- Town. This read took a while to form. I don't know what's it been about his posts but I've just had a hard time parsing or focusing on them? I want to blame the wall post style but that's extremely hypocritical of me given I often default to that style. I think I've just been tired! Anyway, actually reading his posts it's uh... pretty good. I think the biggest factor here is the distinct lack of agenda present in his posting. His wall posts reek of good faith town sorting. I especially like progressions such as in #346 where he comes to an understanding with gobble, doesn't make a big LAMIST show of it, and moves quietly on to his next scum read. I like Dunn getting town pinged by my early posting #154 and then subsequently scum reading me and not hesitating to push me / question me. It shows a desire to constantly reevaluate without worrying about looking like he's constantly reevaluating. The uncertainty in #512 reads genuine and towny to me, as well as echoing some of the sentiments I've had about this game recently. In more general terms, he asks good questions.
- Town. Eddie Cane helped with this read initially but since then I've liked a lot of Cheeky's posts individually. For the most part, I keep mind melding with him—which I've found to be a pretty good way to tell when someone is town—both in his entrance/initial FF vote in
#552 and more recently in feeling better about Dong in
#916. Cheeky has been relentless in asking people who town read his scum reads to explain where they're at, and genuinely attempting to get at the root of the difference in read. He asks Dunnstral to explain town FF and me to explain town Hopkirk. I think Cheeky has the best balance of asking good questions and actual sorting / taking stances of anyone in the game, and as such is probably my strongest town read right now. Also contrary to what BBmolla said, I really like all of his votes and timing of all of his votes. Cheeky's general paranoia and continued probing/hedging on me while still *shrugging* and putting me in his top bracket also reads like a townie progression. It shows that he's not just throwing shade at me because he can and it'll keep me from town blocking, but he actually wants to determine my alignment.
- Town. Here's the spicy one. I started town reading Auro very early on with post
#50, where his concerns about Gobble's question echoed exactly what I was thinking at the time. Honestly, reading back over his ISO, I see *why* people scum read him, even if I don't agree. In general, the scum reads on him seem to be a clash in style, where Auro is a player who gets a lot out of dissecting and evaluating other player's reads on himself, whereas other players see that as overly defensive and scummy. And the thing is, I feel like Auro is a good enough player to just know that as scum, he could let some of these attacks go and look a lot better for it, but he engages in the sometimes fruitless arguments—like recently with FF—anyway. You could argue that he's just trying to clutter the thread as a scum strategy, but I really don't think that's a danger in this game with such a slow pace. Instead, it reads much more like a town mindset that's very willing to go into just about anything and everything, EVEN if that reflects poorly on himself. Like, I don't read Auro's posts and think that his defensiveness is image based, or that he's worried about being town read. Instead, I see Auro using other's reads on him as a way into sorting those people. This is shown in posts like
#203 and in his reads list in
#491. If Auro was focused on image, I don't think he comes around so quickly to Ceph!town when Ceph was his original attacker. His reads on Dong and Esp are also generated out of his direct engagement with them. I ALSO think it's been quite clear for a while that Auro's method has only been causing more people to scum read him, and I think Auro is smart enough to see that. Yet, he hasn't stopped. Which simply points to Auro just being town. Town that clashes with other town? Maybe, but still town.
- Town. Someone else said earlier that the timing of KittyMo's vote on NSG was towny, I agree with that. I'm not going to harp on too long with this read because I think it's fairly consensus. However, I will say that her progressions and thought processes in a post like
#527 is super towny. She takes strong stances but still has an ounce of uncertainty that speaks to her alignment. It's not fence-sitting for an agenda, but more believable uncertainty and trying to get to a concrete conclusion despite evidence in both directions. You can see the same sort of thing in her read of me. Similar to Cheeky, she has her (valid) concerns about me but isn't interested in using them to just discredit me. Also "I guess I'm bored of everyone saying he's too good at scum to deserve to be townread or whatever with minimal elaboration" felt like an especially towny way to approach the read on me. I think me being a more uncertain town read is always going to be beneficial for scum and just dismissing that so casually is towny. Also KittyMo makes me laugh and I don't want her to be scum
- Lean Town. Idk like, what is Cephrir really doing if he's scum? His disinterest in this game has read pretty genuine compared to other players' similar sentiments (more on this later), and his complete lack of regard for engaging with Dong or Auro in
#315 is ACTUALLY towny. Definitely a style difference between Auro and him, but in this game especially I think makes Ceph greater than rand town. We have a lot of wall posters and people engaging over every little squibble and detail, and Ceph has firmly said he's not gonna do either of those things. Psychologically, scum want to blend in and what he's done is exactly the opposite of what he needs to do for that. Is Cephrir a good enough scum player to just say fuck it and do that anyway? Probably. But I like his trajectory on NSG and nothing about his posts have really scum pinged me, so he's leaning towards the town category for now.
- Lean town. Another read Eddie had first. Early on, his analysis in
#73 and
#149 concerning gobble was something unique no one else had latched onto yet and showed a level of deeper thinking that's harder for scum to pull off. Later on, Hopkirk's reaction to the modkill in
#304 was especially genuine. I don't really think that:
A. Hop spends so much time ranting about this if he's rolled scum and really doesn't have to worry about this as much.
B. Hop lies and uses this event as scum to AtE and try to gain a distinct advantage.
A lot of the rest of the reasons I like him for town are similar for my town!Dunnstral reasons. My one main worry here is that his reads in
#600 are... kind bad? Like even if you exclude me from that list, there's still Dunn, Auro, and Cheeky in his scum pool that really all deserve to be town cored IMO. I also don't think Gobble or Ceph have done enough to be town cored. FF and Espeon are just straight up scummy. So ehhhhhh... This read has dropped a lot in town equity since that post.
