(Unless I make being featured in the fanfic opt-in and 18+ only! It makes me sad to waste the intro ;_;)
Anyway, the first reason I didn't want to give reads right away was to leave a counterwagon on chesskid so as to see whether xyzzy would be opportunistic and try to vote there (or a partner, but I feel like any xyzzy partner would have cut them loose by now). I was starting to really lose confidence in my chesskid scumread in the end, but thought a day in which xyzzy was the only and inevitable wagon wouldn't give any useful information.
The second is, um, more embarrassing, and is the tl;dr to this post:
Anyway, thoughts (although some of these players I should take a closer look at since I feel like I'm still at the superficial impression level):
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Radja
both Patrick and I suspected...right up until the end of D2, where he basically dropped an atom bomb of towniness. I'm willing to hard-defend this read if necessary. I will say I'm a bit confused by the hard townreads from earlier in the game.
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Keychain
has a sort of cautious and calculated style that tends to make me wary--good logic and reasoning =/= town. Patrick described her as almost too pristine for him to get a read on (I think Patrick is the only one on my team who's recently weighed in, aside from singer on Titus). But I feel as though that's more just her playstyle. Leaving aside that RC's interactions with LLD I think are pretty unlikely to be a bus (particularly now that I know my read on Transcend was right), I think she's done some thorough scumhunting that looks very genuine. I buy her thought processes and effort, I guess.
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Bins
is like bizarro Keychain. My reasons for ultimately thinking she's town are basically the opposite of Keychain--I think her play is almost too messy to be scum in how blatantly she called attention to her interactions with LLD and how she's a bit all over the place sometimes. I didn't like her being all, "RC knows I'm awkward, I swear!" early on, but it matches with my limited experience of her Mafia play in F2F and being lynched D1. I also remember her being very townish D2--she made a lot of points I was thinking of (like about chesskid's play here vs. then-REDACTED) and has posts that feel like genuine scumhunting. A lot of stuff she does bothers me, though (Bins, when exactly did you drop your Radja scumread? Apparently, you had it even after all the town stuff that happened). I didn't like her reaction to being wagoned early on in the game. This is a very mixed bag read I'd delve into more another day and maybe do a meta dig, but I'm on the town side overall.
-Does anyone remember why CDB was so adamantly insistent
Bulbazak
is town in the end? I don't think he mentioned it in team Skype logs. I know he retracted his case based on Bulb's reaction, but he seemed Radja-level confident in it. Did I miss Radja-level towntells from Bulbazak? I was town-reading Bulbazak and really can't articulate it in any way other than a few of his posts sound like his genuine thought process. But some of his other posts felt more...closed off, if that makes sense. God, this is hippie shit. Some of his posts emit a positive aura, and some have a blocked-off chakra that is clearly a sign of a Mafia role PM! On my to-do list is to read the post from CDB.
-I haven't really looked much at UCV/
Archwing
, honestly. My main reason for liking the slot are the team reads, particularly since Creature supposedly wouldn't contribute as scum--that, and a lot of people vouching for UCV early on. Agree with DV some of the later team stuff looks pretty genuine. I guess it's not impossible he's scum from PoE, but I like his tone and nothing that bad popped out at me. This sounds kind of lame when I put it this way, so I guess maybe I'll just say "gut" or something and then run away. I do find it a bit weird I'm in their suspect pool but they haven't really engaged with me at all since I replaced in.
-I'm all over the place re: chesskid/
DeasVail
. I think chesskid did a good job of making me doubt that his play was actually that of a pod person, and his interactions with Katsuki were definitely real. He also does have actual town-sounding content. DV is all warm and fuzzy and I have no idea how to read him because he's so likeable and I want to send all my money to his Nigerian bank account, dammit. Patrick warned me that DV is strong as scum. His opening posts were really good, and his reads are also very aligned with mine.
-This is Team Mafia, and when every single player in the game and every single one of their teammates is insisting a player is 100% town based on their meta, I'm willing to assume that at least some of them know what they're talking about when said player is someone I've never interacted with before. I would probably NOT have a townread on
Dunkerdoodles
if I just saw him in a vacuum--he has like, a couple of somewhat genuine-sounding posts, but otherwise has really superficial opinions that don't seem very hard to fake at all. All I'll say is that be careful this isn't one of those reads where someone writes someone off for like the first two posts of the game, sheeping sets in, and everyone takes it for granted all game even once the slot starts coasting. If the players who know his meta and have townreads on him take a second look and are sure their initial impression is right, I'm willing to lock this read as town. So I'm glad that Keychain is at least questioning Dunkerdoodles.
-Already talked about
xyzzy
. I would have strongly considered voting them anyway solely out of PoE, but it's generally a major scumtell when someone puts lots and lots of energy into quibbling with every minor point to defend themself and very little energy into trying to solve the game. If xyzzy flips town here, I'll probably spiral into madness and have a breakdown because I don't know how to find two scum in a haystack.