I don't think it's all that unlikely that the LLD/Hercule/Mastina trifecta that's been the ongoing nuclear center of almost the entirety of Day 1 is all town.
I hard town read mastina for reasons I've already stated, you need only click on my ISO. Jingle agrees with this read and mastina was one of his first town reads upon reading through the game. LLD also hard town reads mastina, which is exactly why she's gotten so frustrated with the game. Also, the fact that both LLD and I hard town read mastina speaks good things for mastina's alignment regardless of the alignment of either me or LLD.
OkaPoka posted some good thoughts about why LLD is town recently. I won't argue that LLD won't play an emotional game as either alignment, but I think looking at the crux of her frustration here and how she's going about handling it, it speaks more towards town. I don't think LLD really ever tries to maybe back off of Hercule as scum. I think LLD's interactions with mastina, while not pleasant, are +town. I also thought the questions she asked of me and Cephrir about our motivation before we starting questioning Hercule—I'm referring to posts
#803,
#813,
#815 specifically—it shows to me she's genuinely thinking about sorting the game beyond getting her perfect Hercule elimination. Also, uh... yeah I don't think LLD is the type of scum player to just disappear right as she's getting to E-2. You need only look at like, any other scum game of hers, AvP for instance, to see that she's gonna put up a fight the whole way. Yes blah blah blah she can warp her meta blah blah blah, but it's just like a bad strategical decision man. I think her genuine frustration with mastina is more likely to come from town who town reads her than scum who has decided to town read her and feels like... threatened by her?
Hercule is probably the town read in this trifecta I'm least sure about, but I think with how the game has played out and the dynamics at play it feels best for me if he's town. Like I don't strongly get the sense we've run up scum today. I can't really explain that beyond a gut feeling so that's probably a useless thing to say.
First, I'll say this, I never bought LLD's initial case on hercule whatever the fuck it was. Honestly, I didn't have much of a read either way on Hercule until he reacted in what I felt was a bad way to LLD's push. However, there's also definitely townie who react like that and his later posts suggested that was probably the case. I also don't think the idea that OH NO HERCULE HAS 35 PLAYERS THAT CAN ALL HELP HERCULE PLAY SCUM WAY DIFFERENT FROM LAST GAME is a case that is convincing at all. Unless hercule has some famously excellent scum player like FL or RC on his team then like... what is the actual worry here? Also how many people helped their team mates in black flag significantly with their scum game?? So overall, the only case I really hold as valid for hercule scum is the bad reaction to pressure, but like, that goes either way and taken all together I generally consider his posts townier than not. I mean, there's the caveat that I told hercule exactly what I wanted from him to town read him and then he posted a reads list, but like, it's not a bad reads list at least? There's also the small factor that I feel like hercule has had a lot less trouble with direct interactions this game. He hasn't seemed to shy away from them and seems more eager to be directly confrontational / question people. Also, I think his back and forth waffling on LLD and uncertainty on wtf to do with her is +town in the end.
So like, what does this actually mean for who is scum?
Who has been happy to ride out the LLD - Hercule wagons and just let town implode? Who has done this without significantly being town? Who has done this without seeming to be trying to get anything out of this mess other than flips? Who just isn't doing anything and able to get by because this clusterfuck is happening?
Town
mastina - see above
LLD - see above
hercule - see above
xtoxm - idk I like my auro read even if auro disagrees. He mentioned why I wouldn't assume he's more invested because black flag ended, honestly I just forgot about that. overall xtoxm is just a blinding sphere of golden light compared to last game. Jingle said to me a couple days ago that xtoxm is probably town and if he keeps up this level of activity and engagement he's almost lock town. Well, the fact he just randomly posted a case on Dunnstral without even really needing to at all and then concluding with saying they still wanna kill LLD is like, very much lock town levels in my book.
A50 - This is mostly Jingle's read not mine. And, it seems to be mostly a meta read. But I don't know how else to read A50. Overall, they seem extremely similar to last game to me, which is probably +town? Both Cephrir and Jingle who say they know or have recently seen A50's scum game find this game an obvious town game from him. I can try to get Jingle to elaborate more if needed but I'm happy just sheeping this for now because at the very least I don't detect any agenda from A50.
IV - I don't think anyone besides DGB suspects this slot so idk how many words I wanna spend here. but I think they've just been pretty obvious town in their progressions, how they go about questioning people, and honestly even how they've reacted to DGB. They're one of the slots that I actually believe has been trying to get to the bottom of the LLD/Hercule mess and get some reads out of it for themselves.
OkaPoka - Okay until recently I actually was scum reading OkaPoka. I lied about voting him for a placeholder. He seemed like he was just content to ride out the LLD/Hercule resolution and he didn't seem particularly pro-active in literally anyway. I also didn't understand the push on mastina for being political at all. Now, I actually understand his thought process better and I think the fact that he's gone back and forth between prodding both Hercule and Mastina (but having actual reasons for doing so) is + town. There's like other stuff here too but it's less important.
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[jjh, Winter Flakes, Cephrir] also belong in my town reads. but I don't have as many words to say. jjh just doesn't seem like he cares how he's percieved. Maybe that's a strategy to get town read, and well, it's working. Winter Flakes had a spree of posts that I thought was really town, although he had a weird half-push half-question of me where he thought there was a weird difference between me this game and me last game, and I wasn't sure what type of response he was expecting and he never really followed up on it so that's why I'm maybe a little weaker on this read than some people. But still probably town. sorry for run on sentence. Cephrir is probably town. People are like oh no he's too fence sitty and indecisive and scummy (including myself) and forgetting he confidently made pushes more than once last game.
[titus] is not readable right now imo
[agar, DGB] - I just haven't picked up on anything towny yet here. Jingle town read AGar's tone and I know a few other people have too, so there might just be something I'm missing there. I feel like it's easy to town read DGB's confidence in the face of LLD, but I dunno. I don't really get any significant sense it's actually thinking about the game beyond trying to get flips. Maybe that's town indicative? Like, a few pages ago it said that it won't forget I'm "reducing the case on LLD to an lolwagon" and then did nothing with that and still town reads me. Feels the most politically driven out of all the players and I just really don't know what to make of that.
[dunn, hop, ythan, the worst]
I was town reading Dunn but honestly it was a very lazy read and reading back looking for people just standing on the sidelines of this LLD/Hercule dynamic, he stands out with his push onto xtoxm and then just kind of sitting on hercule but never making any effort to engage hercule. It feels perfunctory. I did town read the vote then unvote then vote of hercule like cephrir did but... It's also distinctly not town!Dunn's style I feel? He felt far too easily swayed by the thread's movements and while he makes a lot of specific comments about specific posts, a lot of his views seem fencesitty. IDK xtoxm just posted a case on dunn so I'm not gonna waste too much energy here.
Hopkirk I don't have as much of a reason to scum read as I do a lack of reason to town read. They haven't done really anything with the hercule/LLD dynamic. My reason for town reading them is essentially ancient and basically comes from hectic over hopkirk. I did think Hopkirk's reaction to the small wagon that built on him wasn't that great. But honestly, I just need to see more from this slot doing more in the game because I felt they had more of a presence last game despite probably posting a similar amount?
ythan - I actually think is close to obvious scum reading back and I'm surprised no one has pushed here yet. I don't understand the claims that ythan has been similar in tone and content as last game. Wtf has ythan actually done this game? Last game he actually picked a fight with hercule and tried to sort him and genuinely got something he cared about out of that engagement. Who has he earnestly engaged with this game for any extended period of time? What actual content has he posted? I'm not seeing it. Like yes, he had about the same volume of memey shit posts last game, but he also had a much larger volume of posts that at least *tried* to do something. He's also one of the biggest culprits of just riding out the hercule/LLD dynamic in a way that might look towny on a surface level because YAY WAGONS but like... I have no idea what ythan is thinking here. The two main things he's done at all this game is vote hercule for like no reason, and then vote LLD for like no reason. ????
the worst - not a lot to say here. I won't scum read him for not being here or being vla or whatever. He's probably busy with out of game stuff. But the times he has popped in were unimpressive and felt a bit forced. Granted, that's not necessarily scum and I wish the worst was more readable right now but I can't put him any higher because he really hasn't done anything towny. I don't really think the team is exactly my bottom four, so it's likely I'm town reading someone I shouldn't be. But that's a problem for future Dannflor
