In a nutshell, I hate the way you dealt with the mason claims and most of your reads felt pretty contrived to me. Your read progression also does not look natural to me at all. There's also the fact you're lining up my mislynch with Maria's lynch (which I think is most likely a mislynch) and encouraging town's tunnel vision on Maria and my slot, which together probably is allowing the lurkers to coast.
I didn't like your
40, it read to me like you were prematurely deciding on people to scumread and not really trying to sort people out, so you didn't really get that good of a first impression from me.
Your reaction to the Maria wagon also wasn't something I cared for. In
156, you say that because you lost against scum!Maria that you would expect her to make a better play. But even if Maria played a good scumgame, that doesn't say anything about her towngame. With my experience with scum!Maria, she was widely townread because her scumbuddies tried to play up the fact she looked like newbtown. If you have to play up the newbie card to get townread, then I don't really expect your towngame to look that great. Also, take a look at Maria's meta. Most of her games are scumgames, she has far more experience playing it and I don't think she's lost a single game. My point is that just because Maria can
act
like town doesn't mean she's actually good at
being
town. They're two entirely different skillsets to me.
165 also feels like you're keeping your options open. At this point in your ISO, it looks like you have 3 scumreads that are somewhat strong. That seems like a lot for that point in time, especially considering that you haven't said you townread anyone. You're scumreading Maria because you think she's skilled and overreacting? That seems like a really surface-level read to me, and it doesn't really help that it was the most popular wagon at the time.
Also noting that in
246 that you said that Maria was more likely to be scum between the two of us for future reference.
416 sucks. If you don't believe a mason claim and have fake-claimed mason before with someone, why the hell are you unvoting? It reads to me that you're trying to play it safe as scum, because you pushing a lynch on a claimed mason that actually flips mason would look terrible for you.
455... JJD at least reads townier to me, but I still don't understand how defending townreads is scummy. There also weren't really any points for Kraska to respond to, Thor didn't make any points (you say in
459 he did), and JJD's case was weak and Kraska's response to it was completely valid. Again, this reads to me like you're finding easy reasons to scumread people and following what other people are thinking. Honestly the fact that 459 is a non-answer to Kraska's request kinda proves that... Not answering that and admitting to sheeping pretty much stops Kraska from getting any chance to sort you early-game because you take away her chance of understanding your mindset
460, how is Kraska saying that Maria's actions don't make sense from a scum mindset not a valid reason to townread someone? Plus your premise here is kind of faulty, Maria shouldn't give a shit about how people are reading her if she's town. And
461 is unnecessary shit throwing at Kraska, referring to someone as a "mislynch" isn't a scumslip and I don't understand why I keep seeing people come to that conclusion.
462 also really feels like you're contradicting your vote. Fine, you think Maria is scummy because of her claim, I think that's a valid perspective. But what townie thinks, "My two scumreads have claimed masons together and I don't believe their claim at all. Voting for them is a terrible idea though because the claim might be true"? If you think the claim is bullshit, then you don't dance around it and egg other people into voting for the people claiming. Especially because I've seen scum do stuff like that before (best example i have is ongoing sadly. truly the woe of being a newbie), this doesn't look like townie thinking to me.
Noting a townread on karnos in
470 for what is essentially agreeing with everyone else.
Are you still scumreading Thor from
509? I don't like the implication that people who disagree with you or scumread you are scum and that's the one I'm getting here.
511 really reinforces that your way of approaching the mason fakeclaim is scummy as shit. You've been telling other people that the mason claim looked fake to you, yet you're acting like you think it's actually real. This looks like doublethink to me.
597 is pretty bad for the same reasons, especially not fond of the discredit of scumreads on you.
607, Michel is suddenly town because he agrees with the premise you've been pushing but never acting on... Hm.
623 is just
... So, earlier in the game, scum!Maria is trying to butter up town!Transcend by early townreading him and their dynamic is weird. But now, conveniently right after Michel votes for Transcend, your opinion reverses. If anything, I think sticking your neck out and risking the safety of the town to defend a townread is more likely to come from town than it is from scum. So, what exactly is it that made you change your opinion? There's nothing in your ISO that makes me think that you would want to vote for Transcend beforehand, and most of your posts suggest that you found Maria scummier even post-mason claim. What made you change your opinion?
625... I hate to inform you of this but Transcend isn't... exactly the brightest bulb I know...
Is it normal for you as town to make posts like
637 and
462? I agree Maria's reasoning isn't that great but this is just a really icky way to approach it.
Sidenote,
701 is a good post.
Karnos is being shitty in
704, but especially with what Karnos says in
677 (essentially the idea that transcend is just being a shit like he always is), this feels more like you criticizing him for not wanting to vote Transcend, especially because you liked him for town earlier for thinking the masons were fakeclaiming.
710 sits strangely with me. Isn't your scumread of Transcend based on the fact you think he's being manipulative with his mason claim? Yet, at the same time, you're scumreading Maria... I get that pre-flip associations are bad and I agree, but your reads don't make sense without knowing one of our alignments for sure. If anything, this feels like you're lining up mislynches.
I don't get
873. Are you suggesting that
831 was scummy? If so, wouldn't that be the scum!Maria you know...? That was certainly the scum!Maria I knew but the context is different.
1040 is really shitty and I think I'm going to try to word what I found wrong with it earlier. It feels like by saying that "Transcend [was] not town" that A: You thought
1032 was a town post, B: You're conflating pro-town and town-aligned, and C: That Transcend and I could have different alignments. Seems to me that that's coming from someone who already knew that Transcend's slot was town.
1050 is like... textbook lining up mislynches. If I'm lynched, I want Maria and Kraska completely ignored and for other slots to be pressured because I think this town's tunnel vision on my slot and Maria's is going to shit up town's chances of winning. Encouraging that is pretty much the scummiest thing that has happened in this game, honestly.
Also, on
1073, the fact that you want to throw shit at me because you think my Ascetic claim is scummy must be unreal. There's probably an investigative role in this game, meaning that my claim should be provable. If I'm
lying
about being Ascetic, then if someone decides to test out my claim, I'm toast. Scum!me, btw, doesn't fakeclaim
ascetic
as a "just in case" sort of thing because that requires me to have a buddy who can roleblock and for them to be able to get a perfect PR read and block them for the entire game... That's assuming only one person can confirm my claim.
And, from personal experience, truthfully claiming Ascetic as scum is a shit idea because it takes away the role's utility in removing an investigation from a town player. I would have expected someone more experienced to know this, but whatever. Can you link me a game where scum has outright claimed they are ascetic? I don't think it's a thing that happens. Also, the fact that Transcend
didn't
claim this should actually be working in my favor, because it makes it more likely, from everyone else's POV, that I'm telling the truth. If Transcend were scum and ascetic, I wouldn't want to reveal his way of hindering town's power at night if he didn't claim it early on, especially if I felt confident in being able to move momentum away from me.
If anything, the fact I'm ascetic is part of why I'm OK with being lynched. I still think that people are going to go after Maria or Kraska next, which is an awful idea, but at least there isn't ambiguity around my claim and it can't be used to stir paranoia around my slot.
Plus, it's miller claims that scum make "just in case". Claiming ascetic for the same reason is stupid.