Mini Theme 2161: Undertale C Open - Chara's Folly

[Prism]

I never really got the Elements votes. He wasn't very active and gave basically no reads. Maybe that's indicative but I'm not familiar with the dude. The post 160 that multiple people highlighted, and the lack of determination to find a spare, really didn't bother me at all.

The only angle he took was on Puppy switching to talking about spares. I can see why this caught his eye but don't think it says a lot about Puppy.

I ISO'd Puppy a bit ago. Their interactions with Tanner are solid, and they've got good tone. I weirdly liked all of the mechanical questions early? Really rare for me. I don't really trust myself to read them without meta, annoying.

Last up are catboi/Pooky. The joys.

[Tayl0r Swift]

prism is town. i feel like puppy is town but i dont recall any puppy posts recently so not sure why.

i dunno! at the time i didnt like that catboi wont lay off pooky. pooky feels like lhf and kinda obvtown. but catboi overall i think is just overeager town.

How is pooky low hanging fruit, and what makes him obvtown?

pooky is low hanging fruit because pushing the spare angle so hard just makes for a really easy target. you can play the "this is low EV town would never do this" card which is exactly what youve been doing. this is also exactly what makes pooky obvtown. it makes no sense for scum to push that hard for something thats so blatantly wrong. pooky stands out big time for that, which scum dont want to do. plus pooky just reads as genuine.

[Prism]

I'm coming away from #610 very unconvinced, but feeling that Pooky is likely town.

For the first post, Pooky riding the spare too hard is a gut feeling that he's pushing it as a gimmick, rather than earnestly trying to get it. There's really a limit to

why

, the answer is trying to get townread for being stubborn, and asking "Why didn't he ask me [Pooky] about it if he felt that way?" is really tenuous given this is a direct response to Tanner's speculation on the scumteam.

The next two I'm not bothered by shifting the goalposts. When talking about mechanics you can shift the goalposts, and I see his point about needing to fear a scum spare still. His first question comes when you directly engage him in dialogue over it. The "I'm with you on Pooky" section is major tinfoil hat imo. He's made it clear, and hashed out over several posts, exactly what he feels is off about you and that you're riding the spare gimmick too hard given how obviously suboptimal it is from the rest of our perspectives.

Pooky's analysis of 468 is fine, and I agree that more explicitly highlighting similarities would be useful. I think Pooky's response to 530 though is really enlightening as far as how he's approached this game, though. Opening the game he linked, #4952 immediately caught my eye as a good summary of that frustration...and while self-knowledge isn't perfect, and people aren't always honest as town, it interests me that Pooky highlights that he's fundamentally a planner/strategist as scum. This really makes me doubt that he's spare gimmicking as initially suspected. Pooky has definitely not approached this game with a very deep plan. If he's scum he tried a very simple gimmick, and switched to playing reactionary OMGUS when pushed.

I feel much, much better about Pooky as a result of this. The jury is still out on catboi, though. Agreeing with him that Pooky could have been gimmicking told me very little.

[Chara]

let's look at redtea:

266 stood out to me at the time and it still does. the defense of Elements and the attribution of a lot more forethought to Elements' angle on Puppy than i believe Elements' question really warranted gives me pause.
Elements sees what appears to be a contradiction. they question it. redtea's interpretation feels... too much? if redtea flipped mafia i'd call it an Elements townspew, if anything.

525: i've been thinking while reading this ISO that redtea has lots of opinions but very few conclusions.

he mentions in 388 (i'm sorry, i know this must be frustrating to read, quoting properly on mobile is hard and i'd never post :<) the possibility that Hectic could be using Pooky as an excuse not to participate. now, redtea has been participating, but he does say here he needs Puppy in order to move forward with these thoughts.
but after Puppy does post, redtea says in 595 that this is what he wanted, with no other interaction between them.
i don't know what to make of it.

finally: redtea, you feel like you've been talking about catboi all day, but you haven't actually said anything. you've said you don't like how Hectic talked about catboi's calculations, you've said catboi is very town, and you've said catboi hasn't done anything you consider to be suspicious. but why is catboi town?

all in all, redtea is not as bad as my initial gut ping. i'll wait to see his opinion after he reads pooky's big post, so i hope he returns soon.
that said, i don't TR him and the biggest reason is he hasn't made one vote since RVS, and has a lot of opinions to give but very little in the way of concrete stances.
but he's not the big confident scumread i was hoping for. :<

[Chara]

I feel much, much better about Pooky as a result of this. The jury is still out on catboi, though. Agreeing with him that Pooky could have been gimmicking told me very little.

it doesn't look like you read my post on the topic before doing this, so i'm happy you came to the same conclusion i did.

okay, Hectic. unfortunately i've run out of time to look into that today, i need to sleep. but as i mentioned in my catchup, i think what i wanted to look at is going to be more accurate if Hectic's invested in the game, so this is my appeal to him to see if there's some way to get his head into it more strongly. unfortunately, my current reasons for suspecting him can also line up with uninvested town Hectic.

[Prism]

catboi-you seemed unwilling to respond to the giant Pooky post for fear of tedium. You did directly answer some questions, and seemed to reluctantly draw up a truce, but I'm bothered that you don't seem to have

thought

about that post even if you chose not to really engage with it publicly. It's extremely enlightening imo, and the case can be made for it both ways depending on how harshly you judge the first few sections.

To be blunt, the amount of hoops you've jumped through to apologize for Hectic while still trying to appear sympathetic to me bother me a lot.

#682 is really stretching it. Every read he's given makes your skin crawl. Him taking a public stand as scum is not unexpected considering the last time he played it safe he got completely grilled-and sparing MT knowing it won't happen is playing it safe in its own way. #614

exists

. #392 is its own adventure and was the first time the word "apologist" came to mind. Liking his reads, then rereading them and going eh these are iffy, and most of them making your skin crawl is just a really wack progression to me.

I can see you flipping scum for these interactions

regardless of what Hectic is

which is so bizarre.

[Prism]

2) catboi-are you still scumreading Pooky? I felt he might be overplaying the spare angle at first, he was 2/3 in my scumpool, but after he got more vehement it became more of a coinflip to me. I haven't read his case on you yet. Without really knowing his meta, it seems possible for the heavy hitting out of left field to be a reliable tool in an experienced player's arsenal. But what do you think?

I will admit, I am feeling little pangs of doubt right now. as I said earlier, when I step outside my own headspace, where my motivations are perfectly clear and lucid to me, I can see why he'd be bothered with the way I've said things. Still, I think a tool in his arsenal is to fight back hard and intimidate people, get them to back down. I more or less expected him to flip the switch and get serious when I accused him. I still have a harrd time some of the arguments he is making are genuine thoughts.

I forgot this post existed while reviewing whoops.

I can kind of see the difficulty here but you seem to have engaged primarily with the easiest thing to me, which is the tinfoil about the wording so ??? idk this truce is lackluster. I also was bothered by you taking credit for getting Pooky to do something even if it's literally true. All of us have tried: it's that you were scummy enough to him to respond to and push on. This really shouldn't be a badge of pride.

[Chara]

Prism, i'm gonna go but do you have anything to ask before i do? i have a few minutes and i still want to talk when i'm fresh off the catchup. i think i've given all of the reads i currently have but they might be buried in lots of words.

to be honest, i kind of like Taylor's going from calling Hectic her top scumread to almost completely losing the read when directly asked about it. kind of a mood, kind of feels like she's posting without thinking about it much which is a net +town.

[Chara]

*from calling catboi her top scumread, not Hectic.

[Prism]

Hmmm, I haven't really gotten to read your posts which is a bit unfair since I did ask you for content twice.

I don't really have any pressing questions for you, despite having reason to be cautious toward you you're just kind of sitting in the townlean pile and waiting to be used as a sounding board.

I'll reverse it: Is there anything you have to ask me?

[Chara]

players i have my eye on: redtea, Hectic, catboi, Lavender, and less strictly, Puppy.
beeboy would be here, but he hasn't done anything yet. Elements i can't analyze any more.
i'm not sure how to go about pressing Lavender, after seeing how she's replied to others. i don't feel confident i'll be able to read her in a way that isn't "not towny". yet.

pedit: that's alright, i only skimmed your recent readposts too. let's meet back here tomorrow? i'm curious as to what you think of my list in this post. i wanted to vote to hurt someone within it but i couldn't figure out where i wanted to press, because i'm overthinking it.

[Prism]

Spoiler: My current view of the game btw

Likely Town:
redtea

Townlean pile, strongest to weakest:
Chara
Pooky
Morning Tweet (Shoutout to catboi-#449 said her wall had good analysis. I immediately said "What? I found it lackluster?" and went back and read it again. Rereading it, it's clear that the first half-which didn't really catch my eye initially-is actually a lot better than I realized. This makes sense, too-we always lose steam after awhile!)
TSwift (Only person I haven't really ISO'd, but the fact they haven't really been nervous-just a bit disinterested/casually halfhearted-make me optimistic they fit a very stereotypical mold)

Null but playing totally fine:
Tanner
Puppy

Man I don't know but they're getting worse:
catboi

Nullscum/needs content:
Lavender
Elements/beeboy (Elements was better than Lavender but yeah need more)

Likely Scum:
Hectic

[Chara]

omg omg your reads match my PoE. why am i so excited. except you have redtea as likely town and we definitely have to talk about that tomorrow. catboi had the same read. please try to convince me, my own attempts got me nowhere but i find him hard to townread.

[Prism]

I'm tired, so deal! Same place, same absurd hours tomorrow!

[Chara]

<3

[CantHateAPuppy]

HURT: hectic sorry

I still want elements but I'm willing to give that slot a ment to change my mind now that there's been a sub. Hectic is my next best bet. Maybe I need to work on some wcumreads, I mostly have townreads

[CantHateAPuppy]

But it does not go unnoticed that this post was ignored:

i would be willing to settle on hectic but is there a reason people have stopped looking at elements? the good reasons for that wagon haven't disappeared

Or this one:

And then, in this post here you talk about drawing out from people who they want to spare, but it's not like you talked about it in any meaningful way of trying to get those reads from people - you engaged in the whole buddy-buddy good times love in our hearts posting style I've already talked about, avoided trying to rustle anyone, and proposed a silly speech-giving game rather than acting in a way that would get anyone to do anything meaningfully alignment indicative.

I think it's kind of obvious why you wouldn't say you are doing 4-spare for getting associative reads to use in a fight path instead. Also this is more whimsical musing about what could have been.

ok, so was that spare talk all a gambit? what reads did you get from it?

[catboi]

I'm glad I didn't do a readslist last night because it was likely going to be toppled by the last few pages anyway

[catboi]

hmm i reread the iso and im not sure what i was seeing. its possible that the avatar just set me off? on rereading youre more null-town

i dunno! at the time i didnt like that catboi wont lay off pooky. pooky feels like lhf and kinda obvtown. but catboi overall i think is just overeager town.

feels pretty underwhelming. reads badly

I agree entirely, actually. In particular her backing down from her scumread on me is bothersome - Id have awarded her some credit if she'd stuck to her guns but having thought about it the immediate retreat doesn't suggest a sincere belief.

2) catboi-are you still scumreading Pooky? I felt he might be overplaying the spare angle at first, he was 2/3 in my scumpool, but after he got more vehement it became more of a coinflip to me. I haven't read his case on you yet. Without really knowing his meta, it seems possible for the heavy hitting out of left field to be a reliable tool in an experienced player's arsenal. But what do you think?

I will admit, I am feeling little pangs of doubt right now. as I said earlier, when I step outside my own headspace, where my motivations are perfectly clear and lucid to me, I can see why he'd be bothered with the way I've said things. Still, I think a tool in his arsenal is to fight back hard and intimidate people, get them to back down. I more or less expected him to flip the switch and get serious when I accused him. I still have a harrd time some of the arguments he is making are genuine thoughts.

This is kind of weird to me - if you haven't sorted my slot to a level of conviction you are comfortable with, why break off and continue to throw shade about my thoughts?

If you think something I am saying is untrue or scummy - please call it out so we can address it. I've presented plenty of thoughts on your interaction with me so far this game and why I find it scummy. If you can go back to your mind-frame at that point and show me what I'm missing and why it is a pro-town frame of mind you are approaching me with, that's better for me as well.

I guess I had just not wanted to keep being hyperfocused on you and clogging the thread with a 1v1. Off the top of my head I didn't like you insisting you'd been engaged when a significant portion of of your content in the game was shitposts (sorry that this is not that kind of game). I'll try to go back and explain myself to you if I have time.

Strongly feel that redtea is town

Can you explain this read please? This is one of the players I've been feeling susp of, esp when I called him out and he didn't have an answer - and he still hasn't presented one today.

I said his play here matches up with my recent game experience with him. I was suspicious of him in that game early because his posts were stylistically awkward but in time he revealed himself to be very earnest and I think 594/595 show him really trying to analyze the game. I don't necessarily hold him being stymied by you asking him for an explanation against him.

[catboi]

Lavender is a little bit improved after her wall post because, at least it's something? Taylor stock dropping. Starting to feel differently about pooky, even. Need to read Chara now that they have posted actual content.

[catboi]

Starting to feel differently about pooky, even.

To elaborate somewhat: the way he is interacting with me no longer feels like it is coming across with malign intent. The way he's talking about stuff feels like he's attempting a conversation rather than pushing talking points.

[catboi]

Chara posting actual content makes me like them and being behind at least explains the active lurking. I am back to the drawing board, yet again.

[Hectic]

Isis
Morning Tweet
Prism
Lavender
catboi
redtea
Chara
Tanner
PookyTheMagicalBear
Tayl0r Swift
CantLynchAPuppy
Elements

Lavender is town because of the stream of consciousness and free flowing kind of posting in her read list. It's why I wanted to get one out of her. As scum, her reads are rigid with little turns in the middle. As town, she changes her mind while she's even writing out the read. See her recent Nightless Vanilla towngame and the readslist in that, and then compare it to the readslist in her scumgame to see what I mean.

[Hectic]

my lame take is that lavender is scummy for lurking. my spicy take is that puppy might be a good candidate to fight.

prism is town. i feel like puppy is town but i dont recall any puppy posts recently so not sure why.

What changed regarding your Puppy read in this time?

[Hectic]