In post 7824, mastina wrote: In post 7823, mastina wrote: There's five scum in the game--Firebringer and Krazy are two of them, but there's three others. With popsofctown as town...SOMEONE has to be scum, and if you think the worst is town which is another read that I can very plausibly buy then SOMEONE has to be scum and if not pops and if not the worst...you've still gotta find three names for being scum.
And PenguinPower tops the charts for me as a "someone's gotta be scum" candidate for being scum.
To put it another way: We are well, WELL past the point in the game where this is apt to say--
Everyone in this game has some reason for why they would be town. Even Firebringer, even Krazy, even though both of them are just scum. Everyone has reasons for why they would be town and no player is without them. Not even lurkers, less active posters, etc. the likes of chennisden and the like. I can think of reasons for them to be town.
Everyone in this game has some reason for why they would be scum (barring Something_Smart, for obvious reasons). Even the likes of GreyICE, even the likes of Dannflor, even the likes of Titus. Even though all of them are just outright plain flatout town, there are reasons for why they could be scum. Everyone has reasons for why they would be scum and no non-conftown player is without them. I can think of reasons for them all.
This is pretty damn stupidly obvious; frankly you can't get to a 300+ page game and have it not be true because reasons for someone to be town/scum can appear in as little as one post yet alone players who have hundreds of posts.
So it comes down to the balance of possibilities versus probabilities.
In post 6429, mastina wrote:Skygazer/Titus
Dannflor
Menalque
xofelf/Something_Smart
GreyIce
Katsuki
Formerfish
Gamma Emerald
MariaR
Iconeum
chennisden
PenguinPower
Pink Ball
popsofctown
the worst
Firebringer
Krazy
This was my last readslist, and I feel the need to cover it again going through with that mindset.
There are five scum--even with two players (Firebringer, Krazy) as lockscum, there's three other scum in the game and I'm pretty sure that in {chennisden, PenguinPower, Pink Ball, popsofctown, the worst} we'd be LUCKY if there were so much as two, when it's most likely that there's at most one scum in that grouping, if that. There's a significant chance the group is all town, only a small chance of two scum in the group, and a certainty that there's not three scum in there.
There's at least one scum, potentially up to three, and to play the middle ground let's assume two, outside of that group and outside of Firebringer/Krazy.
So
someone
has to be scum, someone we've previously written off as being town.
I am not willing to entertain the idea that Titus is scum. She is, flatout, outright, town.
I am not willing to entertain the idea that Dannflor is scum. If he is scum then he has frankly earned his win because fuckit he's just so damn town.
I said almost this same thing verbatim about Menalque--while in THIS VERY MOMENT I'm not quite as sure, I know for a fact that when I said it, AT THAT MOMENT I was and honestly? I trust that feeling of past-me even if it is CURRENTLY absent from present-me and I have full confidence that when I look at Menalque posts in more detail it will return. So I am not going to entertain the idea that Menalque is scum.
I am not willing to entertain the idea that GreyICE is scum.
I am not willing to entertain the idea that Formerfish is scum.
I am willing to entertain the idea of Katsuki being scum, but I am really really really fucking hesitant to do so. The only reason I am? When someone asked, "Why is Katsuki town?", I made a towncase for Katsuki. But at the time what I didn't say is that I almost outright deleted the case for Katsuki being town because I wasn't even sure if the towncase was accurate. I was worried that I might've been fooling myself, that I was trying to force Katsuki to be town just because I didn't want Katsuki to be scum. That moment, that moment where when I tried towncasing Katsuki and found myself thinking "this kinda feels like me bullshitting", is the reason why I'm so much as entertaining the idea because Katsuki has been town for me the entire game and it is that moment which makes me second-guess it.
I am willing to entertain the idea of Gamma Emerald being scum. I didn't say this before because obviously I don't want to mason-hunt in-thread, but at this stage I honestly don't know how to explain my stance on Gamma Emerald without going into this detail about my read on him. When Chickadee raised the thought of, "My role PM looks like mastina's. Doesn't yours?", her thought was that Gamma was scum. My thought was that Gamma had accidentally mason-slipped, that Gamma was one of Alisae's masons having inadvertently given this fact away by having said his role PM was customized, when the town role PMs...weren't.
This is one of the main reasons I was writing the slot off--but if he isn't a mason, if he isn't one of Alisae's conftown, then I'm not nearly as convinced he's town and think that Chickadee's line of reasoning was actually legitimately potentially on-point, that she correctly identified what was an actual scumslip from Gamma. Gamma's posting has felt less and less time to me over time.
But, Gamma has been a near-universal townread this game, my past self included, and I know for a fact that my past self wasn't townreading Gamma because she thought he was a mason; my past self was townreading Gamma for Gamma's play and thinking it didn't come from scum. So while I am willing to entertain the idea of Gamma being scum and even air it out inthread, I'm not sure about it.
MariaR is much the same as Gamma; I've had them reflected on my readslist since the getgo as being "my stance on these two is basically identical". Past-me thought she was town; most players in the game think that she is town. I want to trust in that but her play recently has just been...not nearly as good and makes me want to second-guess that long-established townread, so she's another one which I am willing to entertain the idea of being scum.
Iconeum was always a weak townread--and his lackluster content could just come from scum. Obviously, I am willing to entertain the idea that Iconeum is just scum lurking, even though I still kinda feel in my gut that Iconeum this game is the obligatory mislynch bait town who will inevitably be mislynched when we run out of scumreads even though he's not really got good odds of being scum.
chennisden was a weak townread--his lackluster content is admittedly suspicious and the cases for him being scum feel like they have merit to them but there's still posting which I think looks town. He's an alright compromise lynch but I'm not convinced that he is scum.
PenguinPower is my best guess for being the "for lack of better options, scum" scum; I've talked about this read about as thoroughly as I can. I can see PP as town, I can see PP as scum, and I'm not sure which is more likely even though I know that PP would have amazing utility to Pine as scum.
Pink Ball is a mixed bag. There's plenty which looks like scum, but plenty which looks like town. Push come to shove, I'd guess town, actually, in spite of him being so low on my readslist.
popsofctown I see a lot of reasons for her to be town in spite of having felt that she's been scum for the majority of the game--yeah her push on me is absolutely atrocious, but I'm actually not sure it comes from scum anymore. The pushes from other players scumreading her also feel...not really on-point? Like...I've been scumreading her most of the game, I should have a damn good grasp on what is a good reason for scumreading her and what isn't, and most of the reasons presented by others for her to be scum, just...don't seem that solid to me? So I actually think she's town now.
the worst, I can see elements of his towngame now and I really want to trust Dannflor here and he's another player who most of the reasons for why he's being scumread, don't feel like good reasons. As someone who has scumread him for the majority of the game, I should know what feels like good reasons for him to be scum and most of the presented reasons don't seem like good reasons for him to be scum.
So.
Krazy as scum.
Firebringer as scum.
There's three other scum.
My guess is that there's 1-2 in {chennisden, PP}, most likely 1, and then that the remaining 1-2 (most likely 2) are in the players I said I would entertain the scumread on.
Specifically, that the 1-2 deepwolves would be in {Katsuki, MariaR, Gamma Emerald}.
My guess of guesses:
Krazy-Firebringer-chennisden-Katsuki-MariaR.
But I'd love to talk about these in more detail because there's a war between "don't cave to paranoia" and "there's five scum in the game and only two of them are on lock with three of them being unfound" and I could really use feedback to help refine my thoughts here to see where they fall on the possibility/probability spectrum.