I've reread the first 23 pages looking for people who knew that F-16, ika and BRantz were scum, and signs of who those three knew was the (likely) fourth. I'm not stopping here, but I am writing up my notes now as I'll be out this evening and I don't know if I'll be all done before I have to go.
People I'm ruling out as a buddy
Bookitty:
Went after F-16
early and intelligently. F-16
tried to cast doubt on her during his big series of reads posts, which I don't think he would do to a buddy given that there wasn't any suspicion on her. Bookitty
went in hard on F-16 again. Near end of Day 1,
focuses on ika and BRantz specifically as two clear suspects - doesn't make sense for a buddy.
ffery:
Did scum get pregame talk? If so, I think
ffery not knowing F-16's post restriction is a town tell. F-16 looks like he's
trying to manipulate ffery by calling her town and then playing off her predicted reaction to it. Generally
ffery seems inquisitive re: F-16 in encouraging ways, later
puts ika in a pile of people who should be dealt with.
I also think that the way in which both
BRantz and
ika put both Bookitty and ffery as solid townreads in their reads lists is kind of an admission that there's no point trying to get anywhere on them.
--
In this first half of the game, the only one of the remaining four candidates to make a serious impression on the game is AP, and I'm also fairly happy that he's town.
AngryPidgeon:
Listed
here a few townreads, none of whom are scum ... from what I remember, he does like to call at least one buddy town, which makes this a townping for me.
BRantz null-towned AP but in a way that looks like he just wants a bit of room to vote him later if needs be.
--
UT's slot is the one on whom I got the fewest notes in this period. It's all notscience over this time, and there's not a great deal of interaction either way with the flipped scum. I thought it was interesting that
BRantz positioned himself in such a way that he wouldn't vote for UT until after 'a Katsuki scumflip', which is the sort of thing that I've done to protect a buddy in the past.
Here notscience rather half-heartedly scumreads ika, and also has a pretty unexciting townish read on BRantz. So at this point I'm seeing more reasons to suspect UT than not.
There's almost nothing of Titus's slot while Skrew is in the game. I found his peripheral activity as scummy on reread as I did when I voted for him on Day 1, and the fact that both
F-16 and
BRantz somewhat spuriously voted for Skrew is also suspicious. Titus does eventually land on
an ika vote after replacing in but I still think the entrance is weird and I still find her manipulation of me re: my ika suspicion skeevy.
There's definitely also reason to suspect NS. Look at how
F-16 treats his BRantz buddy here - while his previous reads posts have been a lot of definite 'I have a scum read for this' or 'town read for that', he doesn't get definite on BRantz, only asking for explanations for things.
His NS post follows the same pattern, seeking clarification and wondering out loud rather than actually taking a stance either way. I also think that
NS's approach to the Bookitty-F16 debate is a strange one, focusing only on Bookitty and on a weird note of 'communication issues' ... really? I didn't notice a serious one.
BRantz also townreads NS pretty unimpressively for a lame post.
--
While acknowledging that I still need to reread over a third of the game, I'd be tempted to vote for all of the above. Given Titus's heavy push on ika after replacing in, I feel like I'd rather not leave that WIFOM over whether or not she'd do that to a buddy until LyLo so my instinct is that we should start there of the three plausible scum. But I'm also pretty proud of my point about how F-16 treated both BRantz and NS so maaaaybe I'd say that NS is actually the likeliest scum. But it's not a strong preference.
The rest coming either later tonight or tomorrow.
