In post 663, Tim Howard wrote:Have we played together? I've barely played for like a year, and I don't recall playing with either of your heads (Nexus). This comment makes me uneasy unless you can give me some meta - (unless of course you're going to turn around and say you've been reading all my old games in which case wow)
Well, then, get ready to say wow. Just off the top of my head, I've read Mafiastuck (I was in this game as part of a hydra with petapan, we died N1), Abarat 2, Red Wedding, UK Scummers Invitational, and Breaking Bad. All of those games were ongoing at the time I read them - whenever I'm bored/have nothing to do/feel like procrastinating, I usually end up reading games I'm not in as a way to test my scumhunting because it's fun.
In post 706, Flipping Awesome wrote:
The first Harry Potter game had Penguin and CDB as scumbuddies. I read it a few months ago. The second Harry Potter game had all of me, Penguin and CDB as town and he was fairly obvious town there. BUT, I was more confident in my read there than I am here. The other town games were ones that I followed but want to go back and re-read. Assuming we solidify our read on CDB, we are willing to take his word on Nexus/Quadz for D1. Katsuki is a more major project and I've played a few games with him and spectated others so I'll figure out where I stand after looking through these games.
@ Ffery
, I am looking forward to discussing his meta too. I see you played a lot of games with him. You said you were waiting for Nacho but I'd like to hear your thoughts as well. Why wait for Nacho? Penguin's played games with him as well so that'll be a nice discussion. I am linking Venmar's Micro 53 mostly because I want to read Empire's case and Penguin was in the X-Men Micro. Also, interesting thing about Shadoweh is that she is somewhat dominating? as scum. See Fall of Gondolin where Tierce and Shadoweh basically directed the town in the initial phases. I'd like to hear your thoughts about that game as well Tierce, I was following it. I haven't played with Shadoweh before but Penguin was in the invitational game. Penguin found Plum scummy but I'm not sure. I was in Attack of Titan as scum when she was town and read the On a Boat game.
I'll go through these one-by-one (I was going to include these in my upcoming reads wall but figured why not here):
CDB:
From my understanding, CDB really dislikes being scum - he tends to lurk and his posting generally reads as meek. When he's town, he's a lot more confident, almost willing to assume a leadership position, not afraid to state his thoughts even when they go against the norm. The way he comments on the Tim Howard wagon as a bad one and then wants to steer people to a better vote in
#325 followed by his repeatedly encouraging / asking people to join him on the Shadoweh wagon follows the kind of self-assured attitude that I don't think I've ever seen CDB successfully replicate as scum. I also like the way he inserts himself between Tim Howard and Zdenek early on (two of his townreads), scum don't usually put in as much effort into playing the mediator that he had there, they usually tend to consider TvT infighting either dismissively or not at all. A more minor point, but his repeated insistence that Tim Howard is town, complete with the post where he sites his experiences with Nexus, reads town as it comes across as though he genuinely believes in the read.
-> As an aside, the main issue that I have with sheeping his read on Tim Howard is that, from experience, I feel as though we're just naturally biased towards reading our friends as town (it definitely happened to me in Yoloville and I think it's at least part of the reason I got away with as much as I did in Faraday's ASoIaF U-Pick).
Katsuki:
I know the caps obscures it a bit, but you gotta look beyond it and into his tone. The one meta-based tell I have on him is that Katsuki is overall way lazier/lurkier as town. He puts in a lot more effort to giving thoughtful responses to people, building at least some semblance of a case, and showing even a hint of aggression as scum (check the two scum games again for examples of what I mean). I don't see any of the latter here - the expectation that a player he's familiar with be capable of reading him correctly as town is something that I've seen consistently across his town games, and while it's an easy smokescreen for scum generally speaking as it relieves the burden of having to put forth any meaningful content, Katsuki's meta turns that idea on its head.
Shadoweh:
I was ready to be all over her for the color thing but the way she's responded to Tammy's/chamber's/my accusations reminds me of the way she got hella mad at me in The Wire for my early push on her. I know she'd probably try and fake that angle here but she just sounds more genuine than I'd expect her to be as scum. Part of me is worried that I'm falling for the same bait that I did in Wingate Mansion, but eh. All I know is that her being domineering (this is the word you were looking for) is not indicative of her alignment at all.
Plum:
I'd really like to say that Plum's behavior in this game is consistent with scum boxed in by a lack of good lynch options (as her case on NS / vote on Tim Howard might suggest), but the stasis in this game seems like it's affecting everyone (it's definitely affecting me right now). The closest thing I've found that reminds me of the On A Boat game where she was my scumbuddy is
#542 where there's a lack of focus that doesn't appear to be there when she's town (I read SpyreX's Wizard game and the Attack on Titan game while they were ongoing and correctly read her as town there) but that could just be a side effect of this particular game. Right now, she's in my PoE pool but got no read on her independently of that here, which is annoying.
I've already spoken at some length about Venmar and don't really feel like driving it in again.
In post 745, Untrod Tripod wrote:I thought Cerulean's early posts were incredibly scummy, but they've been towntelling lately. I could absolutely support a Cerulean wagon though.
This makes absolutely no sense: you're saying my slot's been towntelling but you could "absolutely" support a wagon on our slot?
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P-edit: Shadoweh, that's mean.
Honestly, I don't even feel that strongly that you're scum anymore, I just have no idea what I'm doing right now. I've got a nice handful of townreads but for some reason lack a sense of direction in this game (apparently the only scumread I have that I'm even remotely confident in right now sucks, maybe I'm just bad/rusty, I dunno).
Unvote
Bleh. Going to try hitting the game again in the next hour or so and seeing what I can manage.