I think Black is scum.
I scum read the tone on Black's entrance like some other people did but her response to her wagon and to me in particular has solidified that read a lot.
In post 28, Black wrote:
Generic trying to read and solve already is probably a good sign?
Some people had a bad reaction to this, for good reason. It's a read that apologizes for itself. When people roll mafia they can often enter a game with a bit of a sense of subconscious guilt. The red role PM weighs on their conscience. It might seem ridiculous to read this much into a "probably" and a "?," but combined with the fact that Black seems like a fairly confident player, I think it betrays someone who is (whether consciously or subconsciously) a little worried that throwing out a read like that is going to be viewed negatively by the other players in the game.
In post 54, Black wrote:
I don't mind T3's vote on me. I like that he admitted he was grasping at straws to start discussion
CCG's vote feels bad though. Putting me at e-2 by piggybacking off of someone grasping at straws and doubling down on their point feels off
In post 56, Black wrote:
In post 51, Aureal wrote:
CCGeek, how can you find T3's aggression possibly 'faux' but also agree with the point he made?
Oh right because you're scum.
You may be right here
VOTE: CCGeek
I think this progression too shows Black is feeling a little self-conscious to be the first one to put a read out there. If Black scum read's CCG's vote on her, why doesn't she vote him in
54? Instead, she waits until she's read and acknowledged Aureal's
51 that shades CCGeek to jump on the wagon. I think if Black had a pure and innocent heart and actually felt bad about CCG's vote she'd put a vote there without any hesitation.
I also think specifically calling out "putting me at e-2" is slightly scum indicative. It is consistently more likely for town players to not pay attention to where the votes are at when they throw down a vote. Scum players have to be very careful about how they are perceived and how the timing of votes might look later down the line. And while I don't think it is necessarily scum indicative for Black to *be aware* of how many votes she has accumulated, I do think it is scum indicative that she used that as a point against CCGeek, as if she found something objectively scummy with which to discredit his push with.
In post 63, Black wrote:
What difference does it make? Are you implying you wouldn't have voted for me had you known this?
Black even then later acts like it doesn't make a difference whether CCGeek meant to put her at E-2 or not, despite using the fact that CCGeek had put her to E-2 as a point of suspicion against CCGeek in post
54.
This doesn't read like someone who is genuinely trying to figure out CCGeek's alignment, it reads like someone trying to get CCGeek in a "Gotcha!"
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Anyway, I imagine Black is feeling like she's under a lot of pressure for not a lot of reason pretty early in this game. But, I think if she was town, she'd more interested in trying to determine the alignments of the people on her wagon. Instead, she seems more interested in discrediting all the votes on her. I think this is evident in her pushes on both CCGeek and myself.
Even her read on T3, she's like "oh it's towny because it's grasping for straws and just trying to start discussion," which discredits the actual read. The moment someone seriously scum reads her, she pushes back and discredits.
For one thing, I think it's weird she goes after me for a "perspective slip" despite CCGeek arguably doing the same thing by saying that Black is "tunneling" in
95, normally something you'd say to a person you think is town. It's for this reason that I don't really believe that she thinks I'm scum, or that she's genuinely trying to parse CCGeek's alignment.
In post 108, Black wrote:
In post 105, Dannflor wrote:
I don't think you are town, but I am not prideful enough to think my read on you is 100% on page 4
I'm sorry but I have a hard time believing
98 comes from someone that thinks I'm probably scum. You conveniently hopped on the wagon built by others and then spoke to me as if you were trying to convince me that CCG is town. If I'm your #1 suspect then it doesn't make sense for you to address me this way. I don't like this at all
You're either scum with CCG or CCG is town and you're playing us both
VOTE: Dannflor
As far as this post goes, it's just loaded with scum rhetoric.
I "conveniently hopped on the wagon built by others"? Okay. What does this actually mean about my alignment? What makes it convenient that I joined a pre-existing wagon? Why would a town player not do this?
I think "You're either scum with CCG or CCG is town and you're playing us both" doesn't make sense as a real town thought. I think at this point town!Black would have an idea in her head of which is more likely. She'd be constructing a world that makes my behavior and CCGeek's behavior make sense. Calling out two very different worlds (me and CCG as scum buddies and CCG as town) without really giving either one more credence than the other makes it seem like she isn't really considering each of these worlds and what they might mean. Instead, this feels like a rhetorical device to both discredit all the people on her wagon and make it seem more likely that I'm scum by offering up two different ways that I could be scum in this scenario.
I don't think Black actually believes that because I challenged her read on CCG, that means that I made a perspective slip that makes me scum. I think she feels like she has to push me in this way and if she were town I think there would be more of an attempt to see where I'm coming from.
There's not even an attempt really to build a coherent case against me. Instead,
108 is filled with a lot of statements that are supposed to make it seem more believable that I'm scum, with my "convenient hop on to a wagon built by others" thrown in there as if that makes sense as a reason for me to be scum "I don't like this at all" thrown in there to make the read seem more real, and "you're either scum with CCG or scum playing us both" thrown in there to make me seem more likely to be scum. I don't think any of these statements reveal that Black has genuinely thought about my alignment and what is most likely to be happening in this game.
![:]](./images/smilies/icon_smiling.png "Cheerful Smile"){kind=icon}
