Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[Imperium]

I also can't believe that Mahomes got whooped this bad - like I expected a good game plan, I expected a slow start from them because oline and Mahomes being a little beat up but this was a smack down.

[petapan]

im tom brady

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

I'm a sucker for a string section and I kinda loved the rehearsed fake mosh pit in the hallway

[Imperium]

im tom brady

that's what I keep trying to tell everyone but they are around here acting like you're Nathan Peterman

[Imperium]

I'm a sucker for a string section and I kinda loved the rehearsed fake mosh pit in the hallway

very true very true. that's when I went from judging the halftime show to enjoying it. I also didn't realize that weeknd didn't actually get plastic surgery until today which made me feel just a little bit silly

[unwnd]

Touchdown Tom at it

[unwnd]

again

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

We gave up on it in the 3rd quarter and switched to the umbrella academy lol

[Imperium]

And that Tampa Defense tho... Chiefs looked untouchable before this, didn't know it was possible to completely dominate that KC offense like that.

[Imperium]

We gave up on it in the 3rd quarter and switched to the umbrella academy lol

Yeah, definitely stopped paying close attention around the fourth quarter. That's pretty funny - Tammy started watching umbrella academy pretty recently as well!

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Jingle's propaganda game is strong, I wonder how much they're paying him

[Dunnstral]

And then petapan talking about Dunn's nasty dirty no good fingerpointing at people "egging on" a shot that they had no real influence or say in. I want to address this in detail.

I was about to post about Lotus being an interesting shot with some potential, in fact, when the thread was locked. It was one of my walls AND I had real life on my ass, so I didn't even see unwnd say fundamentally the same exact thing. No point in saying it afterwards (until now, when I have the gun, also I want to come back to this whole point later), but... it did nearly happen. This is the entire reason why I was so vehement in pushing back on the concept of people "egging the shot on".

And I have literally no reason to lie about that now: I am in control, I can say or do whatever pleases me and no one can stop me. So I hope Dunn feels suitably shamed in public now. (Note: going through the ritual motions of apology with a middle finger raised in my direction is sufficient, actual shame not required, this is all very purposefully super fucking theatrical, have some fun with it.)

So yes. VERY LOUD agreement that the entire argument about "egging that shot on" is bullshit and garbage. And I will skip the rest of that first post. Because it's BoP and you will never, ever convince me.

But there's a whoooollllle other post to go through!

I didn't say that everybody who was egging on the shot was scum, did I?

If you had posted a whole paragraph about your thoughts I likely wouldn't have pushed you for that

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So, I want to talk about our first 4 contestants a bit and why they're here.



Imperium is someone who I trust to hit red if I'm wrong, yes. They're also one of the two (and only two) townreads I had before receiving the gun, which gives me some paranoia. Beyond all of that, though, Imperium is an important, vital part of this puzzle. Their flip almost certainly leads to a solve. They have the most posts in this game at a fair bit over 400, and I'm second -- with less than half that. They have probably more 1v1s than any other two players put together. They are informationally rich, and their alignment being confirmed will aid tremendously in solving, if nothing else.

However, I still can't fully move past the townread I have there. I would much rather hit scum than informationally rich town. So why are they here? Yeah, the paranoia isn't really enough. Well, two of the other players in this round are so closely connected to them that I think that their alignments are all interdependent. I think Cakez is always the same alignment as Imperium, 100% of the time, and I have major doubts about Cakez. And petapan is scum if and only if Imperium is not (TvT is possible). I am paranoid that petapan is not necessarily scum here. When I put those two in, I basically had to say to myself ... Imperium has to be on the list. It wasn't avoidable, because there is a very good chance I decide that that shot is extremely likely to hit red.



SirCakez's slot I do not like for all the reasons HUB pointed out (but this does not exonerate HUB -- saving that explanation for my second shot), and more besides. On top of that, Cakez does not seem to be approaching the game from a town perspective. I mentioned early on his "concentric" play which /still remains centered on the exact same position, 75 pages and 3 flips onward/, and his agenda-driven approach. He has made minimal progress in pushing more people on board the Shoot Norfolk/HUB Now wagon, and it is my belief that this is intentional; that this is a way to hard-distance without actually properly bussing.

Beyond that, he seems to be approaching certain players with more energy than the results seem to bear out. There's little evolution from Cakez in play, and yes, there are some blatantly opportunistic things happening there. Trying to get Norfolk's slot shot /while/ it was being replaced is particularly rough, but I wasn't a fan of "ah, MUSH got the gun because of me in her scumreads!" either. That seemed like a perfect way to muddy the waters and I immediately discarded it as regards his slot.

My only doubts come back to thinking that Imperium and Cakez are always the same alignment here, and the fact that /almost everyone else/ gives Cakez a townpass. So I can't just take that shot, though it is by far the one I'm most confident on.



petapan is the one I have done a bit of a loop on. Started off as null, obviously. Then I was scumreading him on the basis of interactions that were overly aggressive. Doubted myself, reread and concluded that there was some actual stress going on with petapan, and was able to give that a pass -- but still, a frustrating null. Tried to sort, pushed bait out for that wasn't taken, recognized that I was doing it wrong, and stepped back. Imperium's case framed it for me correctly: petapan looked scummy for entirely different reasons than the ones I first suspected.

It's, again, framed by Imperium as a proficiency thing, but it really isn't. Pointing out the tactic used doesn't fit the tactic claimed, a definite lack of evidence of scumreading Imperium "for real" during this "gambit," and so forth. I basically agree with that whole block of Imperium's case except for a big question mark and a minor quibble on what we'd consider scummy in terms of timing for taking an "out". (I find Imperium's reaction to my response to their case upsetting as a result. But they don't want to talk about it, whatever.)

petapan is here and not shot because -- again. I think that to a certain extent Imperium's alignment is tied to petapan's. It's weaker ties than Cakez, but it's there. And more importantly, I have a nagging doubt about effort. The reads-charts are not easy to do. I tried fact checking the Day 2 one for reads about Wheme (this is, to be clear, reads ABOUT one singular player for one dayphase, basically easy mode!) and got hopelessly lost. I don't know if scum goes through that effort when they don't have to. It obviously depends on the player, but petapan doesn't seem /quite/ so much like the sort of person who will build a mountain to climb if they have no other way to climb one.



Now... unwnd.

unwnd is here because of sheer, boiling paranoia. unwnd was one of my two townreads when I received the gun. unwnd is townread by almost everyone. unwnd is going to great lengths to interact with everyone without making too many waves (snapping at Cakez and Wheme [??? IIRC] notwithstanding). unwnd is one of the most friendly and helpful slots in the game to date. And yet, no one would call unwnd obvtown. unwnd is just sort of in the middle, like, a strong townlean. Despite more content than Dunn. Despite a friendly demeanor. Despite actively trying to steward conversation and debate in useful ways.

And for all my attempts and effort this dayphase, I could not make the fucker blink. I could not get anything out of him. Absolutely nothing to grab onto that could be potentially scummy and use to really get sortable content out of him. But still! Not obvtown! How!

Like I said. This is just plain paranoia. I am very good at getting content I can use out of people, and I couldn't get a handle on unwnd. Worse yet, I think if unwnd is red, scum can count on unwnd simply coasting to a win. I think this is the only time someone shoots in that direction, period. So I really, really want to give this a serious, final attempt. Out in the open with what I'm doing. I am trying to put the thumbscrews to you unwnd, because it is THE ONLY WAY I can figure out your alignment at this point -- and you remain unmoved. It unnerves me and makes me keep going "but what if...".

[unwnd]

I don't want to be shot. I feel anything else I could say beyond this would be pointless. I gave you my reasoning before and I can't really understand why we're here now. I'm just as confused/paranoid as you are when it comes to a gun being waved in front of me.

[SirCakez]

I felt so bad for Mahomes he just could not get any air

[SirCakez]

Mush frankly your gun-waving demands are kind of annoying
I'm willing to help you but demanding walls and cases and defenses from other people is not really very fair or fun imo
And idc if this gets me shot or whatever

[SirCakez]

Basically I'm not gonna bend over backwards for you if that's what you're looking for from the people in your pool

[SirCakez]

Also there is no way in hell I'd be bussing Imperium here
You can argue TvT or TvS but SvS is ridiculous

[SirCakez]

If I do get shot I am probably not gonna wait too long to make my move here because this game has been getting really dragged out and I don't see much changing my mind here

[unwnd]

In my own perspective, knowing the consequence of a misfire is far more telling than pretending nothing can go wrong. Do you know why Wheme is scum? It's because up until this point-- he acted like there were no consequences. He had no consideration of the gunbearer. It was

performative

. It should be as clear as the nose on your face at this point. What does Wheme have to show for his antics. What did he gain keep saying 'shoot me' 'shoot me' 'shoot me'

Absolutely fucking nothing.

[WhemeStar]

What did he gain keep saying 'shoot me' 'shoot me' 'shoot me'

I mean hopefully the gun.

[Imperium]

I felt so bad for Mahomes he just could not get any air

Definitely think he is coming back with a vengeance next year. Also think he's the greatest to ever do it; some of those throws he made when getting buried were gorgeous.

[Imperium]

In my own perspective, knowing the consequence of a misfire is far more telling than pretending nothing can go wrong. Do you know why Wheme is scum? It's because up until this point-- he acted like there were no consequences. He had no consideration of the gunbearer. It was

performative

. It should be as clear as the nose on your face at this point. What does Wheme have to show for his antics. What did he gain keep saying 'shoot me' 'shoot me' 'shoot me'

Absolutely fucking nothing.

Good post, this is a big part of why I'm scumreading WhemeStar.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Cakez, I didn't make any demands this go around. I put out that I'm trying to sort unwnd, and I explained why everyone else is both in consideration for shooting and not yet shot.

But fine. I'll drop the whole thing. Fuck it. Here's the straight talk, Cakez. Fun mode deactivated, no joking or bullshit.

It's dragging because I cannot parse the damn game. No one is doing anything I can work with.

When I have mechanical control, normally! Normally, I can force people to give me stuff I can work with. unwnd aside, I got stuff from everyone this time and I still couldn't work with it. It's not WIFOM dragging me down, it's everyone having equally good arguments (equally good non-WIFOM-related arguments! somehow!) in every 1v1, except for you, but /no one/ scumreads you but me and Wheme, so where the fuck does /that/ put me?

When there are 1v1s, NORMALLY I can parse them or someone else in the game that I can trust can parse them. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Every 1v1 looks like a mess. There's no weight and there's no pressure so there's no consequence and everything seems to stop and start at random.

I can't push a slot when I don't have the gun to get sorting, because there's no weight I can put on them, there's no /risk/. I can't push a slot when I have the gun, because they have no incentive to push back. So my self-directed scumhunting is completely failing too.

So I'm left trying to smash slots off of each other that HAVE NOT interacted in a potentially alignment indicative way, hoping for something, anything to spark a light that I can parse the game with.

Yeah, it's probably getting annoying, and that's because I'm fucking desperate. I'm trying to frame the game in some way that makes sense, and there's nothing. So there you go.

[Imperium]

Also there is no way in hell I'd be bussing Imperium here
You can argue TvT or TvS but SvS is ridiculous

+1