Here's where I'm at with this game right now.
- There's a lot of light shading and encouraging of Black scum reads throughout Bellaphant's ISO that I struggle to see coming from a buddy. Stuff like
564 that encourages a scum read on Black but doesn't take credit for a push on Black would be pretty weird bussing from a buddy. There's also
817 that openly hedges while leaning towards shade on Black. I feel like there would either be less shade in a hedgey read or it would be an outright bus from a buddy. This sort of "discredit your partner" thing isn't all that common or intuitive.
There's also a good amount of back-and-forth between Bella and Black about Black's meta and how well Bella knows Black's meta. It's not impossible to fake but the discussion is pretty lengthy and reads pretty naturally.
Then there's Bella putting Black to E-1. Yes, I suppose there is a universe where Bella intentionally put Bella at E-1 knowing it was actually the hammer, and then Black pretended to self-hammer all to give Bella town cred. But I think the simpler answer is that Bella didn't double check what Black was at because they aren't partnered. This point also goes for Jupiter, by the way.
- Jupiter is just a shining radiant beacon of towniness. There's the E-2 thing. There's Black trying to pocket me while simultaneously goad me into scumreading Jupiter in
477. There's Jupiter's tonally genuine reaction to the Black self-hammer. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining this one because I think it's fairly widely agreed upon. Jupiter is just town.
- I had more stuff on this but with the JK claim it's all moot. But also I think Black's end of day push onto Titus never comes from scum/scum.
- I would be very impressed if Afrayed Knott / Black was scum theatre. I'm not saying this because they were vanity voting each other for much of the day, but because of the back and forth they had and Black's genuine frustration at being meta read (see: scum read for the wrong reasons) and accusing Afrayed Knott of having a hot garbage read. Afrayed thinks he finds a "scum slip" in Black's posting. Black asks Afrayed for his other scum games on site. From Afrayed's side, it reads like someone who genuinely thinks they've found scum. From Black's side, it reads like someone OMGUSing who is also trying to look the best they can off of Afrayed's push. Black also initially calls Afrayed but doesn't vote there because "vanity wagons," which I think is kind of unintuitive for scum. When you're bussing as scum you usually want to make your scum read look as strong as possible just because that's what feels best when you know the alignment of your partner. This doesn't happen which makes me think Black vs. Afrayed was SvT.
- I really just tonally town read this guy. I think his responses to me shading/scum reading him day 1 were pretty towny. I also believe his trajectory of starting to scum read Black before the wagon appeared on her by first questioning me about my Black read and then later following my lead onto the wagon. I also think Skygazer makes a good point about his entrance to the day! shaddowez generally this game has kinda seemed off in his own world trying to solve the game, and I think that speaks of someone who isn't really trying to get town read but someone who wants to find scum.
- I would, again, be extremely impressed if OutWorldER's interactions with Black on Page 40 were S/S. The constant appeals by Black to OutWorldER to consider what happens if one of Black/T3 were to flip town reads like Black appealing to a townie. I think this is also a mostly consensus read so I won't spend a ton of time on it.
Lim Pool
T3
Kurtapika
ProjEctRy
camelCasedSnivy Nono
Aisa
Skygazer
That leaves the above names as the lim pool.
I tonally town read both camelCasedSnivy and T3. I understand people want to kill T3. I think T3's reactions have been genuinely very towny. I also think the way Black played around Titus vs. T3 at the end of Day 1 looks a lot more like scum playing around a TvT than anything else.
Kurtapika, idk I think his posts are vaguely towny and I've come around to the perspective that Black might have been TMIing him as town.
ProjEctRy I think reads uninformed and I think Black's read on Projectry was probably a pocket.
That leaves Aisa and Skygazer as my solve and the most likely two scum candidates in my eyes.
I revisited Aisa today and I actually don't think any of her interactions with Black are clearing. Today, she doesn't seem super interested in solving the scum team? She's just kind of posting hedgey posts about T3 and not much else. I also feel much of her D1 posting in retrospect was about the appearance of solving rather than actually finding scum.
Skygazer... Maybe this is unfair but I feel they would be reconsidering the T3 read more as town. I feel like they are playing up how much they think it's going to flip scum so that when it flips town they look uninformed. But the constant interjections of "if T3 flips town (IT 100% WON'T)" feels very unnatural to me.
I also think the way Black played around Skygazer's wagon reads like SvS, and I think Skygazer called out Black for not voting her specifically because Skygazer had an informed perspective that it looked bad! I think a lot of things make sense if we had competing SvS wagons at the end of Day 1.
In conclusion, never touch any of the green names in this post. If we go through the lim pool we probably win. I personally won't support a T3 elimination because I independently town read him. But I understand the mechanical incentives for several players. I would prefer to eliminate Aisa or Skygazer here.
VOTE: Aisa
