Okay,
here's why I think BRO is town
:
- Consider the amount of emotional involvement that BRO has had in the game versus Wicked. Once he and Desp got themselves involved and placed that vote on Rancid, we were dealing with a very tense gamestate and BRO's personal involvement in the game was incredibly high. This was compounded when Rancid were insulting BRO every step of the way. I think the insults furthered the amount of emotional investment that he had in the game and the more they insulted him, the more personally involved he got into getting them lynched. This isn't unusual. When someone is kind and friendly, but a player thinks that they are scum, that player wouldn't be as desperate to get their opponent lynched and they'd be less angry if their opponent got away. What Rancid did in the game was heighten tensions between them and BRO. They trash-talked, insulted BRO's posting, tried to rile him up, took digs at him, challenged him to a gladiator match, sized him up etc. There was really no end to what they did on D1 and you know how Muffin gets when he really wants to rile someone up. I think that BRO reacted to this by getting even more invested in their lynch and wanted them lynched very, very badly.
- This level of investment doesn't happen very often and the way Mala and Cabd/Penguin persued him in Wicked was markedly different for these reasons. Penguin even told me later that she wanted to work with BRO and had that happened, she would have chosen to neighborize him N1. Malakittens didn't bait BRO, she didn't insult his posting and make him badly, desperately want her dead. She played a fair game and won. Considering that, I wouldn't expect BRO to have the same fury at being lynched in place of his target during Wicked. He was lynched by players that genuinely liked him and cared about him and went about it in a decent way. While he was frustrated, it is not to the extent that it was here.
- Now onto the mechanics of how the lynch happened. BRO-Desp, Pie, and I were pushing the wagon on Rancid and it seemed likely that it would go through. At least upon Pie's replacement, the likelihood of a Rancid lynch magnified. This gave BRO
hope
that they would be lynched. The wagon stalled at times, and I could sort of sense BRO metaphorically drumming his fingers on the table waiting for the lynch to be pushed through at deadline. It was by no means a guarantee, but there was a good chance it would go through and I think BRO was waiting on tenterhooks for it to happen. It was almost assured that he, BRO, wouldn't be lynched. It was either going to be his choice of lynch (Rancid), or a lynch he would prefer not to happen (a lurker), and that was the dichotomy that BRO was looking at. Nacho came in and starting shaking the wagons around just when momentum on the Rancid wagon was stalling and I could tell some of the hope was lost and the disappointment started to etch through like a crash after a sugar high. It became apparent that he would fail and all the work was for nothing. I think anyone would be disappointed and upset.
- From that emotional state, I think the final straw that broke down BRO was the sudden flashwagon on his slot at deadline. So, here we had BRO pushing the Rancid wagon by slowly working through obstacles to finally get this lynch through, and all of sudden, it seems not only is his adversary getting away, but he himself was being wagoned with no resistance at all. It was an astonishing sight to watch from the outside and I can see why BRO who was the target would meltdown at that point. After all the insults from Rancid, the sizing up, the dick-measuring, everything, and he, BRO is target of a dumb deadline wagon that some people hopped onto without a care in the world. This wasn't the case in Wicked. He was battling a worthy opponent (Malakittens) and she won fairly. There was frustration if you read the Wicked thread closely. BRO was annoyed. Just not as much as he was here.
- Look at it from a scum POV: there is no way BRO as scum is this invested in getting a lynch. He wants to survive sure, but the burning desire for Rancid to die and the constant and consistent efforts to make it happen is highly unlikely to come from scum. This is most of what I was referring to from the neighborhood. It is apparent that BRO wants Mastin and Rancid both lynched with an intensity that I've rarely encountered before. He didn't meltdown because he cared about surviving as scum. I think he melted down because his efforts were not only ignored, but at a very, very crucial, critical point when he was losing hope in achieving his goal, the wagon, almost unbelievably turned right at him and it was no longer a question of whether he could get Rancid lynched but of whether Rancid could get
him
lynched.
- I totally agree that his reaction to being run up is vastly different from Wicked. I think a combination of circumstances account for this difference as opposed to BRO's alignment being different. Your logic makes sense: It is true that he said he cares more about being lynched as scum, and he cared more here than he did in his last towngame. One thing I really love about your scumhunting is that you are empathetic enough to understand how others are feeling and if you put yourself in BRO's place with all that he had to endure in this game, realize what he wants, and what his goals are, you'll see why he reacted in such a different way than he did in Wicked.
pile for "doing nothing" during my V/LA period and then you go "how are ppl townreading them" for doing my own thing.
