I can't believe that worked.
OGML wrote:In the immortal words of MeMe, post or perish.
I didn't think you were THAT stupid.
Arg. I have six slots, but it's like I need seven or eight to contain all the scum.
Psyche had been under attack by Khan, and ended up dead. Psyche was also among Antihero's suspects. Furthermore, Psyche really hasn't done much of anything for pretty much the entire game. Remembering Psyche's contributions over the whole game (will need to double-check when I have ISO capabilities), I don't really remember anything resembling true content.
Firestarter was under attack by Antihero, who ended up dead. Firestarter's posts had content, yes, but they were mainly active lurking.
Furthermore, I caught OGML lurking yesterday. He was browsing the forum for a good few minutes, then disappeared. I waited, thinking he was making a post, but got...nothing. I'll be QUITE interested in OGML's response to my question, since he could become confscum from it. But I have my doubts. He knows the strategy of which I speak. I was using it even three years ago, when he saw me playing as Mastin. And even if he doesn't, he knows of the strategy in general. He's far too competent a player to fall into that trap, as evident by his play--what he says seems to make quite a bit of sense, but he's an experienced, logical, veteran player: which means the best way to read him is to look at his actions over the course of the game and see if they further a scum or town agenda. It's a little hard to do without a Junpei flip, but my current thought is that his actions ARE with a scum mindset, and that he's not pursuing the town's interests, but it warrants checking.
(EDIT: As it turns out, he actually did respond in the extremely stupid way I thought he wouldn't. Now if he had been writing some awesome post--not necessarily a wall, but a strong post which obviously required the reading which I saw him doing--then it'd also have been excused. But he had nothing. His post was just a weak response to mine, nothing more, nothing suggesting he was doing the level of reading required for me to have seen him long enough to think he was lurking. Which means he was in fact lurking, as he gave no content despite having been here reading.)
Macros was playing exactly as I'd expect a scum player to have been playing. Not only that, but when kdowns came to replace him, he started lurking hardcore. Seriously, HARD. CORE. LURKING. And when he DID come, his content? Was active-lurking. It was junk. He's been posting filler. He's given absolutely nothing to this game. This is in complete contrast with what I know of his townplay, where he proved to be active and actually somewhat logical with his game--he was still a weak player overall and nearly got lynched, but it was not through lack of trying.
As a final nail in the coffin, Khan showed minor suspicion of that slot.
FakeGod has done nothing this whole time. Basically, FG is playing pretty much like kdowns is, only FG posts slightly more often. FG lurks, not posting nearly as often as he should, and more than that, FG's posts are pretty much junk. FG is being intentionally cryptic with what little content FG does produce, as if trying to minimize actual contribution to the game.
But it gets worse for FG, as Antihero expressed serious suspicion of FG.
As for DesaVail, my number one suspect and my current vote? For starters, DV was the #1 suspect of the dying townies, with both rack and Seacore wishing they could take DV to the grave. But putting aside the lynched (because, surely, they're bad players for having gotten lynched and therefore their reads should be ignored, right?*
), let's look at the nightkilled: while Antihero had DV as town-looking compared to others, he correctly pointed out DV's white-knighting.
But let's go beyond that and go into DV's posting history. While DV did start out fairly strong, DV's posts have been getting progressively worse with time. He's shown cognitive dissonance and extreme opportunism, joining both the rack and the Pine/Seacore wagons. He was also a member of my wagon when it looked like I was a viable lynch, and also pursued kdowns (again, when a wagon on him looked viable). In other words, DV joined pretty much every single major wagon except for Junpei's. And even then, I'm fairly certain DV has expressed interest in wagoning many people which DV didn't end up voting. DV's been giving progressively less and less content, asking fewer questions, and basically has gone from actively contributing to just passively checking in, making statements about people he's willing to lynch, and leaving it at that, having ceased trying to get more info.
(*If you couldn't tell by the obvious sarcasm, the answer is No. No, they should NEVER be ignored.)
As for Junpei...well, he's gone from my strongest scumread to my weakest scumread due to the conflict. As you can tell by the above reads, they're pretty strong. Junpei...isn't. I *might* be willing to lynch him, just to remove the doubt, and because if he WERE scum, there are definitely good connections (e.g. DV and kdowns) and because he will always, ALWAYS be on the town's radar and will never be safe from being lynched, potentially being a distraction and lylo-mislynch-bait...
...But I really, REALLY do not like the idea of lynching someone who has a large shot at being town. Granted, yes, there's a lot against him--he was Khan's strongest suspect; Khan died. He was one of the strongest suspects of BOTH masons; the masons died. He was among rack's suspects as well. Plus, add in his extremely scummy posting, and all-in-all, he looks like caught scum, especially considering he has ties to other extremely scummy players such as DV and kdowns.
...But there's ALSO a lot in his favor. For instance, Seacore more-or-less (this is from memory, so I'll need to double-check the wording to confirm) said that the PineVJunpei lynch debate seemed like scum didn't really care which side they picked, because they knew both were town. A vibe I kinda share, with how things went down. Furthermore, I can maybe see his play as town, and I know that I suck at reading him, so it's very possible that all my hatred against him is exactly what the scum want me to be doing, to get him (town) lynched. Plus (while we know he was wrong about Seacore being scum, which was his main reason for this) Khan technically died thinking Junpei was town, anyway. And the masons very well might have been killed for, y'know, being masons, rather than for their reads.
All-in-all, I don't like the prospect of lynching him. Not without doing a HECK of a lot more research.
There are other suspects as well.
For shotty, there's the fact that Antihero died thinking shotty was scum, giving quite convincing reasoning as to why. Furthermore, when doing an ISO of shotty, I saw nothing but scum-motivated moves. The only thing keeping shotty from being lynched is that shotty's a low-key, low-activity player, who has gotten away with both lurking AND active lurking, but has been ignored in favor of higher-activity players such as Junpei.
For TML, I like Antihero's reasons, and I like Nero's reasons, and this seems to fit with TML's scumplay overall in the game we were scum together. His actions seem like they overall further a scum mindset more than they do a town mindset, but it's a weak read.
Other figures of interest (but not on my needs-to-die list) are Nero, scooby, Maxous, and SC.
On the one hand, Nero's play has been at a lot of times incredibly anti-town. Khan also had some serious suspicion on him. Rack had a small jab at him as well. On the other hand, the masons thought he was town. His play at other times has been quite strong, and his insistence on going after certain targets (LLD, for instance) gives off a stubborn town-vibe rather than a scum-vibe. Plus, the fact that many people I've shown suspicion of have approved of the Nero lynch gives me extreme hesitance to think of him being scum, but nonetheless, he's someone I've got my eye on.
Scooby's given pretty much nothing the whole game--this itself would warrant attention, but it's apparently just the way scooby plays. There's not really much to see, and what you do see doesn't look very pretty. Overall, you can definitely see scum motive in his posts, but I can also see him as just being minimalistic town contributing things as he sees them. Plus, given the amount of suspicion I've seen casually thrown his way (keeping him in the lynch pile, but near the bottom--basically, saving him for a lylo mislynch) makes me heavily lean town.
For SC, on the one hand, GI was playing pretty town overall. Plus, the whole language debate and GI replacing out in the manner he did gives off some extremely strong townvibes. SC's posting has also been overall pretty dang strong, with a lot of logic in it and many good suspects. On the other hand, GI always plays strong, replacing out coulda been done as scum, and SC's posts have contained things which could come from a scum mindset. (SC--like OGML--is someone who is best read by their overall play.) His play could easily come across as scum playing the long-game. But I'm not sure about that, and his posts (while sometimes giving me bad vibes and seeming a little artificial at times) overall seem to be genuine, so I'm willing to keep my faith in his slot.
Maxous is on the list, for the same reason that Antihero described him: he could be surprise-scum. That was true on day one, and it's true to this very moment. There's simply no better words for it. His play looks fairly good, in that he seems to be contributing relatively actively, and his reads seem overall to be legitimate. His interactions with others do not scream scum, and in fact with the way he plays, they seem pretty town overall. But I feel like Maxous is capable of giving more to the game than he actually is. I feel as if Maxous is not being completely open with us, that he's not giving us his full attention. Like his reads are half-hearted and not fully fleshed out, kinda sorta giving a coasting kind of vibe. Again, that's the sort of play that you'd expect to see from scum playing the long-game--staying middle-of-the-road, devoting JUST enough to stay off people's radar, but not enough to make people question why Maxous still lives.
Which, again, means that overall he's a townread, but again, could still be surprise-scum.
In short,
STRONGLY SCUM:
DeasVail
Psyche
OGML
PROBABLY SCUM:
Firestarter/OGML
kdowns
FakeGod
COULD BE SCUM:
Junpei
Shotty
TML
*MIGHT* BE SCUM: (But probably aren't)
Nero Cain
scooby
Maxous
StrangerCoug
Fair note, I didn't finish the crossreference with the VCA, and even then, that's not the final step; there's still ISOs I need to do, along with looking with more detail at the events which the VCA describes. But these are my current thoughts as they stand.
