In post 1362, Meuh wrote:
In post 464, implosion wrote:
Gut from pages 1-4 is Dann town (though I think I remember seeing that's someone consensus?), Mandate town (...) I thought Mandate's opening was slightly +town even from someone who is clearly gimmicking and I like the timing of the Taly vote on page 4 quite a lot. Dann is townish just for voting like 8 times in 4 pages.
149 is actually an interesting post and probably true of me bc I probably would have explained things in the scum PT at some point, alas. Probably +town (maybe strongly) for Brown Eyes to point out an observation like that, it's an observation that could easily just never be made by anyone. Dunn calling Brown Eyes town shortly after this is slightly good for Dunn (who I don't really have much of a read on at this point).
Mandate town is easy to say, Implo just proceeds to point out bad posts :lol:
It's a read I agree with but also like, naturally easy to fake
Dann read is, as Implo himself pointed out, what a lot of other people were already thinking, easily fakeable.
The Brown Eyes townread is probably the best read Implo has, but 1. I think it's something he could still notice and then comment on, and 2. it's a read based off of a singular post. I think this comes back around later with the Sakura read and it's interesting the way that Implo is laser focusing on a single post, I think it makes it easier for him to argue a scumread but also feels less townie because well, there's a whole bunch of other posts to consider! This is something that comes back a few times, the specificity of the reads. It's always specific things being pointed out and being the reasoning for reads, which seems to me to come more from scum trying to make sure their reads are understood to be about a thing in particular. Scum really hate it when their ideas aren't clear, but townies are much more likely to make broad statement about other people's posting and the general vibes from said posting. But for Implo it's almost always one post or another, never a player's general direction.
In post 485, implosion wrote:
221 is a pretty good point (on Keyleth being town) and probably +town a bit for Sakura. To elaborate a bit since it came into question why I think it's +town for Keyleth, the post is just very frank about what it's trying to do. I think scum on average will tend to shy away from a post that's like "hey, we already have me + x as town, who are the other two" particularly in the context of Keyleth having some heat on her. It's not a slam dunk or anything, but I think it's very easy to glance at that post and briefly *think* it's a slam dunk before you've thought it through intensely, hence Sakura is slightly townish for it (but only slightly and this paragraph is already way too long)
This is like, fine, but also something Implo can just say about a town Sakura. I guess the point about it being surface-level scummy but actually town indicative is cool, but it's also the exact angle Implo would be able to argue from with the knowledge that Sakura is town and the thread otherwise disliking that post from her.
Meh
In post 722, implosion wrote:
wasn't to me but mandate is extremely town in my eyes.
They have all the right stances at all the right times. The way they're thinking about the game feels right, I liked their opening, I liked the evolution of their taly+keyleth team read, I like the evolution of their stances in general, like, the townread on sakura a page or two ago is good for example
This read is less specific ("the way they're thinking about the game", "evolution of stances"), though I think Implo going out of his way to explain why a widely townread player is town isn't the best look?
In post 725, implosion wrote:
i think dannflor's first 10 or however many pages were really town, i'm not interested in voting for dannflor unless time passes and he falls off (which could happen but time has not yet passed).
Just kind of reiterating that read without anything new, but making sure to keep the door open for a future vote. So like all this accomplishes is setting things up so Implo can vote for Dann later? Which is also something Implo ends up saying about me. Can't say I'm a big fan of these posts anticipating votes instead of just voting when it feels right to. Feels overly careful.
Taly makes a bunch of good posts (including a vote on Dann, notably) and then Implo pops in with this. I guess it's alright I dunno
In post 1165, implosion wrote:
Relevantly the coalition game that I was in w Ari and Merlyn just ended today and I was scum so I have some extremely fresh scum meta, which is almost never true of me lol
I think it gave me a pretty good sense of some things from Ari to be on the lookout for as reasons to townread her. If I were a man of more patience I would go back and reread the game from forever ago where she snowed me as scum but i am not going to do that probably ever lol
He acts all murky about Ari for a while, then says he can have better reasons to townread her now, and then doesn't elaborate. Only been 24 hours tbf but his positioning around Ari is definitely odd. Feels like he's scared of her.
In post 1327, implosion wrote:
In post 1307, Sakura Hana wrote:
You know what, i'm not gonna ask anymore, i'm just gonna hope someone that's good at the game gives me some guidance while I figure out where my head is at.
I think this reaction would be kind of incredible to fake as scum. Like, I've been vaguely lurking and beeboy has been talking about thinking their wagon was scum driven and so i feel like replying to beeboy jumping on me with a ???? after beeboy just listed me near the bottom of their reads list the previous page is just like, something scum who care sharply about how they're perceived would never do. I think sakura is already (widely?) townread but this cements it pretty hard for me sort of in the vein of the philosophy that I think Shirou mentioned earlier of trying to read people off a few key posts, which I think I kind of agree with or at least am interested in thinking about as a philosophy of forum mafia.
Like Sakura pointed out, this is very much echoing previous sentiments about her. There's a lot of words so it feels good but the crux of it is "Sakura doesn't care about how she's seen" which like true, but also applies to other posts of her and has already been mentioned.
In post 1328, implosion wrote:
I have very mixed feelings on beeboy's current trajectory. I think the part of it that I see as unlikely to come from scum is that just literally calling every single person on your wagon scum is I think a somewhat unnatural reaction to have as scum, I think as scum you get to choose what your reads are and so the normal thing to do is to like, pick a token person on your wagon whomst you will say is actually town and then lambast the rest of it. The counterpoint to this is that beeboy is coming back from a long break so I could see them theoretically being kind of lazy as scum and just falling in to pushing all the people pushing them. But I think I am tending to think it's probably town, I don't really see a good reason for scum beeboy to decide to wake up and choose violence in this way. It just kind of puts them at the center of narratives and in the spotlight and embroils them in conflict and idk what the point would be when simpler options exist.
In a dramatic turn of irony i am now going to call beeboy the only townie on my wagon (nah but i am about to call meuh scum i think)
I think Implo not noticing the mention that Taly had been on the Beeboy wagon and that Beeboy was townreading her isn't a very good look... feels odd to drop a read like this but then also just not see
1281 which is quite literally 2 pages earlier, and right after Beeboy's readlist. But like regardless, the argument here is just that scum!Beeboy would not take the stance that his wagon is scumlead cause that makes conflict? Which sure is fine I guess
In post 1332, implosion wrote:
Anyway. Let's wrap up the post chain with a summary of where I'm at with everyone.
Very Much Locktown: Mandate, Sakura. It'd take a hell of a lot to convince me away from either of them.
Town: Brown Eyes, Keyleth
Probably Town but not as confident as above: beeboy, Dunn (only townread I think I haven't talked about at all yet, but kind of a gut feels-like-he's-playing-like-i-remember-his-towngame-looking)
Town, but will need to be audited sooner than other townreads: Dannflor
Town, but I still have reservations: Taly
Still gotta sort: Ari, Merlyn, Alisae
Also in the still gotta sort tier, but I'm choosing to put him separately not because I think he's scummier than the other people in the tier but because it'll make him angry: Shirou
I saw a thing I don't like and don't remember seeing anything I thought was particularly town but I am definitely going to go look over more stuff later: Meuh
Brown Eyes and Keyleth seemingly haven't changed in Implo's eyes since like his second post? I think the specific mention of the Dunn townread not being spoken about yet is another one of those things that could theoretically be said by town, but that I think scum are more likely to notice. Him elaborating on that read but not some of the older reads that he hasn't touched on in ages very much gives that scummy feel of a player sticking to exactly what's been said before and only deviating on an explicit mention of the contrary.
Definitely curious about his progression on Taly, cause it very much swung with the way the thread was going, which feels convenient.
Overall:
-His town reads feel white knighty
-He feels scared of Ari
-His stance of Taly is convenient
-It feels like he has a need to make his stance exceedingly clear and doesn't like leaving things vague (which is very much a scum perspective)
-There's an almost total lack of progression that feels like it's happening outside of the thread. Every little change in Implo's view of the game is stated in thread. He's not developing a full view of the game on his own, he's dropping thoughts in thread and those thoughts alone are his stance in the game.
![:]](./images/smilies/icon_smiling.png "Cheerful Smile"){kind=icon}
