

closer to my scum meta than my town meta, because I was a muse. It felt like I needed to sort of "pick my battles" and make a conscious decision about which opinions I'd say and when so as to not give anything away.

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Why would I just attack you back?

While I do see you lining up with Datisi, I don't see you lining up with andante necessarily (despite that weird sort of exchange you two had), and she is my lead pick for scum here so far. What substantive things would you like to engage on? I didn't get a lot from your posts toward me.

i kind of sketchily jumped on to your wagon with little explanation; it felt like it should seem sort of sketchy from your point of view.

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Just to be clear on this, masons absolutely should not out. The later masons claim, the higher a percentage of the lim pool we're able to get rid of by their claiming, assuming they don't die at night. And the nightkill analysis point seems very silly - yes, you no longer have to wonder about "did this person die because their reads were good or because scum were mason hunting"; instead, you get to know that they died because... they claimed mason. which is uh, not useful information!

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yeah vp having that response to that tier list is honestly among the most wild things i've seen in mafia games.

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Implo, what are your thoughts on Penguin so far?

I'm curious why you pick this specific question to ask me.

I don't think he's done much alignment-indicative yet, but I expect to be able to get a read on him over not too much time.

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how do you expect implosion to have a penguin read off nothing though? like even if implosion was a penguin expert... there's just nothing to read there?

This is sort of a weird criticism because I thought that was a somewhat +town thing for VP to ask (his explanation doesn't really affect it). I feel like bringing up a random slot that hasn't talked in a while, especially to me given that VP has implied some degree of townread on me (i think) and so it can also be viewed as reaching a bridge to me, is a somewhat town move. And I don't think Penguin's done nothing, I think it's entirely possible to have a read or even a strong read on him based on his ISO so far, I just don't happen to.

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I disagree with you thinking that me calling your criticism weird is off.

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I'm caught up.

Unvote

I think VP's andante case actually has a good amount of merit. I'm surprised how many people said it's bad or meh. Particularly (though this could simply be meta-wrong) it seems out of character for her to have been afraid of the wagon on me and she's been a bit touchy in some weird ways that I think are sensible to interpret as scum caring about how they're perceived.

I have very mixed feelings about her alignment, though. While parts of per play do feel that way, other parts of her play feel very unplanned, or sort of not-premeditated. It feels like there isn't really anywhere she's planning to go. I have a hard time deciphering how her play indicates her alignment without more meta depth.

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I'm thinking more that VP is town. I feel like he's methodically interested in figuring out who scum are. Like, all of his posting as of late feels very cohesive with someone who has a bead on the game and is trying to sort things. I think the Andante case is pretty likely to come from town, and I agree w Datisi that I don't really see all that much reason for VP to push in that way at that time.

I think Gamma is town. I think the way his first pass over the thread was felt consistent with both my general understanding of his town meta and with the way he thread-interacted in PYP. I feel like his play so far feels pretty similar to PYP. The "eight" thing is weird to me on both his and Andante's end and tbh I have trouble parsing what it means for either of them.

Datisi, I think I need to check a specific game of meta but I can't remember which one it was. It's in response to this post:

i was about to type out a vote on fire, and then i remembered my one (1) reason to townlean fire

give me your hottest take on the game, please

My reaction to this post from Datisi comes in two stages: stage one, "this post looks really town", and stage two, "shit, didn't Datisi convince me he was town in a scum game once by making exactly this kind of post". So I need to remember which game that was and maybe look at it.

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There's a big blob of people I still don't have a good bead on, though I think I could maybe get a better idea with some prolonged staring at them: Penguin, Ari, S_S, I guess Andante.

Mala and GeorgeBailey are unreadable so far and hutmeil I kind of see why people are calling them town or scum but I don't think their posting so far is really indicative.

That leaves Vulture who idk but in a different way from the above, and fireisredsir, whomst is scum.

VOTE: fireisredsir

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I guess now that I write all that up I do see what Andante was saying about a lot of people not really having given much to this game. I do feel like there's been a lot of useful content but I guess when I sort through it it doesn't really amount to all that much in a lot of ways.

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I mean I didn't want us to speed yeet anyone, and it felt like that was the way we were going... I've been limmed 24 hours into day 1 before...

It's sort of an impression that you're the kind of player that wouldn't care about a speedlim (on someone else) all that much as town. That impression certainly could be wrong.

Why can't I be town that knows I'm town? And thus, I want to be perceived as town.

You could be. No scumtell is absolute, but I think the appearance of caring about how one is perceived is typically scum-indicative, because while town does often care about how they're perceived, sort of like how S_S was saying, they're not as strongly aware of it the whole time. Scum has to be constantly thinking about what they post and whether it fits in with notions of what'd be considered townish, whereas town is able to just post without thinking too hard about it because they know if the town is competent enough then hopefully they'll be read correctly.

I certainly think it's not scummy to defend against someone directly attacking you, it's more about preemptiveness.

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fireisredsir, whomst is scum.

why's that

I'll get to examining it in more depth but at a glance it feels like you've been playing the game without really being involved/invested, plus your play just feels different from chromavalon (though ofc that game is imperfect for meta, but more likely to be valid for a VT than a muse. and also i reserve the right to completely flip on this if i actually get around to rereading that game).

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I do agree that it would be healthy for this game for a greater number of people to take stances on a greater number of people.

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As scum I tend to just do exactly what VP is doing. you find 1 person, and you tunnel. never rethink. just tunnel. thoughts outside? who cares. must. tunnel.

I strongly disagree with this characterization of VP's play. He's pushing you hard but he's very much entertaining your thoughts and talking about other people. The questions he's asking feel motivated; the fact that he reached out to both Vulture and Mala as soon as they posted without really doing anything feels like town who, like you, is frustrated at the corpus of people not-doing-anything, but is trying to take direct action to fix that problem.

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accurate, i don't feel very invested and likely will continue to be p low effort for the next week or two. does that make me scum?

It might.

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Actually eh I'm maybe willing to softly call S_S town too.

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it feels like implo's taking time this game to protect places and explain away pressure/get on good sides, in a way?

Ah yes, notable Person I Tried to Get on my Good Side by Parking My Vote On Him for Like Half the Game VP Baltar.

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I unsolicitedly think you could be scum.

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I feel very spoiled by how easy you were to read in PYP due to a combination of your HEM/Math/etc interactions and just, the way you were reacting to the particular way in which that game was a shitshow. It feels like there hasn't been anything momentous enough in this game to read you off of.

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can i just cut out the middleman?

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I think I found that Datisi Scum game and it is JK9++, where I was sk ~_~

I was genuinely townreading him but definitely a little different of a lens.

Mala and GeorgeBailey are unreadable so far and hutmeil I kind of see why people are calling them town or scum but I don't think their posting so far is really indicative

Mala may be scum here unfortunately. I've given her two opportunities to interact with absolutely no return. Not a good sign.

I will back this as she seems like she was in PYP

Also meant to say: this did also cross my mind. I want to give her space to enter the game if she gets an opportunity to, and of course her being gone could be just RL reasons, but, well, yeah.

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tldr on this?

I mean, do you think he's town? he's just there. like, not actively doing anything, literally just existing. and like I've been calling him maf all game, and he just shrugs it off. implosion is where my strongest SR is right now

pretty easy to shrug it off when you just yell "implosion is maf" and vanity vote me. I'd be annoyed at it if you were getting any traction.

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I'm having a really hard time in this game getting almost any reads I feel good about.

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So I'm not town because I don't post that much? I understand though, I don't like lurkers too! Speaking of, Malakittens hasn't posted yet has she?

I think the only slot I can meta is Mala. I played with Mala last game. Mala was lurking but she turned out to be Town so Mala!lurker doesn't equate to Mala!scum. But then again, I don't like lurkers. So for me, lurking can be a scum strategy, but given my meta on her, I'll let her go at least for now.

actually these two in combination is p sus as well

For what reason? I can think of a reason but want to know if it's what you're thinking

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my reason is that they redirected accusations of lurking onto another slot, Mala, one that they later mentioned they had meta of her lurking as town. bringing her up specifically as the one to redirect on makes it feel to me like they knew that she was likely to continue lurking as town and thus would be an easy push to make

it doesn't really make sense from town bc i don't know why you make the first quote when you already have the knowledge in the second quote

I guess this is roughly what I figured? I feel like the first quote still makes sense in the context of Mala being the only person hutmeil has any meta on in a game where they mentioned being frustrated by all the meta talk. I can see the pushing the accusation on to someone else but I also feel like it's kind of on the nose for scum who is lurking to spend half their big reads post talking about not liking lurkers/having a reads list that is nearly just the player list sorted by activity.

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The malakittens thing feels too blatant to be reliable, but also I guess it's possible she's just preoccupied with life and doesn't have the time/energy to be convincing in a brief pop in in a scum game.

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with mala i think it is slightly different bc here people aren't really saying "mala is lurking, she lurks as scum, therefore she's scum", they're more saying "mala is lurking, lurking is scummy, therefore she's scum". the first point is one that she would take issue with, the second one much less so. then again idk if she's even read enough to know which is going on here

I don't think either of these are what they're saying at all? They're saying "mala is lurking, in a towngame she reacted much differently to being pushed for lurking, therefore she's scum"

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ig gamma used meta but i thought that was scummy of him anyway so lol idk

I'm not talking about Gamma, I'm talking about 889-890

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@implo, can you answer the part of my 804 addressed to you?

You mean just the "top of 801 is confusing" thing? I just meant that I'm not sure how much I can trust my memory of a game where I misread you when I was SK in that game and so not just viewing it through a purely town lens, even if I was trying to genuinely read people.

Looking through your ISO of that game, and comparing it to what I saw in 678, I think the thing I can glean from that scum game is that you're willing to sort of "go out of your way to fake things that will make you look town" if that makes sense. Like, a technique I've used to read people (especially relatively new players) successfully as town is to see that they posted something that would have required a relatively convoluted or creative thought process in order to fake as scum. And 678 is that sort of thing - specifically saying you were about to vote fire but then remembered a reason to townlean him. If a new player said that, I think it'd be strong evidence that they're town, because scum going out of their way to say that they were going to vote and then changed their mind at the last moment is something I think new scum wouldn't even think to lie about, essentially. And I think it's sort of that sort of thing that I have a memory of reading you as town (incorrectly) in that game for. In fact, I think it's possible that for some people (maybe even you), that sort of post is actually scum-indicative - it is, after all, sort of a creative way of going out of your way to look more town.

For some examples in your ISO in that game, see here, here, and here (first sentence) which is very similar to 678 - it's almost like you're screaming "look at me, i changed my mind after I started typing a post out and have a transparent thought process!!!! I'm town!!!!!!!"

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VOTE: Malakittens

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it's funny because every time guardians is mentioned that way i have to double take and remember that ari actually was town in that game bc lukewarm snowed me so hard.

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I'm curious if Penguin has thoughts on the pace of the game; I remember him generally being more involved/pushy and he's indicated a desire to have bigger wagons but he's not really making a sustained effort to fulfill that end.

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Yooooo, mala delivers.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: andante

I'd like to hear an elaboration of what elicited this as a reaction.

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mmm? if you recall, i like wagons for a specific reason that require fairly frequent votecounts. we're about to hit 1000 with 3....so i guess too fast?

I guess my problem with you here (not that it's scummy, but that it makes you tougher to read) is that you haven't been embroiled in any conflict. Iirc the last game I remember playing with you it was at least largely through conflict. Really I guess that's the problem with this game as a whole, there have been very few meaningful conflicts in which people have become embroiled. At least very few not involving Andante I guess

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Golly I spaced out today.

GeorgeBailey's catchup feels very similarly uninspired to Mala's to me, they both are just giving very easy opinions to have.

I know there's some outstanding questions to me, I'll answer them and probably engage a bunch tomorrow earlyish.

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Hello, I am here to post a smattering of thoughts. Here is thought one.

I don't like Mala's Gamma/Andante thing. It seems like a very high-utility read to fake as scum (particularly if Gamma/Andante are both town, and I am inclined that way right now), for a lot of reasons: it makes it look like a read with a lot of thought put into it, it gives an easy next-person-to-push if one of them flips town, it lets her give stances without fully alienating anyone because both Gamma/Andante could conceivably agree the other is scum. Also, this whole description reads somewhat manufactured to me:

I need to sort out one of Gamma and Andante. I have disliked both of their posting for different reasons:
Gamma because I feel majority of the posts feels empty, no passion, but then there's time where the passion is felt like they are interacting with Andante. I potenitally could see these interactions as S/T, but I need to figure out who is who tho.
As for Andante I was leaning more for town!andnate, but then 870 is giving me pause because I know Scum!Andante hates pressure. I dont think I ever heard town!andante make such a comment.

So now I'm thinking that it could be gamma as town/andante as scum because I don't think is a t/t, but i also don't think this is a s/s interaction.

It feels like this is trying to look committal without being committal, partially because that's the nature of giving a "this is S/T but idk which is which" read, and partially because she's talking explicitly about having reasons to both townread and scumread both players, independently of the read that their interaction isn't t/t or s/s. It's just kind of like, if I had this many conflicting opinions about different parts of two players' play, I would not feel confident declaring that exactly one of them is likely scum.

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Andante flipping me into a townlean I wanted to say is the kind of thing scum maybe doesn't think of doing but I guess is conceivably a sensible thing for scum to do just because she wasn't getting traction. So I will Continue to be Uncertain about her.

@implo, what's the current state of your read on fireisredsir?

Gosh that's a great question.

I think like you I find their posting underwhelming, I'm just not as convinced as you are that they've posted stuff that's town indicative. I think the slot has good scum equity but I don't have high confidence in it or anything .

what's telling to me so far is that we have yet to have one serious wagon though i guess you could maybe kinda sorta call mala's wagon one.

What exactly is this telling of?

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I do think the hutmeil wagon has bad composition but I'm also not really a proponent of early wagonomics. I think there is some stuff to analyze here that's relevant though. I kind of agree with VP that it's an "easy" wagon but I also do think Mala is an easy wagon in a somewhat different way despite being on it (essentially the difference between a lurker wagon being easy and a newbie lurker wagon being easy).

I think Penguin's trajectory is especially weird here - the main thing he says is motivating his behavior is that he likes wagons but he hasn't commented on the Mala wagon at all except to sort of half-throw-shade on it by saying it's "maybe kinda sorta" a serious wagon. Which is just a weird thing to do when his main complaint is that there are no wagons? Like I don't understand what he can not-like about the Mala wagon to make him want to describe it that way when his current wagon consists of GeorgeBailey whomst has posted content exactly once, fire who he just said he'd wagon (which isn't really saying much I know) and whose vote was partially justified by "it'd be good to have a wagon here", and himself, who sounds willing to wagon around eleven different players. It doesn't seem like the hut wagon is an especially "serious" wagon to me by any standard.

Penguin, why did you never join the Mala wagon? Why are you calling it maybe-kinda-sorta real when it's at 4 votes? Do you think the hut wagon is better than it? What's your opinion on the Mala wagon, either earlier or now?

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The spiciness of that take is quite a bit less if STD hasn't read the whole game, tbf.

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STD's entrance is reasonably good.

1176 is the first post from fire that maybe townpings me/contextualizes some of their other posts in an interesting way. It seems like fire is pretty frequently reacting in the moment with something quippy like "this is just very weird to me" but giving interesting thought processes behind those things afterward (same thing happened earlier with me about something, idr where). Might be more of a stylistic thing than anything alignment-meaningful. I do think it's nice that they're saying this to Datisi who I think is not the ideal target in this gamestate for scum to want to pressure in principle. Could conceivably make sense as a s/s interaction but etc, etc, etc.

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I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I guess I'll mention it again. There's too much meta in this game. "Looking back to that old game", "I remember in that other game", "You're not like that before when we played together", etc... I feel I cannot relate to what's being discussed. Sure I can go and read those old games but this game itself which is already 44 pages in length and still at D1, I don't think I have the time to go back and do that (and not for just 1 game!).

I get your point and it makes sense. I guess I should comment more on non-meta stuff (which is not a lot btw), sift through the post to find them.

I want to say something like "I understand that the amount of meta is frustrating but I feel there's a good amount of non-meta content to respond to" but thinking about it I guess most of the content in this game has been tinged by meta in some way.

Even content that is based entirely on meta can be read into in spite of not knowing the actual meta. For instance, maybe you can't evaluate whether fireisredsir's argument about Datisi's scum meta is valid, but you could get an opinion on fireisredsir based on the way they make the argument.

What do you think of STD's catchup posts?

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Unvote

VOTE: PenguinPower

Still not really a fan of Mala, happy to rejoin that wagon in principle if it regains momentum.

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however, aristeia did call him out and vote him for not being inspiring in his pushes, sooooo

I do wonder about this sort of thing sometimes, whether one ought to weight something differently if done after someone says "i'd find you townier if you did X".

I do think it's unlikely fire-scum saw ari's pressure and said "ah darn better be more inspiring", I'd imagine if fire is scum it's more just a burst of energy/motivation/inspiration or something.

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Ari, what would you say are your most robust reads right now?

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I agree with Dats that there's not much need to drag out today and I appreciate the efforts to try to drive consensus. It's kind of hard when there are so many slots whose engagement is essentially piecemeal, combined with like, S_S being S_S and now Andante not wanting to vote.

I feel less good about a fire wagon over time. I'm a little at an impasse until hearing more from Penguin.

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I kind of wonder why GeorgeBailey hasn't really seen any scrutiny in the same way Malakittens and hutmeil have. I'm not sure if it's a useful question to ask though.

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andante, noted anti-voting advocate.

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alas, still i wait for the same things.

i don't really care about this ari-vp back and forth much.

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Yeah I feel like being one of the last people involved in voting, either voting late or being the one to stay off both wagons, automatically makes you look bad to some degree. But S_S is semi-immune to that because it's considered his meta. I don't know why he'd think one or the other would make him look worse.

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i do think that the

- this person is scummy
- let's wagon them for pressure to see if they do anything towny
- they don't do anything towny
- well maybe they're not scum let's wagon somewhere else

pipeline is wild tho, like what's the point

Yeah this is a weird dynamic.

I'm not like, strongly opposed to the wagon swinging toward Mala in principle; I think there's better odds for my read on Penguin to get stronger over time compared to my read on Mala so there's that. There's also a part of me that just wants this day to be over. The fact that a lot of the absent slots are where I've wanted to pressure is a big long-term motivation sap. I'll try to engage more today

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I think Andante saying Penguin is likely town for that reaction is sort of wild. That reaction shows Penguin has somewhat low investment in this game; there could be alignment-relevant reasons for that in principle but like, I don't see why scum-penguin can't post what he did if he just doesn't have much of a foothold in the game.

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the remaining scumteam is implosion+georgebailey

incorrect!

Just looking at implosion trying to justfy a sr on penguin before he voted it was odd, and he was also one "of the first" to jump on the penguin SR after a handful of people said stuff.

Yep - when there were many viable directions for the day to go, I chose to support VP Baltar, the now confirmed town player with some of the greatest sway in the town, when he was trying to get momentum on Penguin and couldn't. I was indeed one "of the first" to jump on Penguin. I don't know why that's in quotes! I was! I never really had a like, fully proper scumread on Penguin. I needed him to interact more with me, and he refused to over a long span of time. That's why it looks "odd".

I could have super easily done like ten other things yesterday. Why would I bus Penguin? If I would decide to bus him, why would I do it in this half-assed way where I never commit to scumreading him? So that I could jump off at the last second? If that's the case, why did I instead choose to yell at you for calling Penguin town for shitty reasons?

[implosion]

ok a few actual thoughts

1) penguin went down easy and didn't really fight back at all. this kinda makes me think that scum were ok with him going down there. which kinda makes me think at least 1 scum was on him. not guaranteed cause maybe he did just give up, but thats my leaning. i don't want to hunt exclusively on the wagon but the names off it don't look super appealing to me rn anyway besides maybe mala (and maybe georgebailey but we'll think about that later)

2) i think penguin's responses surrounding implosion were p awk when i questioned him on it early. never really talking directly to implosion but talking about him in a weird mostly-joking-but-not-really way

3) third point was mostly about vp, which no longer matters (rip :<), but still relevant is implo's response to vp in 539, which i could see coming from scum. same goes for 584, which is a sorta strange criticism of andante for criticizing vp questioning implo's read on penguin. something about it just sorta feels informed to me

4) agree with datisi there is very low chance ss tried to start a mala counterwagon unless he's going for the risky 200iq play of "I would never do this as scum" which just really doesn't seem like his style

5) while rereading i did find 932 again which reminded me that i think that is a decent reason to give townpoints to implosion. so, hmm. may have to go read an implosion scum game to see what that feels like

6) 1246 and 1248 prob just mean it's datisi town. if he wanted to defend penguin, he could go with the "we don't get much info from this" route and just hard case somewhere else (like me!). if he wanted penguin to die, he could just push there. i think bringing up that we don't get much info (which in isolation feels kinda like a soft defense that people might scumread after a flip) but then pairing that with "so let's make sure we get more info" is PROBABLY just a towny approach to the situation. it does mean he could if scum prod for associations preflip to set some townies up to get pushed later. so there is some scum benefit. but i think it's less likely

Going in order on these and using this to springboard some of my own thoughts:

1) I feel there are tons of possible explanations for penguin not fighting back. Maybe he was busy IRL for the july 4th weekend. Maybe he never felt like he had a foothold in the game to fight back with. Maybe other scum were okay with him going down. Maybe other scum are in the lurkers, and Penguin never felt any motivation to try hard because he thought it was a lost cause. Why jump to this conclusion? Mala and georgebailey are two of the names I most want to push right now, so this "I'd rather hunt on the wagon except maybe these two people" thing really doesn't do it for me.

2) I don't disagree. I just happen to be town. It's possible Penguin wasn't really sure how to interact with me, I don't play games all that frequently these days but I've got a pretty good streak of correctly calling him town on d1 ever since one of his first newbie games where (iirc) he eluded me as scum, but that's ages ago.

3) Not gonna comment intensely on those posts of mine because sure, maybe I could make them as scum, but I happen to be town this game. I will use this as a springboard to a different thing, which is that I really don't see why I in particular would shoot VP here as scum. Yes, he's widely townread and led on penguin, but he was like the #1 person calling me town throughout the game. Plus, him dying should lend some extra credence to his townreads in this setup, because scum will want to shoot people they think are masons, and for instance I think it's possible scum misinterpreted my early interactions with VP as us being masons. Yes this also is a knock against Mala scum but I still want pressure there.

If VP dying points to anyone as scum it'd be like, Andante (though I think Andante is like, very high tier town for reasons I'll get into later). Not sure off the top of my head who else he was scumreading if anyone other than Penguin.

4) Which point was this from Datisi? I actually have one thing from S_S that I'm

intensely

suspicious of, which is his "oh well I guess I'll tie the wagons xd" vote on hutmeil. I feel like it easily could be S_S scum using his meta as a shield excuse to vote the scum wagon rather than the town wagon (I guess this doesn't make sense if the scumteam is exactly S_S-hutmeil but w/e, I also feel better about calling hutmeil town after how wagons went down yesterday).

5) I don't even remember what recent scum game I have if any. I can try to figure it out later if you want

6) Tend to agree, that pair of posts is pretty townie for Datisi.

[implosion]

To be clear I'm not really scumreading S_S on the whole, I just like, that one thing really does not sit well with me.

Andante is super town because I have no idea what utility she'd have for defending Penguin in the way she did.

the ONLY significant contributions we got from mala was when mala had direct pressure, and the wagon going her way. I genuinely do not believe this entire penguin wagon actually believes penguin flips red here.

If yall want to think about it, you had your "dueling wagons" on hut and penguin and game was dead, none of yall feel strongly one way or the other. I feel pretty strongly that mala isn't town here, so, I ask that yall at least think about voting her. thanks

Dragons throwing penguin on e-1 there was hella sus to me, after "being gone" then you show up, no words. just a vote...

Ari/hut/Dragons/mala

that's my pool of sus people right now

why is mala so hard to lim here?

This sequence of posts in particular, especially the last one complaining about Mala being hard to lim. That's just like, such a foreign way to play as scum when your buddy is going down - earnestly defending them without actually defending them.

[implosion]

I have very mixed feelings about fire and am willing to be persuaded in either direction.

[implosion]

my first thought is that the day's yeet should be on-wagon. while i'm not gonna force this if someone off-wagon scumclaims, my recent experience from the champs game is telling me that there's probably scum on-wagon, at least one if not both. i think most scumteams can't help but jump onto the wagon as they see the buddy going down. especially with a wagon that seemed as easy (or stalled i guess?) as penguin's

i agree there are a lot of *possible* explanations for why penguin didn't fight back, but i think all of them (other than "other scum were literally not playing at all and had no clue what was going on") mean that at some point, other scum were going to be inclined to bus penguin. do you disagree with this assessment?

I feel that this washes over an important layer of nuance. Scumteams aren't hiveminds, they're players who are already embroiled in the gamestate. Could GeorgeBailey have jumped on the wagon as he saw Penguin going down? No, because his only stated scumread was hutmeil, the other wagon, there'd have been no way to do so convincingly. Could Malakittens? Not really, she posted almost no content after the wagons got to their late-day state, she probably didn't have RL time to craft a narrative for a bussing jump that would look legitimate (evidenced by the fact that she didn't jump on Penguin even as the alternative shifted from hutmeil to her). Could Something_Smart? He's not exactly known as a wagon hopper but yeah, he could have in theory, but is Something_Smart the kind of player that would feel that sort of pressure to bus? I don't think he is, or at least not in the same way, due to his meta. I could go through this exercise for more players but basically this is a blanket statement that I think ignores the realities of how scum have to play a game.

and i skimmed a bit around that vc, it seems like baltar was pretty loudly advocating for penguin and against hutmeil wagons? which makes it at least more likely someone bussed imo

Why does this make it more likely someone bussed? Wouldn't scum typically want to kill on-wagon if there were no bussers?

[implosion]

And my implosion issues were with 1111 and 1113
Like, those posts talking about penguin just feel super odd/distancey to me, cause this is the point where the Penguin SR is gaining momentum, so it's like "here's awkward posts that will later justify my SR on penguin... and to me they feel very odd, but then his response to me last night didn't seem too bad? but these 2 posts, I still can't get over how non towny they seem with their approach to penguin

I kind of feel like just not responding to this but bleh.

I sort of disagree that this is the "point" where the penguin SR gains momentum; it's the point where my read on Penguin is refining from "absent but should be easy to read if he shows up" to "okay, he really needs to actually show up at this point bc what he's posted is slightly nonsense".

The 1111 question is me trying, essentially one last time, to get Penguin to interact meaningfully with me.

1113 I sort of see what you're saying; it's also sort of a desperate "if Penguin is town I should be able to figure that out but he's not letting me", but it's also sort of the first thing in Penguin's play that I actually found explicitly scummy. So yeah like. The explanation you gave is theoretically sound if I'm scum. I just happen to not be. I can understand someone not liking the way I jumped on Penguin, but also it's really not like it was inevitable that Penguin was going down by the time I jumped him, and also if this is the point where momentum shifted against Penguin, then I'm like, a significant reason for that shift. I mean you cited your earlier post as the "first good point against penguin" or something, but in that post, you also say that I've already kind of said what you're saying there about penguin >_>

(still catching up)

[implosion]

I mean, I'm 100% certain there's at least 1 partner on that wagon, basically why I was really looking at implosion like "what are these posts..." with 1111 and 1113

Strong statement.

Why do you think e.g. a Malakittens/GeorgeBailey scumteam is literally 0% likely to be the case? Like,

george didn't do anything all game, and mala was VERY absent at that eod.... you're trying to tell me, scum!george and scum!mala were trying to wagon hut to save penguin??? WHAT KIND OF LOGIC IS THIS???

I know this was responding to fire, but no I'm not saying this, I'm saying they could be scum who just... didn't jump, and not for any real reason. Just because they didn't. They weren't there to, and even if they were there, maybe they wouldn't have.

[implosion]

VOTE: GeorgeBailey

[implosion]

I like StD's reasons for townreading hutmeil, for both StD and hutmeil. I think it doesn't really feel like a sort of pet townread or a pocket from StD scum, I think he feels earnest in not being totally sure but having these vibes and wanting to explain them. I think the points around hutmeil essentially looking like he's trying make sense. I'd been thinking after the flip that hutmeil is probably town mostly for wagon reasons because I don't really feel like yesterday shakes down the way it did if it was 2 scum wagons, though I can't really give a good explicit reason why.

I think my reads right now are something like this (unordered within tiers):

{StD, hutmeil, Andante, Datisi, Gamma}
-gap-
{fire, S_S}
{Aristeia}
{Mala, GeorgeBailey}

Some caveats/descriptions for some people I haven't elaborated on: 1) I think Datisi becomes somewhat more likely scum if he lives for like, two more days. But I still would probably think he's more likely town than scum. 2) Aristeia is in a sort of limbo. I need to put more effort into sorting her. 3) Gamma just feels strongly like PYP to me and StD was also in that game, and is describing a Gamma scum game that was very different, and I feel like meta is a pretty effective way to read Gamma in general. And I don't think I've been wrong about her in a while iirc.

[implosion]

I mean I think I been pretty *okay* at spotting town!gamma from scum!gamma. As I already mentioned I don't think Andante/Gamma share the same alignment and I feel like one of them are more than likely scum.

If i had to do a 3:1 EoL with them - id pick gamma for the scum over andante.

so i dont think gamma is a bad vote

Why aren't you voting Gamma, then?

[implosion]

Mala, how do you feel about STD's 1705/1709?

[implosion]

And also, do you have any feelings on how yesterday ultimately went down? On the Penguin wagon, or the hutmeil counterwagon, or the late counterwagon on you? It feels like most analysis so far today has focused on the wagonomics of yesterday, and you haven't touched on that discussion.

[implosion]

Mala, how do you feel about STD's 1705/1709?

And also, do you have any feelings on how yesterday ultimately went down? On the Penguin wagon, or the hutmeil counterwagon, or the late counterwagon on you? It feels like most analysis so far today has focused on the wagonomics of yesterday, and you haven't touched on that discussion.

[implosion]

I'm quickly entering a similar limbo to yesterday where I have very little I'm interested in talking about until Mala answers my questions or refuses to, and GeorgeBailey's slot gets replaced. PYP was a good reminder that sometimes the easy answer is just the correct answer.

[implosion]

Excuse me.

I’m not dying today or any day.

I’m going to reread the thread now with a scum penguin in mind tho.

this post is also just 100% a scum post

kinda softing mason, and now objectively she can't really be bc too many people want her dead (the only possible mason team would be mala/std/george, but std wants to lim george, so that's not it). she does it strongly enough that it might make some people want to back off but weakly enough that she has plausible deniability to say it wasn't meant as a soft. and it prob was even supposed to draw out reactions

then says that she will reread with the new info in mind (weakly performative), and after that comes back with exactly the same direction she had before on hunting for a scum within gamma/andante, making no comments or insights or any indication of having re-assessed or learned anything from the flips

yeah i mean this is fair, it just barely feels like we're playing mafia at some point.

[implosion]

probably should have quoted 1852 not 1854

[implosion]

I want to hear from Enchant because that hammer was a fairly shitty thing to do. I feel like I can sort Enchant accurately if - and wow, I feel like I'm repeating myself for the seventh time, both within this game and across multiple games - they play the game.

[implosion]

golly i was thinking on pages 78-79 that the scumteam was fire+s_s and then i got to page 80 and saw votes for both of them and that brings me a little joy i guess.

still reading and will have more specific comments shortly

[implosion]

I feel a certain fervor from Enchant that I think they tend to lack as scum? I feel like the "why are yall not blaming datisi for the hammer" thing is just not really the tact that scum-Enchant tends to take in this situation.

I actually didn't agree with Datisi at the moment when he made 1935, but then the rest of Ari's posting on that page is kind of convincing me.

[implosion]

(Congrats STD!!!!)

I think I maybe need to reread that one game I just remembered where I lost to Enchant scum which is white flag i think. Or at least look at it a bit. But maybe I'll actually never get to it.

This is kind of a hard game at this point.

[implosion]

Yeah that third step was important in my mind.

[implosion]

implo, what do you think?

i remember precisely 0 from that game lol.

[implosion]

because those were both train of thought thoughts and were more or less unrelated to each other (and the first one wasn't actually confident in any way)

[implosion]

That game lasted a month and Enchant has already posted in this game almost as much as in that one.

And look at Enchant's posting in that game after the post you linked. It's downright demure. In this game Enchant is boisterous and blaming other people.

[implosion]

The only reservation I have about calling Enchant very town here is that them replacing in is different from them starting the game as scum. But to be frank, their scum game in both Chromavalon and PYP was kind of attrocious, and this does not look anything like those games.

[implosion]

i support the fire wagon but don't want a hyper fast day.

[implosion]

i support the fire wagon but don't want a hyper fast day.

(psst, implo, 2045 was for you :3 )

Shrug. I don't disagree? Do you want like, deep analysis of that game from me? I can read it but I don't really have direct memory of Enchant's play in that game.

There is some other game that would be another good comparison that I can't remember which one it was, but Enchant repped in (I think for Ydrasse maybe?) to a slot that had mixed opinions and then

everyone

townread their early replace-in play hard and were correct.

[implosion]

I kind of find it hard to imagine a world where I'm excited for fire to be alive in the endgame.

i'm not sure what i want. i feel like i have townreads and ???reads this game and i'm not sure how to fix it. and i don't townread enchant right now and want to have a read on them, and you sorta seem like you know what you're doing and i still think you're town, and having a read on enchant would lower my open-857-related anxiety at least by some 34.6% so here i am i guess.

I don't want to permanently write off Enchant as town but I do think they're very far out of the recent scumrange I've seen from them. That said, I wouldn't exactly say I know what I'm doing?

[implosion]

S_S, do you still have no direct read on Andante's play?

Do you scumread anyone else on play?

[implosion]

1. It's that when she's here she can't wait to exit the thread. I think town!andante has issues logging off whereas scum!andante basically can't wait to say "bye" to the thread.

Any comments on why this felt the opposite on d1? Do you think she just, ran out of energy for the facade? Do you scumread her on her early play at all, or just more recently?

[implosion]

I also really don't buy those reasons to townread S_S as being strong enough to merit calling Andante scum via "no scum are pushing her rn" and I'm interested in more pressure on him right now because I think he's pretty viably scum here.

[implosion]

S_S, do you still have no direct read on Andante's play?

Do you scumread anyone else on play?

[implosion]

S_S, do you still have no direct read on Andante's play?

Do you scumread anyone else on play?

Yes (I have no direct read), no (I do not scumread anyone else on play).

Does that worry you, or is it pretty typical for you to not scumread anyone in the game on play by this point?

[implosion]

Sheeping Andante no questions asked... flawless plan tbh, could never go wrong

shoulda done it d1

[implosion]

Sheeping Andante no questions asked... flawless plan tbh, could never go wrong

shoulda done it d1

SO I WAS RIGHT ON IMPOSION MAF D1???

you've called me mafia and town each probably half a dozen times throughout this game. As a result, we can conclude not only is it definitely correct to sheep you without asking questions, it's correct to do so at least half a dozen times during the course of the game.

[implosion]

Andante, what would be your own opinion of your scumgame? What kinds of things do you have trouble replicating/how do you approach games/etc?

[implosion]

VOTE: fireisredsir

I've come back around to this.

Enchant's continued posting continues to look town to me. In particular his post above this one is one I think somewhat rarely comes from scum. They're putting in sustained thread presence, and hopping votes, and I don't think scum!Enchant plays this game like that. I think they'd probably be happy to fade into the background at some point.

Andante's continued thread presence also feels town to me.

S_S is still the main other option I'm interested in but less so than fire at this point.

I can talk more about whatever if people want but yeah my motivation isn't exactly at a peak x_x

[implosion]

implo who do you think is scum if im town? im still pretty much on enchant + one of andante/SS (maybe leaning SS now?) but you townread two of those

Datisi, potentially.

[implosion]

Alas. Do you think the strength with which you can call Datisi town is commensurate with the strength of his scumgame?

[implosion]

implo, do you have any reasons to actually suspect me if fire!town or is it a "everyone seems town so must be datisi" sorta read?

The latter. If anything I feel like I have overall decent reasons to townread you, I just don't know how much I should actually trust them.

[implosion]

I still have S_S as my next choice for scum after fire right now. If he's a mason (or otherwise town), idk, I think I'd rather cross that bridge when I come to it, at this point. I know it's a mason setup but I don't really like thinking about/actively trying to avoid masons, because, as fire points out and as is traditionally very much the case, masons and scum are easy to confuse both in play and in connections because both of them are trying not to be found out both individually and as a team.

I guess Enchant still has to be in the conversation just bc I'm reading them off a smaller corpus of stuff than everyone else but I never really found George's content intrinsically scummy, it was just nothing.

Does anyone else feel as strongly about Enchant's content as I do? I spent

most

of PYP angry that we weren't allowed to lim them and I was right so I feel like I have an alright bead on them.

[implosion]

STD/Implo, why Fire over andante?

like if fire is mafia wouldn't it be trivial for him to e-1 andante and wait for enchant to hammer?

I mean... he would get quite a bit of flak for doing that out of nowhere in this game state, i think? Maybe they're both scum, idk. I just don't really buy Andante's whole game as coming from scum right now, though I definitely can be wrong on her.

[implosion]

I don't think that how hard a player tries as mafia is necessarily directly tied to how hard they believe it would be optimal for them to try. Like, sure, maybe fire-scum should, or even could be tryharding more here, but like, does that mean he must be? I feel like this is the kind of gamestate that will incentivize scum to not try all that hard. And I feel like Andante is genuinely trying right now. Let me look at the one completed game I have with her actually it might be a useful comparison.

[implosion]

Not a perfect comparison because she replaced in with already some pressure on her on d3 with scum in a very rough spot, and then got put to E-1 shortly thereafter, but like, the way she acted under pressure feels entirely different. In that game she was putting forward pure positivity; in this one, she's irked. And I think it makes sense for her to be irked as town based on the way she's being accused; yes, the activity thing isn't the sole reason she's being townread less but I do think it's something town Andante should be frustrated by and I'm not even sure if scum Andante would pretend to be frustrated by it, I think scum Andante maybe just says something like "yeah, I know I'm not going as hard as I was on d1 but I'm still town" rather than what is essentially her saying "no, fuck you, this is me playing my best"

[implosion]

i had a flash of this being town!andante and scum!implo and implo tmi-ing her alignment by saying "she's really trying" because i really struggle to see how he reads this ate as "genuinely trying"

I really think I'd just happily take an andante mislim in that scenario, it's not like I wouldn't be able to make that pivot.

[implosion]

I haven't suspected him yet this game

a christmas miracle.

[implosion]

I haven't suspected him yet this game

a christmas miracle.

i know I would've townread you if you suspected me for it but you didn't !!

I kind of had no bead whatsoever on your slot until the strong arguing earlier today. And you did call me scum on like page 8 so it's not like i had in my head "ari isn't acting toward me like she usually does", it's not like you tunneled me in PYP either, nor have you really called me town at any point iirc

[implosion]

also aristeia is currently the swing vote, and it seems like she maybe will hammer andante on her own anyway, which if green will leave scum!implo in a really cool position tomorrow

this is not like, arguing implo is scum, i just don't think it's valid to say scum!implo has no incentive to defend town!andante here

This is fair I guess.

[implosion]

im slightly townreading andante's more recent posting, maybe she was just right and i do townread her more when she's here. most of it doesn't really make sense but it feels like she has thoughts that i have no idea where they came from but they make sense to her. and there's something about that almost indignant attitude of "how can you all not see this" that just kinda rings true to me

idk i don't feel like i have anything productive to say rn but im around if anyone wants to talk

implo who do you think is scum if im town? im still pretty much on enchant + one of andante/SS (maybe leaning SS now?) but you townread two of those

i'm not sure why fire posts this as scum while andante is his biggest counterwagon

it's like, i don't think he's started angling towards voting andante, so the only way he can vote her now is by saying "lol better her than me!!" which i feel like scum usually won't let themselves get down to that? especially if he's keeping andante in his poe but the upper half of it? feels counter-intuitive

Idk, I think this is possible as a scum post. I think this kind of thing can be a combination of intentional performative self-fencing-in, trying to react with genuine reads on what's happening in the moment, etc. Maybe fire feels under pressure and feels like pushing the counterwagon is too obvious.

[implosion]

I think this is possible as a scum post.

I've literally been telling yall... Datisi thought I would be an easy push. ran with it. just realized he's not actually going to get the votes to flip me, and is now trying to find another direction...

idk, SS is definitely my top SR right now though

I was talking about fire's post not datisi's

[implosion]

he also has a pretty solid excuse for not being super present at this moment

[implosion]

it's the fact that people don't feel very engaged that is making me question this choice of elims.

Why is this precisely? are you like, trying to draw conclusions about how scum are viewing the gamestate based on the assumption that scum aren't very engaged? Because I really don't think that kind of analysis reflects how scum decide whether to effort in a game.

[implosion]

so by definition the scum do not care who between Andante/Fire gets voted out today because like nobody is trying to convince me to vote one way or the other?

I feel this skips many feasible alternatives.

Maybe scum is one of the people who is trying to convince you, like Datisi. Maybe scum is a lurker who's lurking because of RL obligations, or who simply doesn't have motivation to try to influence the course of today's vote in that way. Maybe (and this is I think one of the most broadly plausible almost no matter who scum is) scum just don't think that it's worth it to put themselves out there in order to influence which one of the two gets limmed - obviously that can make sense if they're T/T, but if they're T/S then you could very easily have a scum who's afraid to commit to the bus in this situation but who also thinks that tying themself to their buddy will be too problematic.

They could care but just not think it's worth it to push.

[implosion]

Apathy is also a powerful drug, especially in a setup like this, where the only hard informational roles are basically landmines that we're trying to avoid running up because outing them loses the only value they give.

[implosion]

implo, do you care to convince me why i'm wrong on what i recently said about fire being town?

Which thing specifically? I gave some disagreement to some townread you gave on him recently.

[implosion]

For the first: I feel like I've had scum games where, if I'm being run up, my first instinct isn't to construct a specific narrative escape route that is as viable as possible, which it seems like that's what you're describing fire-scum should be doing but isn't? I definitely feel like another thing you can have as a reaction to pressure as scum is to just try to do your best/vibe. If fire was like "yes, ari is right, andante is totally obvious scum vote andante" then fire would risk getting yelled at for pushing a counterwagon, or for flailing.

For the second: I think this is also a potential motivation/mindset thing? fire could be scum who wants to avoid dying, but e.g. doesn't have his heart in it due to gamestate apathy/the day dragging on, which can affect scum too. And so hinting at analysis without actually doing it is a sensible thing in that case. I do think that post is maybe somewhat -scum for fire. Seeming like you're fine with being flipped is like, not an uncommon tact to take as scum. For instance, Andante seemed fine being flipped as scum in the scumgame of hers I linked earlier. I think you need more context for a tell like that; in some contexts, like if someone has been zoned in on the game and is really (particularly emotionally) invested and then loses that investment as they're being flipped then yeah maybe that makes more sense for town who is out of fucks than it would make for scum who is excited about winning the game to suddenly be less excited about trying. But fire hasn't been that gung-ho.

[implosion]

And I'm still pretty uninterested in thinking about partner dynamics; I think things along the lines of "X can't be scum because no one makes sense as a partner" are probably like =rand to be correct. Maybe he is scum with those unlikely people, or maybe he's been trying to make it look like he's not partners with the people you think he's not with. etc.

And to be clear. Do I have confidence fire is scum? lol, no.

[implosion]

Andante (4): Something_Smart, Datisi, hutmeil, Aristeia

I do want to say, both mafia are in this. like, I'm pretty certain on that

Why is this? If fire is town, why do you think scum would be inclined to vote you over fire?

Datisi talks to me like he knows I'm town

Examples? It's okay if you don't explain them but I want specific posts.

[implosion]

Unvote

[implosion]

I think I do see Datisi scum as being pretty sensible right now. It kind of feels like he's the only one who tangibly has an agenda, in general. Andante has flipped opinions on a dime, and Datisi calls that scummy, but it's so flagrant. Aristeia has done similar, and the way her opinions change feels pretty natural. I want to look more closely at the trajectory of Datisi's opinions today but it's work to do so :X.

I think the gamestate feels like it's really hard for me to find someone I feel good about calling scum right now, in contrast to e.g. PYP where there were like 4 people I wanted to scream at for being scum at any given moment. And in that game, part of the reason for that was simply that The Scummy People Were Scum, or like, generally, that the easy answers were right. And in this game the fact that I don't really feel good pinning anyone as scum makes it appealing to say that the players who I know have exceptionally good scumgames (which would be Datisi and Aristeia) have their scum equity go up. And I think I have better tangible reasons to call Aristeia scum than Datisi right now.

fire I have been voting and have thought was viable scum but idk, the consistency of his kind of laidbackness while also still doing solving feels like a weird tact as scum. Or even like, hard to keep up for this long.

[implosion]

I'm still not sure if I actually want to vote that way today though. But at this moment in time I feel like I'd want to vote Andante over fire if that was still the dichotomy? and eugh.

[implosion]

Oh i meant to follow that with a sentence that it wasn't necessarily scummy and that i was still trying to parse if it meant anything

[implosion]

Why do you think it points to ss town specifically? Just because scum!SS should have been aiming more for a mason? Why would scum!otherpeople not have been aiming more for a mason?

I could imagine scum thinking she's a mason, or at least that she could be one. She's a good player, could conceivably have replicated her open discussion about what wagons the masons were on as a mason, and above all was the like, single universal townread at that point which just means she could have conceivably been masons with a lot of different people.

My immediate inclination right now is that I want to lim Datisi. I've felt since early on that he was townish early and that if he made it late in the game, he might need to be limmed just out of obligation, but I also separately just think he has a good amount of scum equity right now based on the trajectory of the game. Other people under scrutiny keep doing things that seem like, possibly hard for them to fake, and I don't really remember Datisi doing anything at least recently that felt like "yeah, no way Datisi fakes this". I'm going to look more closely at his ISO today as a first priority. But it is massive so I will be skimming/looking at particular things.

I do want to hear what Datisi's new leading theory is now that Andante has flipped town.

[implosion]

Ari kill also could just make direct sense from Datisi at this point. She's shown skepticism toward him at this point and she's kind of his main competition in terms of controlling the thread.

[implosion]

I've been at least skimming his ISO around Penguin and it feels like it definitely could be a bus. He kind of went very smoothly from "i have no idea about Penguin" to voting Penguin but saying there's other people he'd be willing to vote, to saying he wanted Penguin's blood. I think this is a very directly sensible way to play around Penguin as a scumbuddy d1 as scum; even if Datisi was planning to bus Penguin, there wasn't really any way to justify that bus until around the time he voted Penguin. And then he still is willing to jump to other people, because, well, Penguin still might come back to the thread and effort. But when Penguin just isn't efforting, Datisi commits to the bus and says he actively wants to lim Penguin, both because it's likely the lim is gonna go through that day and he wants credit, and because it's unlikely that keeping Penguin alive is worth as much if he's not efforting in the game.

Can Datisi have that arc as town? Yeah sure, probably. It almost feels like it's so smooth as to be more likely manufactured, to some degree.

[implosion]

how can the thoughts "datisi is so towny we have to yeet him if he's still alive" and "datisi has very good scum equity, actually" exist at the same time in your mind?

This is a mischaracterization; like I mentioned the first thought was an early thought. Essentially a "Datisi seems town right now, and I expect him to be dead by the late game if he's town." I guess the most relevant nk here is n2, because it makes sense for you to not die last night with thread sentiment turning somewhat against you and n1 VP was townier than you. And maybe scum just had some strong read that Gamma was mason (but apparently not on his partners). But that was the thought.

I also don't really understand how these two thoughts, as you've written them out here, are at odds; someone can think "x is so towny that we need to yeet them if they live to late game" and then in late game think "x has good scum equity, because they've lived this long despite being so broadly townread". Especially when x has such a notoriously good scumgame.

I'm getting the idea that your scumgame is good from the MU tournament thingie, primarily; I don't think I've expressed other specific ideas that I have about your scumgame in particular recently.

I'll look at whatever progression thing I said I'd look at at some point i suppose, i at this moment in time have no memory of what that was

[implosion]

He kind of went very smoothly from "i have no idea about Penguin" to voting Penguin but saying there's other people he'd be willing to vote, to saying he wanted Penguin's blood.

it's almost as if
my scumread on him was increasing
as he was continuously avoiding the thread

i mean i feel like it's obvious i wouldn't play like i did if i were scum with penguin, but this just feels like another "datisi is scum because he is too town" argument

Why is it obvious you wouldn't play like you did if you were scum with penguin?

[implosion]

mm.

[implosion]

I need other non-Datisi people to look at Datisi and analyze him/what I'm saying about him more bc honestly I don't think back and forth with him himself is going to be very useful to me for sorting him :X. It just feels like it's going to fall into the trope of arguments in mafia where I say X, he says no not X, and I just can't really trust the argumentation as useful for his alignment.

Spoiler: This is basically a rant and i honestly am slightly embarrassed to post it because i'm going to feel really bad about it if datisi is town and tbh i might just not even read whatever he makes his reply to it because golly gosh

So the thing I said I'd look at wrt Datisi was his trajectory yesterday. He started off by talking about/going after Enchant, essentially prodding him to give reads and such and eventually voting him with Ari, starting around 1907. I'm not sure if I buy Datisi's vote here, looking it over. Ari's read is very clearly emotionally driven, and Datisi's comes off the back of essentially a series of back and forth questions that he didn't like the answers to. I think by 1933 when he votes, he is supposed to be scumreading Enchant and it's not just emotionally driven like Ari's vote clearly was, because his vote wasn't just a vanity vote and he shortly thereafter asked Ari why she thought Enchant was town. But then like 30 minutes later he made the comment that he thought Enchant was looking townie but had fooled him before. I guess like with the other thing I'd been describing, this can have an explanation as town but makes a lot of sense as a trajectory for scum to take on Enchant I think? I just feel like the thought process behind the vote is murky and doesn't quite make sense to me.

He then left his vote on S_S a while while fire became leading wagon, while he was also calling fire scum in a few ways (e.g. calling his lack of paranoia towards Datisi potentially scummy, and poe). It seems like for a while he was poeing fire/s_s and looking for reasons to break that poe. Sensible as either alignment probably.

Then comes the shift to Andante eventually, and I really can't tell what prompted it. It comes off the back of Datisi seemingly being unimpressed with a back-and-forth/Andante not giving reads, then Andante gets to E-2 and he says he's starting to think Andante is actually scum. This has a little bit of a parallel with the Enchant vote in that I can't tell fully if it's actually a read, actually frustration with Andante, or some combination of both (i mean clearly it's partially a read but it's a weird (not necessarily scummy-weird) reversal from how he'd been talking about Andante recently). He gives logical and meta justifications for the vote after that.

I guess my main issue with all this is that it all seems perfectly sensible to do as scum. Like, Datisi has cited things that he's done this game that he claims aren't how he plays as scum, but those things, generally to me, have sounded like actually pretty sensible things to do as scum. For instance,

entering the day with "there was a bus ackchually" is not the idea i wanna start planting in people's heads after bussing

He said he wouldn't have been pushing on-penguin-wagon d2 as scum because he was on-wagon. But that could be totally sensible to do as scum who was on-wagon and whose partner was off-wagon when there's five other people who were on wagon other than you and the now-dead baltar... I don't understand why it wouldn't be sensible, no one has ever actually had the thought pattern of "oh my god, Datisi is pushing on wagon, datisi was on wagon, datisi is totally scum!!" that he's implying he'd be afraid of as scum. That just, simply isn't how thought processes work? And there's more things at play that cause people to have reads on people than this and a part of me thinks that this line is just straight bullshit? Idk, maybe it's possible Town Datisi is lying to himself here??? but this seems simply false to me that he'd never (or even infrequently) make that play as scum.

i'm also not gonna so easily drop it if i do decide to take that angle because murdering on wagon then off wagon is overall easier than the other way around

This is also just, kind of bullshit? Sure it's "overall easier" why does that mean you'd never easily drop it? It's a perfectly sensible thing to do as scum for a billion different reasons. Maybe there's an easy off-wagon lim that day that presents itself, maybe you want to look like your opinions are fluid, etc, etc, etc.

if i'm gonna bus, i'm gonna come up with better arguments than "lol ye lurking is scummy" or however else i said it on d1 because if you wanna bus, you have to appear like you have Great Reasons why the person is scum, rather than jumping on as an afterthought

I think this is just a basic mischaracterization of this game. If scum!Datisi thought about bussing Penguin at the moment that he would have here, there were no Great Reasons why Penguin was scum. He'd done shit-all that was readable. But it's still potentially sensible to bus there. And he did give increasing reasons to vote penguin - it's not like he totally didn't justify it if it was a bus. Like he gave as good of reasons as I think he possibly could.

I think this is also just a fascinating take in its own right - it's almost saying "if I were scum, I would be playing so much better than I am as town". Like saying you would have given better reasons and been more committed to the bus. Like, why should I believe that your scum game is a better town game than your town game is? Idk.

Like, almost the entirety of the post I'm quoting here (2675) is saying "I can't be scum here because my game would look so much better if I was scum", as far as I can tell. The last paragraph:

like, you can argue "but datisi have big scumrange" and claim i did these things because wifom or because i was planning a month ahead to make this post, but i simply don't play scum like that because then i either have to (1) hope town draws these conclusions themselves or (2) make the arguments myself, and both of those are things that i can't rely on as scum

This is just so weird because he's claiming the things that he's done that are townie are townie because they are low-utility to do as scum, because people would never be giving him credit for them. Which like... tbh it sounds like Datisi is putting his scumgame on a bigger pedestal than I am? Like I think this is just not how anything works. Datisi, as scum, is sometimes going to do things that are Not Perfectly Optimal To Do As Scum In That Situation. He's just going to go with the flow sometimes.

And beyond all that, the actual reason I'm thinking more that you are scum is sort of PoE-inspired but it's not PoE. It's because exactly the thing that you're describing you should be town for, is why several other people in this game are town, but it doesn't apply to you. So many other players in this game have done shit that I feel

doesn't

make sense for them to do as scum, but every trajectory you've taken this game just feels so... sensible. You haven't turned on a dime, you haven't done any weird shit, and most importantly you haven't taken any major actions in the most recent parts of the game that have made me go "jeez, this just doesn't make sense to come from scum Datisi". Like, take Enchant. His weird outburst today is, I think, probably extremely +town. I'm open to arguments that it isn't but like, idk. It feels like if you're town, there should be something tangible that I can point to at this point that makes you town - there were things on d1 that were

somewhat

tangible but those aren't enough at this point?

[implosion]

i am really annoyed that it seems like implo has decided to not respond at all to my 2674 bc i was really interested in his response to the middle part

I guess here's a better way to put how the "Datisi hasn't been nightkilled" thing plays out in my mind: I think there are a lot of good reasons to not really pressure or deeply investigate you early, among them (1) I thought you looked somewhat town, (2) if you were scum there's a good chance I just wouldn't have been able to figure it out no matter how long I stared, (3) you're generally pretty strong as town I think, etc etc. But those reasons dissipate over time, and so I've been meaning to look more closely, and have sort of been on the lookout for reasons to think you're town, and I haven't seen any good ones lately. And when you gave reasons they're just, kinda bad, as the wallpost was about. And because I made that note to myself early on of "I need to look more closely at Datisi later", it is the case both that I am biasing myself toward noticing things that could fit with a scum!you world (like me mentioning the ari nightkill) and that I more starkly notice the lack of things from you that I think make you likely town.

I'm allowed to feel you were townie early and that you've been less townie lately.

like for a lot of these, i'm not claiming i'd have done some uber difficult thing to do as scum. pushing off-wagon immediately is easy. sticking to my guns about eliminating on-wagon is easy (either i'm not listened to and the town starts eating each other, or i am listened to and confusion arises as townflips happens and the low-hanging-fruit is alive). making up reasons to scumread a scumbuddy is easy. those things would've helped scum!me. i can, for the most part, tell how town is going to react to certain events, and position accordingly.

Pushing off-wagon immediately is easy; it's also not something you're automatically going to do as scum because pushing on-wagon immediately has certain other utility; it doesn't have to be that you're making a ridiculous long-term plan to eventually make this post today and say "but i wouldn't do this"... it could just be that you think there are people on-wagon you can push effectively. Or that you think pushing on-wagon will make you look town in the moment. Or that you're trying to emulate your own town thought process. Or any other number of reasons. You saying "well, the only reason I could possibly have done this is some incredible long term plan to make this post today and get townread" is reductive as all heck.

Sticking to your guns, same thing. Making up reasons to scumread Penguin, well, like I said you

did

do that over time to some degree, and to be frank, I think you'd probably not even want to do that as scum because it'd look like bullshit. Because there weren't a whole lot of great, deep reasons to scumread Penguin. And I think you're just like, lying about it if you're saying you'd

always

want to make up good reasons for a scumread when bussing. You might be lying to me as scum or you might be lying to yourself as town but I simply don't believe that, it's such a 1-dimensional statement that ignores any sense of context and in this game there is context that makes it less likely to be true (namely penguin's ISO being so sparse).

[implosion]

Does anyone think Enchant is scum at this point? Or like, do people have significant paranoia? I want to hear arguments if so; Enchant is right that one way to view this setup at this point is that we have some pair of masons somewhere, and all we need is for two VTs to convince each other/the masons that they are town. In that sense, if Enchant is town (which I think they are) and claiming VT (which they are) then I think it's important to scrutinize them and see if anyone has any objections to them being town, both because at this point being really sure about the people we're calling town is one way to win the game, and because it might be a good way to hem scum in.

Also since they claimed VT we can all talk about what we think of them in full generality without risking any info leak.

[implosion]

Datisi, what's your opinion on my 2768, both about Enchant (you mentioned you'd found him more town, I'm wondering how much if any paranoia you still have) and that way of viewing the game right now?

[implosion]

my lizard brain is telling me fire is scum for not paranoia-ing me!scum anymore
jk...
...unless

Why did you have this instinct toward fire, but feel like me paranoia-ing you is scum-indicative? I understand you're claiming to think my trajectory/line of thought isn't consistent or whatever, so that's a difference, but I guess I'm curious what you think my stance toward you

should

be at this point if we're both town.

[implosion]

for why?

[implosion]

yeah i'm not really sure what i want to do right now either. the game state is... weird.

[implosion]

I want to just vote Datisi but will wait because that would put him in Enchant range.

I generally like, just agree with what fire is saying. And I also kind of just think Enchant+fire is town, tbh. The way fire played yesterday just seems really hard to maintain as scum. And he's continuing to maintain it today.

[implosion]

VOTE: Datisi

I think Datisi is just the best vote today. I think I'm at the point where that's unlikely to change. I think there's still chances to have scum shoot a VT tonight, and so I don't really want to lim in the unclaimed (and obviously not myself). I don't really want to talk about the unclaimed either. I don't want to lim fire or Enchant. I can conceivably be convinced on fire but it'd take some convincing.

I'm not saying it's like, objectively right to not lim in the unclaimed, but I don't want to. And I think Datisi has good scum equity separately as well.

I'm not really sure what else I want to talk about. I'm happy to like, discuss with fire if he wants to talk about more specific stuff. I'm getting on a plane today so may not be super available but might be, not sure.

[implosion]

fire's summary is generally accurate.

[implosion]

I don't think Datisi's going to flip wolf.

because for why?

[implosion]

also we have a day and a half >_>

i know you just joined the game but like. i spent today trying to figure out if enchant is universally townread and it seemed like they were and i really am not interested in undoing that work rn.

[implosion]

We have one day.

Can we... coalesce votes, maybe? We have 2 people not voting and 3 vanity wagons????

[implosion]

tbf, canonically in this game it is a negative word

[implosion]

Datisi, if you were at E-1 and no other wagon is viable with deadline approaching, would you self-hammer?

i know fire said no-lim isn't a worry; and yet, worry i do.

[implosion]

~____~

[implosion]

Oh my great golly goodness just hammer, my friend we can hash out how much tomorrow might suck tomorrow

[implosion]

hoorah~

(no redactions for mason pt from me)

[implosion]

But yeah, i apologise for just jumping with hammer, before announcement. Because i didn't knew about it. Previous post more about overall hammering.

I don't think this is what catboi is saying. It's not (at least not primarily) about the fact that you posted before the replacement was announced. It's about you hammering one minute after the replacement was announced.

It's about site meta having norms around things like declaring intent and allowing a claim before hammering, etc. It's okay (arguably, but I think it's fine) to break those norms, by quickhammering. But in this game before you replaced in, no one had any reason to believe any of the players in the game would do that (in fact, the opposite, there was no one in the game likely to quickhammer) and so people might put someone at E-1 e.g. with the intent to force a claim. When you replace in and quickhammer before anyone has a chance to unvote after seeing that you, a quickhammering player, are in the game, it's essentially a cheap shot and kind of rude in a different way from just quickhammering in general.

You can say "I think it was playing to win", but it really doesn't look that way when you do it indiscriminately one minute after replacing in, presumably before reading anything about the game (though maybe you read the game in depth before replacing in - I don't know, but I sort of doubt it). It just looks like abusing a game mechanism to get a cheap laugh. I think I personally would be at least somewhat less miffed at you doing it as scum because there at least there's a clear justification of it being a mislim that you think you can get away with.