Mini Theme 2161: Undertale C Open - Chara's Folly

[Prism]

I really don't want to punch EVs but if no one else will I'll do it later. Probably going to push for 4 spare again.

Wave acknowledged. I'm tired and will be in tomorrow.

[Prism]

None of the arguments seem decisive at a glance. I was really hoping that someone else would do it and I could call it a day.

Whatever, time to get out my scratchpad and calculator I guess.

[Prism]

Alright well my numbers differ from Hectic's (31% town win for 4 spare) but I still don't think it's optimal and I'm tired of typing a line of 50 fractions into Google that are probably wrong (45%+ w/r for four eliminations is almost certainly wrong) so I'm throwing my computer out the window and calling it a day for now.

someone call me when RVS is over I haven't played that phase in years

HURT: catboi deliberately misleading line is assigning intent that I don't really think is there

[Prism]

Baseline for a town clean sweep is 22.5%, 1 mafia spare I think gives it an extra ~8.7% but that requires doublechecking some of the more complicated scenario counting so I'm done with that for now. Figuring out 1-3 spares is more important to me

[Prism]

Night 4 isn't skipped in 4 fight scenario. It's a town loss.

I suspect that "Town wins is two mafia are fought", regardless of which two it is, is a more straightforward way of framing the wincon for 4. I would need to doublecheck

[Prism]

Nevermind I can't read.

[Prism]

Eh Night 4 is indeed skipped but it doesn't matter because the previous day is 2v3. Maybe we can no spare/no fight but that seems silly. I don't want to think through Chara fight->2 town fights->single spare right now.

[Prism]

I don't think you're counting the vengeful but I'll cut the mech talk short for now

[Prism]

so i don't know if you remember the frustration of no flips until town finally fought Farkran.

Speaking of, that game was an excellent example of why the "it's easy to get townreads" assumption is kind of bogus. Without disrespect, Farkran essentially hardclaimed scum at one point (mad at being called bad scum, fine with everyone calling him bad town) but almost all of the town refused to budge on their concrete TR on him. Plus literally the entire game was wrong on you. One game isn't a huge sample size, but you get the idea.

Still took eons to get him voted, even among players that really should have known better because they were insistent on townreading the dumbest stuff.

[Prism]

I am actually blown away that both of those calculations were right on the dot, 46.9% and 31.2%. Guess I should have more faith in myself.

Count me on board with the 1-3 spares.

[Prism]

Excel. So much better than paper and typing fractions into Google.

man's a genius

[Prism]

ill participate properly when you all decide what strategy we should do. im very much of the opinion that mech talk and EVs are pretty much NAI and using them to justify strategy is gonna let scum persuade us to do what they want more often than not. it seems to me that a fight day 1 and then sparing later days is a good idea, but i really havent thought about it that much

This attitude is really curious. Do you feel any of me, Hectic, or catboi are arguing EVs with scum intent? (ie. to push town into something scum wants)

If you're worried that scum is going to use EVs to persuade the town in a certain direction, essentially recusing yourself from the conversation and leaving it to others to decide without you-and giving the scum voices that much more weight-seems counterproductive imo.

[Prism]

anyway, Prism town because he did the math and was accurate before catboi revealed his spreadsheets
he made the effort but showed no working or proof to try and make it look impressive or get any towncred from it

I really want to hear more explanation on this. At this point, you've seen one of each of my games. What gives you this impression?

[Prism]

catboi I don't really scumread you and will probably move my vote soon, I think you can guess at my opinion of some of the last 2/3 pages but we should circle back later imo

[Prism]

Not really. I struggle to get reads early-even replacing into the last Undertale they were slapdash garbage just to get into swing-but tend to have extreme faith in the ones I do get.

[Prism]

I don't like that weakness, and I want to actively push myself to overcome it, but it's best to answer questions like that quickly and honestly imo

[Prism]

I don't think you're understanding what's happening.

Me/catboi are inviting you to play the game. You seemed to think that mafia would be more inclined to push town in directions based off mech, so I invited you to utilize that approach to read me/Hectic/catboi.

After you declined to do that, catboi is now using a broader question that lets you explain how you want to play, who you're looking at, or any number of other things you want to talk about.

Declining both of these invitations with "I'll play when everyone else does" is a bit frustrating.

[Prism]

Respectfully, you've been tossed 3/4 bones by various people, and now had it outlined for you exactly what those bones were explicitly.

Here are starter q

[Prism]

I don't even know how I accidentally submitted that

Here are some starter questions:

-Hectic pushed for a spare whose EV is objectively terrible. Earlier, you seemed to think mafia will use EV trickery to push things to their advantage. How do you interpret this? He seemed to make a lot of less concrete arguments for it.
-A lot of people are townreading me/catboi just for trying the numbers. Do you agree with those, or think they're junk?
-Chara's been giving plenty of reads. How do you feel about them, or do you agree with those reads?

Literally the possibilities are endless here. The entire point of catboi's question was for you to explain what you're looking for or

presently thinking about the players

, or at the very least invite you to think how the figurative sausage of reads get made rather than assume that someday they'll pop from thin air

[Prism]

???????

#221 and multiple pages since you last checked in

If you don't feel like playing right now sure but this makes it seem like there's nothing for you to do until people come back

[Prism]

HURT: Hectic I was considering doing this earlier anyway and it's better than hanging around on catboi

[Prism]

Ah yes, everyone being the other characters that collectively make up the mind of Hectic, lmao. My vote sticks for now.

[Prism]

Nifty hat. Well, don't mind me, just going to be opportunist scum parking on you knowing you won't really respond for three days.

[Prism]

Chara's actually coming off as a lot more proactive than I remember from Undertale 2.0. One of the big issues I had with their early (scum) game was preemptively hedging their thoughts and being a lot more subtle/offcolor with trying to ingratiate themselves. Some also really just didn't seem to follow. This one they're a lot more straightforward, and their flow and reads here are understandable to me. In Undertale 2.0, I repeatedly failed to understand their thought processes and really leaned heavily on two facts: 1) They played mediator in a TvT 2) They also scumread my deathtunnel target. I remember thinking their thought processes were beyond me really understanding without deep meta, which honestly probably sealed the game.

In comparison, I like this Chara.

[Prism]

Yeah this vote is staying for a bit. I'd use "bad" over lackluster to describe his read on me given that Hectic saw a much, MUCH more open/friendly Prism as town and one that laid a million small traps like that as scum, even if he says he doesn't remember much. The pivot to Pooky is playing it super safe and objective with choosing what to push on.

Getting reads out of Pooky has value but I really think this is Hectic struggling to get his bearings, and not in a good way.

[Prism]

I'm also really skeptical of #302 but that one is a lot less tangible.

[Prism]

His approach on me this game is vastly different to how he's ever treated me. The last ~5 games I've played with him he's scumread me. He was town in 4 of those, and scum in 1. My last game with him is the one he was scum in, and in that he mentioned in the scumchat that he knew how to manipulate me by playing to his townmeta, and proceeded to scumread me as usual... the FOOL, that won't ever work on me again.
So, this is very new to me. He doesn't even have a reason to townread me, he's doing it in a memey "Hectic is always town" way. I think there's a chance he's polarising his approach from his last scumgame so that I think he's town here, but he's overdoing it.

Of the 4 games Elements was town and scumread you, how many were you also town?

[Prism]

Your approach to Chara also really interests me. This post from Undertake 2.0 does a good job of explaining your read on Chara that game. They felt very natural to you, had strong tone, and their reads flowed decently. The most important part was they pushed you as a spare, though.

Townleaning Chara immediately for a line that is honestly trivial to fake is a really hard sell for me here. It begs the question what you're looking for in a scum Chara, which isn't in our best interest for you to answer just yet.

As town you just seem to be very eager to step right into the hole you did last time.

[Prism]

I'm in a different mood, have played significantly more mafia elsewhere and become a bit more callous, and I had very specific goals for myself in mind for that game that I elaborated on there: namely in my demeanor and how I specifically worked with others.

[Prism]

Also I hate the kawaii wave and it left a sour taste in my mouth, but catboi knew that when he did it

[Prism]

The shift is honestly secondary. I didn't buy his reason for townreading me to begin with-the stuff about me not going out of my way to show my work.

[Prism]

Townleaning Chara immediately for a line that is honestly trivial to fake is a really hard sell for me here. It begs the question what you're looking for in a scum Chara, which isn't in our best interest for you to answer just yet.

but you pretty much laid out your vision for scum Chara in your earlier post, didn't you? is there a reason you decided to play your hand already?

Yep. The post I made was highlighting differences I noticed so far. They weren't really planned ahead of time: I just sat down a few minutes before I made that post and figured I should try to read you. The specific points that came up were direct responses to what I saw, rather than specific things I was looking for in advance. In other words, I didn't really need to sit around and wait to use them.

I don't put a ton of faith in them and don't even expect to lean on them forever.

Spoiler: Additional, meta-specific notes that turn this into a giant wall

There are also some after-the-fact defenses here, like that some of these were contrasts I brought up in the original game and therefore nothing new. This wasn't really on my mind at the time, and brings up an interesting point: it potentially gets counterbalanced by you adjusting to them. I think the ingratiating bit was so small and unnoteworthy to anyone but me that I find it being intentional unlikely. I don't think your proactivity was ever really a topic, though, and that stuck out to me more especially when I looked back and saw that it took you awhile to stick your neck out in the original. You really only kicked into gear with #243, and even then you did your best to play it safe.

I'm inclined to believe the proactivty arises from town circumstances, but there are definitely some that exist of you as mafia.

I also don't think it does much harm to comment on where I went wrong in my read on you that game. The most simple explanation is that I underestimated you. I mistook strong, cooperative play as townplay, thinking that you were primarily a tone-based player as scum who would struggle to keep cohesive reads over time. With time, I began to doubt that you even had that strong of a tone as scum either since I thought you were town anyway. The process was: strong tone, probably null, have to catch via reads -> strong read progression, unlikely to have both -> since they're town, scum tone probably isn't great either tbh

I was wrong. You had the tone, but you also had the reads. You were the one player I didn't meta, and it was a death sentence. I do not expect locking you as anything to be easy.

[Prism]

Prism, i'm not feeling the same worries about Hectic as you are. you dislike his going after Pooky for objective reasons, but what would you have him do instead? scumread you?

I don't think I need a solid answer to "What is

an

approach that townHectic likely takes?" to answer "Does townHectic likely take

this

approach?"

Prodding Pooky for content is plausible as town, and as I said it does have clear value. It's incredibly safe as scum because town has good reason to ask, and you're given a ton of flexibility no matter how Pooky responds. The circumstances surrounding it-coming in the middle of getting pressured by me for both content and activity-made me wonder: Is he playing it so safe because he's uncomfortable as scum and struggling to start the game off on the right foot?

That said, I definitely expected better reads from Hectic given what I saw in Undertale 2.0 and Flying Scumsman, both of which he was town in.

and your read on me, as well. certainly, it has more words to it than Hectic's, but it's only one game of comparison. i could buy the townread, but the juxtaposition of that read and your comparison to Hectic's read on me in Undertale S feels very... intentional?
i was scum there, so why would you expect him to read me the same way in the followup?

I'm confused as to what you're asking here. My point is that I expected him to take a very different approach to reading you than he did in the original. The problem is that to me he seemed to have doubled down on an approach that actively burned him: that line about adjusting to me sticks out, from my perspective, as one that people would describe as too natural to be scum.

[Prism]

It's also worth noting why I picked Chara specifically to focus on: I think they'll be very difficult for me to read, but the amount of content/reads they had given in the game were unparalleled at the time. Easily the best place to start.

[Prism]

There is more than one game happening at the moment

the sooner we focus on the correct game - the closer we will move to winning.

Half the game is against sparing Day 1 while you're still refusing to out reads and calling for weird election-style minigames that look vaguely familiar

The sooner you play the game in front of you instead of trying to create the one in your imagination, the closer we are to winning.

[Prism]

Prism: just letting you know i've read your response and i'm thinking on it. regarding the end of 341, i'm assuming you read 337 and i no longer need to clarify what i was asking. you answered, regardless.
but i'm curious: are you going to now do a meta dive on me?

I actually missed 337 entirely, I was reading haphazardly and typing my responses on my phone in line at the Popeyes drive thru and thinking how absurd it was that I was still linking posts lmao

Meta depends on whether I think it's worth the time it takes me, but probably at some point

[Prism]

Actually I was in line for the previous set with Hectic, I'm just blind nevermind

Not that this actually matters anyway but I ACCIDENTALLY LIED

[Prism]

I actually think having a as narrow focus as possible is beneficial for getting to 4 town spares as it keeps the scum in the dark about who is being TR'd and who is being SR'd

You still going to be on this 60 pages in on Day 3 or is there a time limit on this refusal to play the game?

[Prism]

catboi's reads and general approach haven't really been angling for anything here, and he's really taking his time and letting things play out.

I hate that he's likely to be town, just not really the approach he should take for this game as scum imo. Only thing I didn't like was the early Hectic "deliberate" accusation, and that's really plausible for towncat too

[Prism]

catboi's reads and general approach haven't really been angling for anything here, and he's really taking his time and letting things play out.

I hate that he's likely to be town, just not really the approach he should take for this game as scum imo. Only thing I didn't like was the early Hectic "deliberate" accusation, and that's really plausible for towncat too

Er, what's the approach I "should" take?

It depends a bit on who your partners would be but my instinct is that continuing to play things in the backseat/letting people develop without too many nudges from you will lead to a loss, the only one that's probably best to steer clear of would be my push on Hectic. If me/Chara are both town, letting us continue to be the strongest voices would be a disaster waiting to happen. I think a good counterpoint, briefly stated, would be that I don't actually have scum meta on you. It's very strange to know you extremely well in some ways and have complete gaps in others.

[Prism]

I thought you were calling me out for slacking on this game and I liked that but the more I read this the more I got weirded out and confused. Like, the idea I couldn't be lazy and unmotivated as mafia is...puzzling. This read on me doesn't make a lot of sense. (*´ω｀*)

I thought about something similar on my nightly drive. I could see your priority being on other games. I don't buy the lazy and unmotivated theory as much.

[Prism]

the first bit of 371

is

a strange read now that you point it out. Prism's townleaning your sitting back and letting things go this early in the game rings a little weird. Prism's extrapolating what your scum approach should be into what they think it

would

be without scum meta on you is a leap, as is the thought that Prism seems to be unconsciously treating me as town. which isn't a bad thing, except it's Prism who has every reason to be very suspicious of me.

I agree it's a leap. My angle comes from thinking through what a bad/good play is for someone who constantly takes stock of position. Whether we have the same idea for what is more likely to win is is yet to be seen.

i also thought it strange how Prism replied to my question of if they would meta-dive me. that they would only do it if they had reason to believe it would be helpful. this is after stating in this game that their failure to meta me in the last Undertale lead to a loss.

To be blunt, it's a lot of work with that pays off maybe half the time at best for a single slot. I have no reason to really rush it here. There's a reason I didn't do it in the first game: I love meta, but I have to suspect I'll find something useful. Otherwise, it's after I've exhausted all other options. I've already done a minor amount the first time I read you when I got the proactive idea and compared it to Undertale, a game I was already familiar with. Reading a game from scratch takes me a very, very long time: I average about a page of a game every 10-15 minutes.

[Prism]

A better way to state my stance is this: I'm fine townleaning catboi because I think the way he's playing is a losing game if he's scum, and totally fine if he's town.

[Prism]

Taylor I don't know what game you've been reading. The mech talk has stopped entirely other than Pooky grandstanding.

The amount of reads/content in the last ~9 pages is overwhelming and you need to pay more attention to the game instead of shifting the blame.

[Prism]

I guess that's a little unfair. You're clarifying a point from post 175, not saying it's still mech talk now. Apologies, have been a bit frustrated this game.

[Prism]

Yesterday I more wanted to take a break/give others a chance, but I'm pretty tired today since I'm in the process of fixing my sleep schedule. Not really down to read/think right now, will try to tomorrow, but some shorter notes before then. redtea really going to bat for me is +town imo.

catboi townreading me is probably never going to happen, more confused by his TR on Morning Tweet. I didn't really like their early game and I remember finding

I followed along in SIN and this is a similar but more confident redtea. This makes sense given the townwin that resulted and the paranoia that crept into their thinking at the end over the more straightforward obvscum.

[Prism]

Like the shocking thing to catboi about my read on him to begin with was that I was willing to say "eh, fuck it I'll dart throw on gut" and not just leaving him null until the end of time

I also didn't want to nip the townreads on us for mech in the bud too early, I really wanted the content/reactions-and I think redtea's validates this-but now I'm fine saying I think we both out the strat here as scum as long as one of us is town

I remember thinking Pooky is fine, around the time of my last posts I was also skeptical of him overplaying the spare but I don't really think that's the case anymore

also want to hear more from cat about Hectic who I still scumread

[Prism]

I didn't really like their early game and I remember finding the wall lackluster but I'll read it again later

didn't finish the sentence lmao

[Prism]

I just saw your review of me, I was already thinking I'd vote Hectic in 221, but I didn't want to put Hectic on guard before he answered my question. A couple of answers that I really didn't like later and it was time to ramp up the pressure/step on his neck if he's scum, no longer any reason to hold off.

[Prism]

if you say so, but imo it seems to me like you realized you were reacting poorly and decided that the best way of handling it would just be to see if I'll latch onto someone else in time or wind up shouting in the wind

not even trying to read me in return is the telling part of this imo

[Prism]

Alright I shouldn't keep lazily halfassing posts, I'll be in tomorrow or later today if I get the energy

[Prism]

Alright, I'll be in to catch up later tonight.

Before that:

1) Pooky-how are you feeling atm on Hectic? Ctrl+Fing your ISO it looks like you mentioned being confident in your ability to read him earlier but not having enough yet-has anything changed? Skimming I saw just the spare/fight scum/town Hec hypotheticals so sorry if this is a repeat
2) catboi-are you still scumreading Pooky? I felt he might be overplaying the spare angle at first, he was 2/3 in my scumpool, but after he got more vehement it became more of a coinflip to me. I haven't read his case on you yet. Without really knowing his meta, it seems possible for the heavy hitting out of left field to be a reliable tool in an experienced player's arsenal. But what do you think?
3) Chara-where are you at friend?

[Prism]

[trimmed of the content I'm not focusing on]

i think Morning is strongly town and we should be SPARING her today

HEAL: Morning Tweet
^^^^^^^^^^^^this is the play, pals

This is really wack to me. At first I thought you forgetting was +town? But the more I think about this the weirder this is.

You haven't made the case for Morning town. You've said that you have a reliable towntell on them that you aren't going to out because it's too valuable. You haven't cited anything else that you would be willing to share.

There's no real attempt to get others to come around to Morning town and jump on this spare. The result is that this feels performative. I really don't like you this game.

[Prism]

I didn't addressed this earlier because I thought it was selfexplanatory but the push on Elements for memeing that you're town after he misread you 4 games in a row was also extremely puzzling. I get overplaying the hand here but like ??? this was not even something you mentioned, the background you gave was not nearly sufficient and seemed to be willfully missing a super important point.

[Prism]

I might be forced to compromise but until that point this vote is not moving. Terrible responses imo

"legitimately pushing for sparing me" is really tenuous, and "this is the play friends" with arrows highlighting ithe spare vote on Morning, with the mech as the framing leading up to it, suggests that it was more than "idk just getting mech thoughts out there"

Not thinking to either sell others on the townread, and not showing any thought as to how likely a Morning spare was/what other spares might be considered. Giant red flags to me.

Still phone posting for now, I really want to read Morning/Puppy/Tanner when I get to my computer in a few hours

[Prism]

That's great. He also knows you're town 100% of the time as mafia.

I have seen literally zero redeeming play of his in my eyes. This is in stark contrast to the last two games I played with him, where in the first he was a universal townread who played very crisply, and the second was a universal TR who I took specific steps to mislead as scum, and I decided to shoot him since the chance of him getting voted was zero.

Reads are bad. Pushes are bad. Tone is bad. Progression is bad. Like ???

[Prism]

My point isn't that he has zero reason to townread you. I'm sure even if he's scum he's got something waiting for that.

My point is that the entire way he approached sparing you was performative, because he wasn't trying to persuade others to come around (and there are probably many not-so-secretive towntells) and he did not seem to give thought to alternative spares

The "this is the play" highlighted by arrows suggests to me that the mech was a framing for the vote to spare you, rather than the vote being an lazy add-on to mechanical thinking that he claims

This is where my performative claim comes from. Zero interest in actually making the spare on you happen, just making his stance on you clear.

Aight, be back later

[Prism]

I ISO'd MT first.

When I first read them awhile back, I didn't like how heavy on the WIFOM speculation a lot of their early posting was. 163 and 179 are good examples. I wasn't impressed with the wall, either. I thought the townreads were really lackluster-me/cat were mostly up there for our EV approaches, and given how many posts of mine MT found genuine in 235, I was confused by the order. Their read on Puppy seemed really weak based on tone, so seeing myself placed at #4 in their spare list on the following post was even more of a ??? moment given what I'd seen to that point.

The process in 690 and 702 seems legitimate though. I think it undersells how valuable giving reads are for the sake of giving reads is as scum, even without clear ulterior motive, but I can see the process clearly here and changing their mind about what direction to go in twice-both times in believable ways-at first made me want to townlock them. I think I'm townreading some dumb things in general, though, and am going to be more cautious.

At first, I read the bit about "Why would Hectic vote to spare me as scum?" and started having flashbacks to all the other times I've acted out "I have no mouth and I must scream" by Harlan Ellison. But I think I need to challenge myself to do more this game: I've taken a much more callous approach, but it is now clear to me with MT/Pooky being stronger than I thought that this game is not as easy as I thought it would be. I need to seriously interrogate these kinds of questions instead of dismissing them. And if I'm seriously going to try to get Hectic voted out, halfassed dismissal won't really cut it. I need to

know

what his alignment is, not

think

it's something and take potshots at people who disagree.

[Prism]

My problem is if I go all out for it, and I'm wrong, I have singlehandedly dug us a giant hole.

I have other projects to take care of before I revisit the read from scratch, though.

[Prism]

That was a reply to Pooky's 740. I'm definitely metaing Hectic ASAP after I get a clearer picture of some of the players I've neglected to this point.

[Prism]

Lavender's wall is really lackluster. Virtually all of my posts are one-two sentences. As someone else pointed out, Chara's scum/townhunting completely took a backseat the last 10 or so pages. None of their thoughts on players have any depth to them.

It's possible this is an example of why depth on one/two players is better than breadth, but they haven't really seriously engaged with the questions people asked them. 431 is doing the bare minimum. There's so much more they could follow with these paths...and they don't. Their read on Tayl0r is also ?? since they similarly skimmed over mech talk even if they acknowledged it was good.

I tried reading Tanner, but for me he's pretty solidly null. A few days ago I would have leaned town by default but now I think that's sloppy garbage. All of his reads are pretty plausible as either alignment.

Tanner, who do you think would be your top choices outside of Lavender? I see you had a previous vote on Pooky.

[Prism]

I guess Lavender's breadth approach is coming from it being directly what Hectic asked for, but my advice for Lavender would be:

Playing the game Q&A interview style as town has limitations. You need to chew on thoughts for awhile, let them stew, and be proactive in approaching things that interest you. If you don't have anything that interests you, simply reread. I promise you will find something if you really think about it.

[Prism]

I guess Lavender's breadth approach is coming from it being directly what Hectic asked for, but my advice for Lavender would be:

Playing the game Q&A interview style as town has limitations. You need to chew on thoughts for awhile, let them stew, and be proactive in approaching things that interest you. If you don't have anything that interests you, simply reread. I promise you will find something if you really think about it.

[Prism]

For Chara, I kind of want breadth actually.

Can you give some cursory updates on where you're at with 3/4 different people of your choice?

P-Edit: Neat, I'll read that in a second

[Prism]

I never really got the Elements votes. He wasn't very active and gave basically no reads. Maybe that's indicative but I'm not familiar with the dude. The post 160 that multiple people highlighted, and the lack of determination to find a spare, really didn't bother me at all.

The only angle he took was on Puppy switching to talking about spares. I can see why this caught his eye but don't think it says a lot about Puppy.

I ISO'd Puppy a bit ago. Their interactions with Tanner are solid, and they've got good tone. I weirdly liked all of the mechanical questions early? Really rare for me. I don't really trust myself to read them without meta, annoying.

Last up are catboi/Pooky. The joys.

[Prism]

I'm coming away from #610 very unconvinced, but feeling that Pooky is likely town.

For the first post, Pooky riding the spare too hard is a gut feeling that he's pushing it as a gimmick, rather than earnestly trying to get it. There's really a limit to

why

, the answer is trying to get townread for being stubborn, and asking "Why didn't he ask me [Pooky] about it if he felt that way?" is really tenuous given this is a direct response to Tanner's speculation on the scumteam.

The next two I'm not bothered by shifting the goalposts. When talking about mechanics you can shift the goalposts, and I see his point about needing to fear a scum spare still. His first question comes when you directly engage him in dialogue over it. The "I'm with you on Pooky" section is major tinfoil hat imo. He's made it clear, and hashed out over several posts, exactly what he feels is off about you and that you're riding the spare gimmick too hard given how obviously suboptimal it is from the rest of our perspectives.

Pooky's analysis of 468 is fine, and I agree that more explicitly highlighting similarities would be useful. I think Pooky's response to 530 though is really enlightening as far as how he's approached this game, though. Opening the game he linked, #4952 immediately caught my eye as a good summary of that frustration...and while self-knowledge isn't perfect, and people aren't always honest as town, it interests me that Pooky highlights that he's fundamentally a planner/strategist as scum. This really makes me doubt that he's spare gimmicking as initially suspected. Pooky has definitely not approached this game with a very deep plan. If he's scum he tried a very simple gimmick, and switched to playing reactionary OMGUS when pushed.

I feel much, much better about Pooky as a result of this. The jury is still out on catboi, though. Agreeing with him that Pooky could have been gimmicking told me very little.

[Prism]

catboi-you seemed unwilling to respond to the giant Pooky post for fear of tedium. You did directly answer some questions, and seemed to reluctantly draw up a truce, but I'm bothered that you don't seem to have

thought

about that post even if you chose not to really engage with it publicly. It's extremely enlightening imo, and the case can be made for it both ways depending on how harshly you judge the first few sections.

To be blunt, the amount of hoops you've jumped through to apologize for Hectic while still trying to appear sympathetic to me bother me a lot.

#682 is really stretching it. Every read he's given makes your skin crawl. Him taking a public stand as scum is not unexpected considering the last time he played it safe he got completely grilled-and sparing MT knowing it won't happen is playing it safe in its own way. #614

exists

. #392 is its own adventure and was the first time the word "apologist" came to mind. Liking his reads, then rereading them and going eh these are iffy, and most of them making your skin crawl is just a really wack progression to me.

I can see you flipping scum for these interactions

regardless of what Hectic is

which is so bizarre.

[Prism]

2) catboi-are you still scumreading Pooky? I felt he might be overplaying the spare angle at first, he was 2/3 in my scumpool, but after he got more vehement it became more of a coinflip to me. I haven't read his case on you yet. Without really knowing his meta, it seems possible for the heavy hitting out of left field to be a reliable tool in an experienced player's arsenal. But what do you think?

I will admit, I am feeling little pangs of doubt right now. as I said earlier, when I step outside my own headspace, where my motivations are perfectly clear and lucid to me, I can see why he'd be bothered with the way I've said things. Still, I think a tool in his arsenal is to fight back hard and intimidate people, get them to back down. I more or less expected him to flip the switch and get serious when I accused him. I still have a harrd time some of the arguments he is making are genuine thoughts.

I forgot this post existed while reviewing whoops.

I can kind of see the difficulty here but you seem to have engaged primarily with the easiest thing to me, which is the tinfoil about the wording so ??? idk this truce is lackluster. I also was bothered by you taking credit for getting Pooky to do something even if it's literally true. All of us have tried: it's that you were scummy enough to him to respond to and push on. This really shouldn't be a badge of pride.

[Prism]

Hmmm, I haven't really gotten to read your posts which is a bit unfair since I did ask you for content twice.

I don't really have any pressing questions for you, despite having reason to be cautious toward you you're just kind of sitting in the townlean pile and waiting to be used as a sounding board.

I'll reverse it: Is there anything you have to ask me?

[Prism]

Spoiler: My current view of the game btw

Likely Town:
redtea

Townlean pile, strongest to weakest:
Chara
Pooky
Morning Tweet (Shoutout to catboi-#449 said her wall had good analysis. I immediately said "What? I found it lackluster?" and went back and read it again. Rereading it, it's clear that the first half-which didn't really catch my eye initially-is actually a lot better than I realized. This makes sense, too-we always lose steam after awhile!)
TSwift (Only person I haven't really ISO'd, but the fact they haven't really been nervous-just a bit disinterested/casually halfhearted-make me optimistic they fit a very stereotypical mold)

Null but playing totally fine:
Tanner
Puppy

Man I don't know but they're getting worse:
catboi

Nullscum/needs content:
Lavender
Elements/beeboy (Elements was better than Lavender but yeah need more)

Likely Scum:
Hectic

[Prism]

I'm tired, so deal! Same place, same absurd hours tomorrow!

[Prism]

Feels a bit late imo catboi but I guess you don't work on my schedule. Should also be a clear next place to look based off of what you've said.

That readslist from Hectic confuses me. lements slot still at bottom, extremely puzzling Lavender read but will check the referenced game later. Ordering of people below MT begs many questions. Maybe I'll like this more when I actually wake up.

[Prism]

My TSwift dart throw read is pretty bad, should revisit the slot more seriously

[Prism]

Crossfire looks pretty similar to this game even though I'm skeptical of the walllread interpretation. Kind of a shame since skimming through other earlier games they had much stronger townplay (Baseball)

IDK how much stock I put into the scum sample given the calendar year but we have no other record so I mean

Slot definitely has the potential to be a trap vote.

Back to sleep now

pedit: pooky not having malign intent, would have liked to see it in reaction to 610, will read bigger post when I wake up again

[Prism]

Hey cat, I really appreciate you tackling all of my questions and giving really thorough answers. Most of them make sense to me, even though the Hectic progression/attitude around Pooky bother me a bit (I was actually biased in the credit thing; me feeling the same way about the gimmick+pushing him for content meant I didn't really think about the fact I never pushed him inthread. Something about this still seems off to me, though.)

You seem to have trended towards me being town. Is there anything you specifically want me to look at/talk to you about?

This game presents a unique challenge for us in a lot of ways. I suspect all of these 4 things are true: 1) Despite nearly identical backgrounds, we think of mafia in very different ways 2) We both expect slightly too much from the other as town 3) Deep down we both think we're the better player 4) We literally have no meta despite 1-3, unless you've already specced some of my games

[Prism]

It's also curious to me that your mind doesn't immediately turn towards reviewing the stronger scum players when the previous top candidates get nixed in your eyes (Lavender/Hectic)

[Prism]

dw Chara, waiting until I get to my computer to go over your posts, but there is a post about it that sums it up already. It's based mostly on spectating SIN and thinking this game is a really natural extension

[Prism]

this is the redtea post, their proactivity in reads+how readily they went to bat for me-not for its own sake either, but to press someone else-lines up really well with the confidence boost that likely came with that game

they also have reason to be terrified/nervous of a catscum but they're showing no fear at all. Super town imo

[Prism]

terrified/nervous of a cattown as redtea scum*

[Prism]

I'm not feeling terribly confident either FWIW. Asking myself "Is this

really

town for each of my gutreads has me very disappointed and feeling like I forgot how to play the game entirely.

[Prism]

I didn't/don't really share the scumread on Chara, but I definitely noticed the difference. I posted something like "Where did you go Chara?" only to look back and realize they had been posting quite a bit in recent days-they just weren't nearly as notable/analytical iirc

To Hectic: Nope. 10+ years of playing together only in brief spurts does things to people, though.

[Prism]

Actually I didn't really go very indepth on redtea, just very cursory. My previous post elaborated a bit but my read is almost entirely based off of me reading along with SIN. This game is very recent, featured strong townplay from cat that helped seal the game, and had redtea playing okay. Their biggest issue was probably a combination of lack of confidence in their scumreads and paranoia of their townreads.

catboi's "wait and see" approach this game stylistically is very similar to his approach in SIN. I think it's super natural for redtea to townread it (even though I don't), and the increased confidence/proactivity lines up really well with the takeaways from SIN. They also watched me flake without literally posting a single thing in that game as scum.

[Prism]

actually, the way Taylor initially says the catboi read is basically nothing, and then when pressed

does

give justification, doesn't look very good. i'm not sure how i missed that.

Spoiler: Taylor's progression on catboi

hot take: pooky is town

catboi is my top scumread fwiw. i also dislike hectic for pushing a spare today, after everything else we've talked about re sparing/fighting.

hmm i reread the iso and im not sure what i was seeing. its possible that the avatar just set me off? on rereading youre more null-town

i dunno! at the time i didnt like that catboi wont lay off pooky. pooky feels like lhf and kinda obvtown. but catboi overall i think is just overeager town.

I think the "i'm not sure what i'm seeing" into knowing what they saw pretty soon afterwards is sketchy. I can think of reasons for this, but it'd be better for me to not fill in the gaps for them. I think them being nulltown to overeager on catboi does merit more explanation. Their Pooky reasoning isn't really wrong, either.

Re: townreading someone (catboi) mostly for voting Taylor ??? this is very scumteam dependent. Scum lynch today would be disastrous and catboi has made his way around all three of the weakest slots (Pooky has since taken a stronger role) and dodged seriously pushing anything else like the plague, even when he seems to have reason to. The push on you is the first one that really deviated, and it wasn't very longlived. Catboi struggling to get reads here in general is pretty plausible, as I mentioned I'm struggling to, but I haven't really seen anything that makes me go "Yeah, this is a townpush"

I didn't really take issue with 266, the Elements reaction is natural imo and I sympathize. I also think they've given plenty of conclusions between me/catboi, and have argued for them. I do think the interaction w/ Puppy was weird but Puppy gave a lot of content in between the two posts. It might be worth it for redtea to be more specific about what they were looking for.

Someone pointed out that Elements cited feeling lost right after the readslist. I also remember tilting my head at this when I ISO'd them, but gave it the benefit of the doubt given that I've been in similar situations. But maybe I shouldn't-I haven't liked bee's posting so far. I'm not familiar with them at all, though.

The request for isolated posts really pinged me. It's a lot easier as scum to react to things with no context-you're really just trying to give first reactions and towntell with it. I don't think I've done it on MS, at least not recently, but these kinds of requests are also a pretty frequent scum tactic of mine due to the Ben Franklin effect. I also don't like the reads in #830: I was already committed by previous posts to having found certain things wrong with Morning. It's the transition and why that's important. The Hectic read is ???, he can cite an abstract tell that exists even if he rolls scum. It's perhaps slightly less likely as scum, but not at all inconceivable even without the context around it.

[Prism]

I'm also still confused about why Hectic is continuing to push that Elements had a serious spare vote on him. Really bizarre and not my interpretation of Elements' ISO at all but Hectic doubled down on it.

[Prism]

I think part of the struggle for me is how it's really that unnatural. It seems like you had issue with his tone. But without knowing Elements, and just knowing that he misread you 4 games in a row, joking around about you always being town and sparing you in RVS seems extremely natural.

I can definitely see myself voting this slot, though.

[Prism]

Hey Taylor, really glad to see you collect your reads like that. I get some of your misgivings on catboi, but can you expound on why you shifted to thinking overeager town awhile back?

It seems like the scumread was more gutreaction to Pooky, but I'm curious as to what you were thinking as you read.

[Prism]

I skimmed the game you [Hectic] played as Marksman, have yet to skim the game Chara linked. My first impressions were that it was striking how much more at ease you were and your reads seemed to have more depth to them. I'm not really sure if this is due to being in more favorable circumstances as scum, the fact that you were on an alt, or that you're legitimately struggling this game as town. I'm not really sure how much pressure you were under or how nervous you were about the playerlist. For me, my issues with you are that your early reads on me/Chara seemed really implausible, and some of the transitions you've made since have seemed very strategic (post on Pooky, "this is the plan" on MT without selling it). The post on Lavender was +town, but could have also been a calculated freebie in light of the pressure you've been under this game. You were already in Crossfire, so it's more of a case of "Would you divulge this info?" more than "Would you seek this info out?"

I dunno. I'm wary of confbiasing you, but the entire way you approached the game up until Lavender was really slimy to me. The Elements read is slice of it, but up until your Lavender post I really don't see anything to like about you this game. What gives? What I really want here is to understand what townHectic is thinking about the game as a whole and how these connect together, because I'm really having trouble piecing the individual slices together.

The timing around the Elements read is also really strange to me. You seemed to have already been thinking about it based off timestamps, but chose to vote Pooky instead. You later swapped after the Puppy angle but idk. I think S/S is really plausible here but I'm not confident enough in you, and have read so little from the Elements/beeboy slot, that I'm really not that comfortable speculating. Order of the townreads in your list was also bizarre to me beyond MT at the top.

[Prism]

Like I buy that Elements is probably more abrasive than usual, but is this finding a more solid position after the fact, or just a better articulation? Really unclear to me

[Prism]

less abrasive, w/e, you get my point

[Prism]

Also, for Hectic/Chara/anyone else that feels like it, skim the first five to ten posts of mine of this game for me.

[Prism]

#865 is a good point. I really wish Elements had elaborated more on his list.

[Prism]

I mean I guess I can see where the Pooky-chara read from Elements comes from given that was when Pooky was doing nothing but pushing spares?

Still wish for so much more from the dude and the read list into "i'm lost" the next day is still sketchy

[Prism]

Sorry for the afk. My computer is out of service atm so my posts are gonna be kinda shitty.

Pooky has made a whole scumcase of catboi what
I gotta catch up

?

this dude just wrote a whole-ass wall of china

[Prism]

Also, for Hectic/Chara/anyone else that feels like it, skim the first five to ten posts of mine of this game for me.

what am i looking for here? it's a scumgame from a couple of years ago from you... you seem like a different player, ahahaha. very aggressive.

Also, for Hectic/Chara/anyone else that feels like it, skim the first five to ten posts of mine of this game for me.

what am i looking for here? it's a scumgame from a couple of years ago from you... you seem like a different player, ahahaha. very aggressive.

Old Prism was kinda scary lul. Are you suggesting you still play scum like this, Prism? You weren't anything like that in the hydra minigame iirc.

I guess your play here actually lines up more with that game than how you played in the previous Undertale game, but you were quite chill in the Black Hole Defection game too, so I don't think it means a lot.

So I didn't really have anything particular I wanted from linking it. Chara hasn't actually outed a townread on me but seems to trust me a lot this game. Hectic seems to guttownread me. Because of that, I thought linking a scumgame where I took a similar approach tonally/in making reads would make for interesting reading.

The time doesn't actually matter that much. I haven't evolved as a scum player since 2016, and while I've improved in some ways as town other aspects have taken massive hits. I've steadily gotten worse over the years. Kind of sad but that's what happens when you put progressively less time into a hobby. I guess I did at least find playing scum tolerable back then, which is a big difference.

[Prism]

On another note, I probably shouldn't dedicate too much time to this game before deadline. I've got an interview to prepare for on Monday and I'm tired of living life spamming League of Legends in my computer chair, surrounded by an ocean of McDonald's bags, so I really want to prepare for it.

I'm trying to think of people I'd be fine voting before then. I think Hectic deserves more of a shot/more time to review...but also I don't really have any other scumreads

period

. I'm fine lurker lynching Lavender. I wonder what the EV difference is for 1 correct spare/1 incorrect fight just because qualitatively I feel a lot better about my chances sparing, but I really doubt we go that route and it'd be pretty halfassed.

At some point yesterday I realized I don't really think I've seen much from Tanner on the more active players in the game. That leaves a lot to be desired.

I think my preference would be something like Hectic->beeboy->Lavender->Others, maybe Tanner/Tayl0r? I really have no opinion on Puppy and I'd rather leave catboi for a bit.

[Prism]

I speculated that Hectic/beeboy might be S/S but part of me also feels like that's total crap. I really am not confident in my Hectic read - and I'm really not sure why, other than lack of experience with his a weaker towngame of his firsthand - and neither of Elements/beeboy have impressed me.

Actually Hectic, can you link me a game you struggled similarly as town?

[Prism]

Can people elaborate on why they think Hectic will be a harder slot to resolve than beeboy? I'm really not opposed to fighting beeboy, but this assumption that Hectic will be an easier read later puzzles me.

Cat, why are me/Tanner up there?

[Prism]

If it's not clear, by the way, I'm planning to vote beeboy unless there's a change in the winds.

[Prism]

Cat read makes no sense past the "gut" point

Hectic wants to vote someone who can can obvown at any time because of Elements' friendly tone

I can't say that I like where this is heading

[Prism]

It's a bit of a strawman but I think you understand why I reduced it to that and why I'm concerned

[Prism]

Maybe I should just...not fucking try to explain things anymore??

like I don't REALLY want to go back and cite specific posts and say what I liked to justify thinking you're town that just seems like a huge waste of time

One thing that tends to annoy me in games is that I'm often a universal TR, but no one ever really explains it. I'm always incredibly curious but don't like to ask. This can be seen in virtually any game of mine, but it was absolutely the case in Undertale 2.0. Here I saw a chance to slip it in with Tanner.

I think finding me town based off of gut is valid and plausible. The part I didn't like about the read was that the reasoning provided was that I was "scumhunting consistently and reading critically." and "really looking at what people say". It's how I apply those things that are more important, imo, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe these things are a bit out of my scum repertoire.

It looks like you're frustrated that I didn't find your reason adequate, but you did similar with me much earlier when I gave my opinion on your strategic approach. Bad or implausible reasoning tends to come off worse than as-of-yet unknown reasoning. That's just kind of how it works. Save me the tears.

[Prism]

Cat read makes no sense past the "gut" point

Hectic wants to vote someone who can can obvown at any time because of Elements' friendly tone

I can't say that I like where this is heading

what do you mean by this post? it's not clicking for me, besides that you don't think kitty's read makes sense.

It's a first reaction based off the fact that Hectic is already a scumread and his treatment of fighting a potential free TR is reminiscent of a Nachoscum game I might dig up later (coincidentally, that was SvS)

It really just was another sketchy Hectic post that had me thinking I'm going to feel relief if beeboy flips scum and stupid for following my scumread's vote if they flip town.

[Prism]

To be clear, cat, I'm not expecting you to make a giant towncase for me citing specific posts or progressions. I know it's tedious and annoying, and it's part of why I rarely actually ask (which drives me up the wall, because I get my best reads in how others react to me imo)

But when you phrase it in such a way that makes it seem like you're townreading me for

reading the game

rather than in the choices I'm making, that's going to make me skeptical every time.

[Prism]

What makes you feel that way?

[Prism]

Chara, turns out you were in the game I'm talking about in 951, where I caught Nacho because he was pushing to eliminate someone (Aristo) early that should have been a free TR to him later. Coincidentally SvS.

[Prism]

I get that I'm being a bit harsh but this seems fake to me. You know exactly what I mean, and are really going out of your way to use taking offense to get me to accept an explanation we both know says absolutely nothing about my alignment.

It's okay to not have an idea of actually AI things, and winging it on gut is totally valid, but going "But [these known Prism nulltells] are the best I have!" and "Maybe I shouldn't even explain at all!' pouting feels really disingenuous

[Prism]

Maybe I'm the problem here between you and Hectic both taking issue with my simplifications? I'm a lot more sympathetic to Hectic's point here than yours though.

[Prism]

Honestly I think I'm just annoyed because these were cursory comments that turned into talking points via continued engagement. I don't think me being skeptical of the reasons I directly quoted in #950 is unreasonable. I've already said gut is valid and perfection isn't required, but bad reasoning is worse than unknown. That is again just how it works.

[Prism]

Disingenuous motive would be more of AtE to get me to stop pressuring you.

[Prism]

I mean yes. Articulating yourself is important in the game. If you can't articulate a read well, it happens. If you articulate something that seems really ???, You might get questioned on it. I don't see why me being skeptical of this specific articulation is causing you so much extended grief.

[Prism]

If it's not clear, by the way, I'm planning to vote beeboy unless there's a change in the winds.

Not really that interested in Taylor. Their reads are underexplained and that gets them slotted 3rd through 5th.

[Prism]

Because the way you're going about it feels more like you're just trying to score points on me rather than figure out if I actually believe that read

???

dude can you really not understand why I found that read sketchy

you literally can explain with specific posts anytime you want to, you said it was tedious and I hate making people wallcase me for townreads as my game history will clearly show

I don't think it's rocket science that I was confused why the concrete things you listed had anything to do with my alignment, the bar for me that was initially high was suddenly on the floor or nonexistent

Going "but it's all I have!" is fine? But from my perspective this seems to be like predicting the weather based off a coin you flip. You might not know what does work, but it feels like you should know that those stated reasons don't

This isn't about the gut part, which is again prima facie valid

[Prism]

You also don't seem to understand that the reason this conversation is still going is because you continued to pout over my skepticism, even while acknowledging your prognostication might not be the best, and taking this WELL WHY EVEN EXPLAIN MYSELF AT ALL approach

Like I'm not trying to score points against you, just legitimately confused as to why you're taking such personal offense to this and continuing to be indignant about it

[Prism]

I'm going to head out for the night, I should be back midday tomorrow.

[Prism]

Today I was going to ask you if you still felt the same way as #988.

This is answered, so instead I'll ask why you feel that way.

[Prism]

For me, I'm trying to strike a balance between interrogating your reads without being a nuisance asking to be towncased. The way you're describing this-setting you up/not actually interested in what you are-makes me think that you expect me to have fully interrogated you further if I really found it sketchy. I immediately stated exactly what my issue was, and instead of correcting it, being like "yeah w/e", or expounding on it you played the offended/indignant card. This bothered me - I think it's really clear that the concrete reasons you listed are ??? applied to me - and has made me question if the offense is genuine. This interests me a lot more than a quotewall of why the reads I've given are town.

There's a scum motivation early to AtE to drop a pressure from your bad reads, but the only reason I see why you would double down on this as scum is feeling that you have to for appearances (Vote on Tayl0r if I'm setting you up would be pretty ???)

Can you lay out more explicitly why my approach here is not town/how exactly my approach is not trying to figure out your alignment?

[Prism]

Cat, I would really encourage you to reread your #929, then reworking over my posting sequence. Every time I refer to "concrete things" I'm referring to this initial reasoning.

It's not that the bar suddenly became lower but just that as the day went on I started to get a better feeling off you. It's just not a thing off a singular hard towntell but just persistently seeming to scumhunt.

This in particular also stuck out to me last night, because I have repeatedly-from the very beginning-acknowledged that gutreads are

prima facie

valid. I've always accepted the gut aspect as plausible. I don't know how else to make this clear.

and I guess skepticism is understandable but the way you're going about it doesn't feel like you want to communicate with me.

I didn't, part of it was because of my own preferences (not liking to interrogate townreads on me, despite always being curious), part of it was reacting to you. I really hate to like, flip this on you because I know it'll make things worse...but you openly said you didn't want to make a quote wall and again acted indignant when pressed. I know that I demonstrated the behaviors you ascribed to me anyway, so other than for proof of work I don't really need to see you make it. My issue was that those concrete things=Prism town.

Maybe I should have known questioning why you were so indignant about it was going to offend you more, but hindsight is 20/20.

[Prism]

It's also just bizarre that I've made my stance clear, asked no questions beyond a rhetorical one hoping you'd understand why I was/am skeptical and we could leave it at that, only for you to get more defensive+accusatory in a spiraling cycle. I'm not setting you up by doing this. Like maybe I'm intentionally baiting you into being defensive but I have repeatedly tried to disagree and call it a day.

[Prism]

I guess the setting up accusation also makes sense if you [catboi] interpret #942 as "Oh boy I can't wait to push catboi a few days down the line"

but you seem to acknowledge why I was at least skeptical, and like I said in 951 and 974 these were really cursory

this is super slapfighty and I don't see the scum motivation behind it beyond irrational preemptive terror that I find really unlikely.

[Prism]

feels like you're trying to ding me no matter what I say when I was trying to explain a gutread. and when I'm trying to explain myself over and over to someone I think is town and keep getting shot down it means I'm probably just wrong about that person

again, gutreads are valid, but stated reasons that I think are bad are going to be judged. that is how articulating a read works. bonus that that's precisely why I don't like to ask to begin with, btw

It doesn't feel like the kind of thing you go "okay agree to disagree" on unless you're just shelving it to use as ammo later down the line

if u say so ❣⃛(❛ั◡˜๑)

comfortable townread now so this works for me

[Prism]

There's really just no motivation to randomly pick this fight with me, at the time you did it, and in the overly emotional/indignant way you did, imo. I'd really expect you to be pointing towards something more universally accessible/concrete that I'm doing wrong if the goal is to legitimately push me, rather than the more paranoid cries of "he's setting me up!"

in comparison I have seen indignant catmanbaby town on many occasions, and last night baby want his bottle for sure

[Prism]

and yeah i'm gonna discredit u like that catboi what are you gonna do about it???

[Prism]

yeah catboi is town imo, as scum I'm pretty sure he just keeps up the offended act/continues to argue with me

reaction is a lot more resigned to either being either wrong entirely or being right but actively baited

[Prism]

so, i finished reading the Prism and kitty argument. i don't know, i don't like Prism's approach to it at all. there's pressing for explanation or depth to a read and then there's pressing beyond what's reasonable. accusing kitty if AtE again and again and then, what, jokingly insulting them in your recent posts? if you're trying to kid, it's just coming off as nasty. you keep saying kitty should have agreed to disagree and ended it but you could have done the same thing, especially when it became clear you weren't getting anywhere.

I think putting together an entire timeline of my read on catboi would be really enlightening but I'll keep it to addressing your points here for now, and probably revisit it Day 2.

The first is that the joking insults/being nasty were absolutely intentional. To be blunt, the reason catboi is hardtown to me is that he just left a $50 bill on the ground as scum. The indignation in response to his reads being shit on is a pretty common towncat trope, but he can do it as both alignments. Being wary really isn't out of his range either, though. He publicly portrayed fear of me setting up or trying to ensnare him in something. What made me suspect this was legitimate due to how non-concrete and coinflippy of a fight it was-I think if he really wanted to scumpush me, he'd make sure he had really solid footing unless circumstances forced him to coinflip it.

The way to confirm this was just to bait him much more flagrantly.

He has nothing to fear as scum in this scenario. I've already outed a townread on him, I'm completely wrong in my read, there's very little conniving for me to do to begin with, and because my reads are wrong/I don't know the team any setup is destined to fail spectacularly. He has

carte blanche

here and I'm really not a threat. He can act indignant, he can outright push me for publicly and blatantly baiting him in bad faith, and he can probably collect a townread all the while for doing so. Instead he moved quickly to just leave the bait be and not engage with it further. To me, the explanation is that he

really is worried

that I am planning something against him.

This isn't really dependent on catboi's style, or dependent on him taking the same weird oracle/clairvoyent view of longterm strategy that I leaned on earlier with him. This just depends on his ability to recognize+capitalize on extremely blatant town mistakes. And he can.

The more minor imo points to address are that I think his initial reaction was fairly emotional instead of just fairly evaluating his own read/my reaction to it. I thought that was a more interesting avenue, and trying to both get him to see my perspective and fish out if it was legitimate had a lot of value. I recognized at some point it was a cycle of stating my perspective -> defensive -> me restating my perspective to see why he wasn't understanding it, and agree I could have actually ended it had I wanted to. After a certain point, though, it became a lot easier for me to read into+important to me for us to get on the same page about why I read him how I did.

Finally, for the nastiness itself, it's worth noting that certain aspects of it were absolutely tongue-in-cheek, but in an imitative way. Calling him a manbaby and saying baby want his bottle were things that could practically be copy pasted from a chat of ours, or catboi trolling someone he thinks is bad. I wouldn't speak to anyone else this way, ever: only catboi.

[Prism]

I've got kind of a second wind now that I actually have a read I feel good+confident in.

I don't really find beeboy's push on Tayl0r very persuasive. I wouldn't be really surprised if she flipped scum, but watching them flip town is the most natural thing in the world. The only thing that bothers me about her is that on cat the gutread went from scum->town->scum? I get 1/3 but wish 2 had been explained better.

I need to find a town replace-in beeboy but a recent scumgame had you doing the same with immediately asking for the same style of catchup read which again sets off my Ben Franklin effect alarms

[Prism]

I really want redtea to come around.

I want Hectic more now and the fact that this isn't happening is tragic imo. #1007 feels like working backwards from beeboy-scum to me. Beeboy is asking for the thought process behind the PoE, and Hectic's response is "Well why are the PoE choices themselves scum?" which is really shifting the burden here. The thought process behind it is pretty clearly AI, speculating on motivation behind the specific PoE choices made by scumTayl0r generally requires knowledge of the scumteam and Tayl0r's scumplay that none of us have.

[Prism]

My order hasn't really changed. Hectic->beeboy->Lavender. The last one is really just fighting the (to me) unreadable coinflip, while at least with Tayl0r there's some hope of getting a read later down the line.

Continued refusal to read/play, posting one small snippet daily, is Chara-esque but seems like their style in general? I don't really like to rolehunt that much but beeboy/Tanner are both strong candidates here too imo

[Prism]

I'm headed off for now but I'll make sure to hop on a few hours near deadline.

Looking like beeboy, we're in the dead hours.

[Prism]

Lavender might have the votes too actually? IDK will try to take better survey tomorrow

[Prism]

I fail to see this as a misinterpretation.

[Prism]

HURT: beeboy

see ya nerds

xoxo love chara

[Prism]

I really wanted to take the extra day off and wait until tomorrow to post but I guess I should respond to that.

Literally was in the process of making a video celebrating your death in Flying Scumsman

Shitposting on Replica kicked in only when I was driven insane by the gamestate refusing to reevaluate on Farkran. Work through a couple of my towngames and see when I start shitposting.

The difference between my town and scumgames at this point is just the fact that I'm willing to even play the game at all.

[Prism]

Also that paragraph is massive tinfoil to begin with.

I'm aware of a meta difference as scum. You already townread me, but I'm really self-conscious that you might notice the difference

I can just add it to my play....or I can concoct this weird WIFOM directly drawing your attention to it preemptively

Alternatively, I was curious to see how you'd react when presented with evidence that my tone isn't AI.

[Prism]

Can you walk me through exactly how a beeboy scum flip led you to suspect me more as scum? Your scumread Day 1 was correct, so I don't see it as earthshaking. All of the points you're making feel less like a reread and more like something you've had waiting in the wings.

I didn't answer the first post about why I never asked you more on the reads. I was directly engaging with you, asked enough questions as is, and expressed my issue with the town (-MT) ordering section. It's pretty clear what I'm confused about and leaves it up to you whether to expound on it. I suspected it was just manure. I could have inserted a question mark if I wanted, though, sure.

[Prism]

Farkran wasn't really the issue/source of despair that game. It was Nacho. There were so many points I wish I could have reached through the monitor and slapped that little cute bird icon of his upside the head.

[Prism]

Anyway, I guess I'm not really taking a break today.

My thoughts didn't change too much with the flip. Hectic gets some benefit of the doubt but SvS is still possible here. I want to look more at Puppy/Taylor/Pooky/MT, who I've neglected for the most part.

Kind of curious as to where Chara is at.

I really want Lavender to play the game.

[Prism]

Can you walk me through exactly how a beeboy scum flip led you to suspect me more as scum? Your scumread Day 1 was correct, so I don't see it as earthshaking. All of the points you're making feel less like a reread and more like something you've had waiting in the wings.

I didn't answer the first post about why I never asked you more on the reads. I was directly engaging with you, asked enough questions as is, and expressed my issue with the town (-MT) ordering section. It's pretty clear what I'm confused about and leaves it up to you whether to expound on it. I suspected it was just manure. I could have inserted a question mark if I wanted, though, sure.

You were never voting for Ele despite expressing the fact you wouldn't mind a FIGHT there, and were regularly voicing support for FIGHTing me - a potential counterwagon to Ele. Fortunately for me, that lost its support towards the end.

So how did you work through this in your mind? You seem to have focused primarily on my interactions with you. Did you look at my interactions with Elements/beeboy at all?

I have my own thoughts/defense to this but I'll cut it out for now and save it for after.

Regarding the reaslist part: Which part of it were you bothered about? I wasn't exactly going to expound the whole thing -Morning without knowing what was concerning you.

The part that stuck out the most to me was that I was above Lavender, who you gave a meta reason to townread that you seemed to strongly believe in.

[Prism]

To be clear Hectic, what I'm looking for is a loose timeline to lay out for me how you thought about this/how you chose to investigate it over time.

[Prism]

i'm on the Sujimichi murder-wagon, Prism.
my other reads haven't changed much yet, aside from cautiously trying out Tanner in the townpile.

I'm not really onboard with you. Me/catboi came to the same conclusion of their slot being town,

for the same reason

(Comparing their play to SIN/finding it a very natural extension). This is a real rarity.

#383 seems unlikely to me coming from an Elements/redtea team. Their stances in #427 and 595 aren't as good but don't seem that indicative to me?

Lastly, the catboi kill doesn't really seem to fit this. catboi was pushing my slot for scum and had redtea as hardtown. They're not very fightable but other than that ??? why kill this slot as Sujimichi

[Prism]

Like weirdly enough my top pick for the day so far is probably Lavender with a chance of Tayl0r/Hectic.

beeboy trying to get me to swap to Tayl0r was really blatant but I'm really puzzled over why the majority of those votes on beeboy happen from scum perspectives. Me/Tanner both had incentive to hammer but the earlier votes are pretty ??? as scum

[Prism]

My issue with this is that you don't really seem to have evolved in this read beyond the things you seemed to have been mulling over on Day 1 already.

The gap to me is connecting my play with Elements/beeboy more explicitly by looking at how we interacted. It's one thing to not find it persuasive one way or the other. It's another to not have seemingly thought about it at all, especially when I'm your first hurt vote of the day.

There's also the unanswered question of why I was above Lavender, and honestly why I was townread at all since you just chalked it up to gut Day 1.

[Prism]

So how did you work through this in your mind? You seem to have focused primarily on my interactions with you. Did you look at my interactions with Elements/beeboy at all?

I have my own thoughts/defense to this but I'll cut it out for now and save it for after.

Part I cut out:

I explicitly didn't voteswap just so I could trollhammer that lmao, I was actually kind of worried that if it flipped red people might question if I knew Chara wouldn't exit. I shouldn't get that much credit for the hammer but I think acting like I was hunting for a wagon elsewhere is disingenuous, in that it was VERY obvious the last few days that this would not happen. The best shots were Tayl0r/Lavender, and I clearly expressed that I would vote beeboy over both. #979 from beeboy gets replied to with 980, where I double down on 926's statement that they will likely be my vote.

I time my push on beeboy basically from the moment of his replace-in, rather than treating it as a chance to give a scum partner breathing room. 1031 is the figurative nail in the coffin.

[Prism]

in that it was VERY obvious the last few days that this [Hectic vote] would not happen.

[Prism]

Lavender-what can we do to help you succeed here? Do you have any questions, anything you're confused on, or any reads you want to talk about? Help us help you

[Prism]

I did some strategizing last night to see if we could figure out a way to autowin or near-guarantee it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really exist. The EV for genocide is 72.6%, the EV for 1-3 spares is 63.8%.

There are some curiosities but we can't really take advantage of it (ex. Chara flip serves as a X&Y==Town? two person investigative. Sparing scum/town is autowin, sparing two town is not)

[Prism]

do you think Sujimichi had a complete grasp on the state of kitty's reads upon replacing in? it's true, maybe the partner did, but i can't think of who else i would have expected to see killed. kitty was pretty townread by my memory, and was doing a lot of hunting.

I think catboi makes a lot of sense to kill for virtually every other slot. From scumSujimichi POV it makes less sense but isn't terrible.

i understand what you're saying here, but it doesn't convince me wholeheartedly that redtea is town. i believe that they took SIN into account, absolutely, but what exactly prevents scum redtea from also learning from the game, as it relates to you and kitty?

"Natural extension" of the towngame referred to the fact that they were taking it further, in ways that made sense given SIN (more aggressive in their questions+more confident in going to bat for their reads), rather than just trying to emulate their towngame. It's possible to do this as scum, like most things, but it's a lot less likely imo

[Prism]

Why were Tayl0r's reads being underexplained a reason against voting her?

Misinterpreting it. Her having underexplained reads was my sole problem with her, which got her slotted somewhere between 3rd and 5th in my fight preferences. (Wound up as 4th, with Lavender as 3rd) It wasn't enough to beat out you or beeboy who I both actually disliked.

[Prism]

I'm going to get some coffee and then I'm probably going to reread the game from scratch. Is there anything anyone wants me to keep an eye out for?

Also, Chara-Did you think you had unvoted beeboy/Elements before this?

[Prism]

i kinda like Taylor Swift for mafia with Ele

thoughts?

I think it's plausible but don't really think the interactions were strongly indicative. I think Tayl0r's reads are pretty underexplained/questionable, though, and while scum might have bussed it's objectively a pretty horrible play. The result is that I'm looking more off the vote than on.

[Prism]

HURT: Elements
i forgot i'd voted Hectic.

I didn't think about it looking last night but this makes at least twice you forgot your vote LMAO

Anyway Chara is town imo, the entire sequence of posts from 121 to 130 is solid to me. At the very least I'm pretty sure they're not Chara given their strong push for genocide right from the start+early attempts at sorting to get it going.

[Prism]

is elements normally this quiet as town?

guess who's never voting tayl0r today

it's me

I know at some point Pooky in the 600s improves but so far I want to turbofight him and just win the game outright

I've got some other stuff I want to circle back to but MT/Redtea also both look town to me.

[Prism]

[pedit] lol that's funny. is there anything specific about early game pooky or just pushing for spares? maybe i should go check...[/pedit]

Tonally I don't think he's really trying to sort early, mostly casting off any sort of pressure with gifs, and really only started to take the game seriously when people started pushing for him to be fought. Chara's job Day 1 is just to not get fought and not give away their partner. Cat also brings up Coalition, which at a skim does look similar.

There are some curiosities but we can't really take advantage of it (ex. Chara flip serves as a X&Y==Town? two person investigative.

Sparing scum/town is autowin

, sparing two town is not)

can you run this by me real quick?

If you spare the other vanilla mafia and a town, Chara doesn't flip immediately like they would from two townies. We therefore have it narrowed to two people. We fight anyone Day 4 for a Chara+townflip, return the two spared players, and we have 2 possibilities and a iirc misfight. I don't feel like recounting right now but pretty sure that's how it works..

[Prism]

Puppy I have a list of people who I think are pure and brilliant but I am afraid to share this list for the bad people with evil intentions will surely try to murder us and stop our just quest

I'm really curious to see if this gets followed up on later

[Prism]

543 and 544 are the first stronger posts of Pooky's I see. Probably going to have to circle back to this and take a look at the state of votes/reads after I finish reading.

[Prism]

It's stronger mostly because it's the first real alignment-oriented stuff Pooky gives, and it's all about Elements scum. Well, second set-the first is just his 3 man scumteam guess.

I wouldn't say it's convincing, I really want to circle back to the circumstances around it after I finish reading.

[Prism]

Do you agree with me that Tayl0r+Chara are unlikely to be scum, Hectic?

[Prism]

So far on this reread (Page 23) I have:

Town
======
Chara
Tayl0r
Morning

Probably town
======
redtea
Puppy (Sheeping Chara on Elements was p. good, 443 is half good (semi-serious) half bad ("Who wants to hear why?" Looking ahead a bit in ISO swapping to Hectic isn't great in hindsight but 692 is really +town imo. Curious what the thought was in #646)

Possible scum
======
Lavender
Hectic
Tanner

Scum
======
Pooky

[Prism]

Hectic probably deserves more benefit of the doubt here too, and some of his posts did look better in hindsight. I have the question in my mind of why beeboy didn't join/push that wagon, though, that I'm really curious about.

[Prism]

641/642 leaping immediately down Elements' throat okay Hectic can be town

[Prism]

Did you happen to read my 1198 on Tayl0r?

Really glad to see we're on the same page here w/ both though

[Prism]

chara doesn't flip if there are spared players. >:

Chara flips w/ two spared players. Fight mafia -> Two spares flips them

But also for some reason I thought it was two spared townies specifically, not two spared players period, so it can't be used investigatively.

Making the w/r for spares way, way below 60%.

[Prism]

My eyes are starting to glaze over. Hm. Going to take a break and revisit after dinner.

I liked Pooky'610 a lot less this time around (viewing the part I previously liked-the explanation about the frustrating game-as less indicative while seeing more malice in the tinfoil/pearlclutching about cat not interacting with them more) but the interactions w/ Elements seem to improve. Tough game.

Puppy did indeed give beeboy breathing room. Understandable but eh.

[Prism]

840 from Pooky in particular is pretty solid imo. This post is really slamming the door on sheeping me on Hectic, which Pooky was decently positioned to do before this post.

[Prism]

Aight I'm still down for the count, hopefully I can finish up+review tomorrow.

[Prism]

What are some differences you notice between this Hectic and Marksman-scum, Lavender?

Trying to nail down what posts you find scummy from Tanner-even if you can't quite explain why-might also be a good start!

[Prism]

The EV for sparing is much, MUCH worse than fighting to the end.

I punched EVs a few nights back. The EV for fights was 72.6%. The (overestimated) EV for spares was ~63.8%. In reality it is lower because I didn't correctly remember how Chara worked in a way that benefited town.

[Prism]

I can get a proper number for it if people insist but given that the upper bound is already significantly worse I'd rather not revisit to find the lower number.

[Prism]

Being honest I'm swinging between extremely motivated and extremely unmotivated which is....pretty typical for me but I wish I could find a healthier medium. Half of me is really annoyed that I wasn't able to really solve the game on reread like I hoped. Half of me is really annoyed that for whatever reason I haven't been able to get more out of Lavender or Tayl0r.

[Prism]

I'm not really onboard with the Sujimichi vote but they need to come play.

[Prism]

I guess I should take a page from Tanner's book here. I can sit around waiting for someone to swoop in and say something that shines a heavenly light, dispersing the fog over this game, but I can also be an engine that helps us move forward. Taking 2/3 days off and giving others space did absolutely nothing for us.

I'm eager to hear more from Chara/Sujimichi, and Pooky too, but I've also got to put in the work and stay in gear.

[Prism]

It looks like you thought Tayl0r and Sujimichi were the most likely scum here based off of gut a few days ago. Do you still feel that way, and do you have any confident townreads?

[Prism]

Also I literally keep saying "I can't wait to hear from Chara" and then either put off reading them or go "I don't really understand but this is fine" but one day. One day.

[Prism]

I'll be honest. I am completely miserable playing, not because of anyone else but just out of existential malaise. I came really close to just siteflaking and calling it a day. I don't really believe in half of the shit I type. The game language is there but the convictions aren't. I don't want to don the Replica mask that others seem to want or expect of me. I don't feel like I even know how to play the game anymore, and my brain just feels coated in a thick sludge that doesn't wash off in the shower. Keeping interest feels impossible.

But abandoning ship would be the wrong move. I will finish this game if it kills me. I will go for a run, I will get food, I will come back, and we can all work on this together.

[Prism]

And for the love of God, someone keep me accountable here. How many promises have I not kept this game?

[Prism]

Listen here you magical little sack of stuffing,

I said we're solving this

together

.

in my re-read I like Suji more because Redtea seems to have trouble articulating his thoughts - making them less likely imo to be true thoughts - he had trouble explaining when asked simple things like "why?" for example.

I thought 183 was plenty fleshed out. 266 I'm conflicted. I feel like going to bat for Elements here was +town, but I see what you mean about it being pretty inarticulate.

383 is arguably

too

fleshed out, and the intro does seem a bit off to me tonally.

427 isn't completely contradictory but pings me a little. Immediately tags onto a point by Elements and then tags onto catboi agreeing Elements is pretty null.

523 about Pooky's Ele/Tayl0r/cat team speculation is kind of ?

524 actually does bother me more on reread. The thrust of this post is taking catboi to task for not having a strong TR on me. But redtea didn't seem to be bothered by the fact me/cat were still wary of each other back in 434

Is there anything else I'm missing/how much of this do you agree with?

I feel better about the people who were discussing mechanics with Elements during the beginning of the day 1 - none of the conversations felt very S/S but I don't have enough game history with them to make these TRs highly confident per se.

I agree with this-Chara's 121 to 130 sequence especially stuck out to me as likely town. Do you know if you were thinking of others?

[Prism]

Sujimichi is limited access on weekends, but it's now no longer the weekend. A checkin here would be nice.

[Prism]

Comparing once more to their play in SIN, redtea's reads this game are also less fleshed out and even a tad more careful, despite the confidence in me/catboi.

Spoiler: Here's two sample posts from early on in that game:

But if you'd like, I've had since gone back as I said I would and, more specifically, my maf-lean on you comes from that your posts mostly seemed to be throwing questions out like candy to people with a handful of follow-ups, and it's only recently (having come to the topic of me, and then jackel) that you've really seemed to "hunker down" on a discussion. Maybe that's your playstyle or something, but even then it wasn't like you struck out towards that discussion on your own.
...I was going to compare you to another player and how their posts seem similar but better, but actually. I could see them as scum-coordinator and you following along.
Hm.

To be honest though, I would not vote you today. Norwegian, NDMath, and if people really want to for Results, even Jackal I would hammer or put at E-1 or 2. The problem with the first two is that there are no votes on them. Heck, I'm tied for most votes. I don't think I'm gonna change minds here.

So this is a bit of a follow-up to my last (acutal) post.

My post was never intended as a comprehensive solve,

Actually. You did specifically say: "EASY GAME PEOPLE LELELELE" which made me believe that was your final game solve.

(,,Ծ‸Ծ,, ) And you took a page 8 post as a serious gamesolve because...?

Because i just played a game with someone that fucking hard tunneled me from page 2 and literally called me/another guy the scum team and i had to fight their bone headed tunnel for 10 pages before i got lynched and flipped town. Sorry if you're different, i get kind of twitchy when i see myself included in scum reads early.

To me this looks like you were about to start beef with catboi, and were assuming we wouldn't find their joke about having solved the game in good town-taste. But since multiple people went "wait what? It was a joke though?" you began backtracking.
Related: I don't like that banancucho gave up so quick in #235. He hopped on and off this issue pretty quick.

*232 by catboi is a scum-point ping.

I understand getting a scum-ping from #232 if it was about his reads not being serious, but it was about it not being a serious

solve

. Did you misread that? Keep in mind the og quote is a partial one of #204.

I don't blame catboi for moving on to push Jackel btw. That doesn't make me not interested in this shit anymore though.

[Prism]

Sujimichi, when you get in-did you not have any thoughts to share upon finishing your Day 1 read?

[Prism]

I like Chara's 160 but don't put early distancing out of their range here. I still think they're town, though. I remember that being a read I was very confident in during my reread.

Forgetting twice that they were on Elements was very ??? but I have no clue how to interpret that, it makes their continually being on them worse but like...if you're that worried about your scum partner getting voted are you really not going to be cognizant of where your vote is?

617/611 I thought was fine just because redtea had kind of laid out the catboi TR as being from the mechanics early. I actually really don't like that they seem to have forgotten about this engagement entirely in redtea's last two posts. Their explanation for forgetting...wasn't great.

[Prism]

Sorry, once Chara forgot they were on Hectic, the other they forgot they were on Elements

[Prism]

My scumpool at this point is like:

Sujimichi, Tayl0r, Lavender, Pooky, Tanner

Any combo of the first three is just......way too easy. But Pooky's play has improved tremendously since his initial reactions to catboi. His reads+reasoning have all made sense. I don't like those as much in hindsight, 610 really isn't generous and 633 is a bit disingenuous, in that Pooky openly avoided outing reads or discussing much outside of what the spare system should look like for a very,

very

long time.

After being suspicious of Pooky, I went to look at Tanner, whose interactions with Elements were early and

totally fine

. The only issues are that he gave beeboy a chance to post content and said the wagon was a bit too fast. Somebody call 911 on him. He also shuts down the Tayl0r vote so unless this it's Tayl0r/Tanner ???

I feel like if there's a deepscum it's one of those two but at this point there might not even be one. I just feel bad for still being cautious of Pooky for his early game despite obvious strong play.

[Prism]

Town vs. Lurkers, the oldest rivalry onsite continues

[Prism]

Taylor, do you still feel like Chara is scum? Me/Pooky both seem to agree that their posts on page 5 and their read on Elements in 160 are good.

I think some of their midgame wasn't very notable but when it comes to reads, the two they've really seemed to press are 1) Elements, who has now flipped scum 2) redtea, whose slot is now being replaced a second time after some very lackluster posts by Sujimichi

[Prism]

It looks like you also seemed to agree that redtea belongs pretty low on the list, so I'm curious to see your thoughts on that slot.

[Prism]

Curious, Sujimichi... very curious.

HURT: Sujimichi

Hectic actually beat me to this point by several, SEVERAL days and I've given him so much shit over the last two game days.

I have wronged this man. I am a sinner.

[Prism]

Can you walk me through how you shifted that way? (Weaker on Chara -> Thinking more on Tanner?)

Tanner-can you talk more about your Puppy vote? I remember liking a lot of their interactions with Elements in hindsight. I also really don't see the point in pushing for a spare from them unless it is exactly Puppy+Chara...which I find really unlikely.

[Prism]

Any explanation you can give on how you've thought about redtea/Sujimichi would also be really helpful here imo

[Prism]

i still just feel like charas posts are mostly fluff and chara is present in the thread but not present in the scumhunting much. theres just too much fluff.

Can you walk me through how you shifted that way? (Weaker on Chara -> Thinking more on Tanner?)

off the cuff, tanner is gut, and chara has done some gamesolvey stuff. im pretty low-effort this game though. sorry.

These aren't completely contradictory but I'm really trying to get some evidence of legitimate process from you here. How have you decided that Chara is now more gamesolvey? What was the initial cause of your shift-was it your own thinking, the posts I linked, something Chara said recently? This is the process I want to be walked through.

[Prism]

Suji hasn't posted since their rep-in.
can i take this as an excuse to wait another day? some things happened and i'm really not feeling up to it.

Prism you wanted to hear something from me?

Naw, I just want to see your lovely avatar back on the page. Come back when you feel like it, though.

[Prism]

Okay, let's talk about your townreads then. It looks like you're pretty confident in me, Pooky, and maybe Hectic? Are there any others?

[Prism]

oh if that's the case don't worry you're just in time

dr. pooky has a therapy slot open right after he finishes up with me, highly recommend

[Prism]

I'm pretty biased against Tanner in that I always thought his play was just kind of

fine

. I can see him being scum with beeboy/Elements but it doesn't carry any sort of Aha! moment to me.

Why're you so confident in Pooky town? I think I get that Tanner voting Lavender over beeboy and going for LHF isn't a great look...but I really get it. I do think the Puppy vote deserves more of an explanation, though. Do you have anything else about him I should look at?

P-Edit You're correct, and I really want to clean sweep it. I think we have a very good shot at it.

[Prism]

i am finding myself strangely emotional about this.

something about that bear..............................

it just fills the void in your soul and convinces you that, hey, alcohol is a better friend than any human ever could be anyway

whoops, I mean, that life is worth living and people love you haha

[Prism]

Suji hasn't posted since their rep-in.
can i take this as an excuse to wait another day? some things happened and i'm really not feeling up to it.

Prism you wanted to hear something from me?

Naw, I just want to see your lovely avatar back on the page. Come back when you feel like it, though.

<3

Prism, is it bad that your approach to Taylor here is making me feel some odd alarm bells?

it feels like you're putting in some effort to be seen as solving. you

are

solving, but your specific reference to wanting to see Taylor's progression is bothering me in a way i can't quite place. you said the same thing when you were questioning kitty about his read on you, that you were unsatisfied with the progression and were doing your best to read him if he would just give you what you were looking for.

i don't really remember you solving in this manner in the prequel. i'm not even sure if i'm explaining this right.
your entire process is being communicated in the thread. there's nothing missing, there is no reading between the lines to be done because everything can be found in the thread.

this total transparency feels new. it's not even something

bad

, but it's struck me as purposeful so i'm going to ask.

pedit: i'm also hoping for that!

? I'm not really sure what you're seeing here: I've always put a ton of faith in progressions/how sincere they are. Deciding that Farkran's progression on me wasn't natural and wasn't showing good faith was step #1, tracing Nacho's progression on Chemist was a major focus of mine, and so was tracing Amrun's. I called Hectic's play that game extremely clean and not really making clear mistakes as scum, and this was a reference to that. Being as transparent as possible is also very much my town MO tracing all the way back to Dystopia

Mind you, I also obsess over progressions and am obsessed with processes as scum, but this is very much a return to center for me. I'm also trying to try a bunch of different avenues to get content that might be useful in the face of previous ones not working out well.

As scum I absolutely have to position myself well to go the distance and survive ~4 or so fights here, but the easiest way to get this sweep as town is just to nail down the last few slots and remove them from play.

[Prism]

In contrast...One of the things that really interests me about you as a player is that I've never really been able to understand your progressions lmao, I think there are like 5 games of me going ??? that I did not realize existed until recently, but skimming through them made me laugh seeing that some things have not changed at all. I definitely took a lot more issue with them then than I do now. Your reads in Undertale 2.0 were generally also

fine

to me past the start. Like I couldn't really say "Yes! I understand Chara completely!" but I was always just like "I don't really get it but these are good reads." Maybe because you bussed, no clue, but yours in this game have similarly been difficult for me to wrap my head around at times (Somehow we had the same PoE minus redtea at a certain point? I really don't know how) without seeing malicious intent in them.

tl;dr: I literally don't understand your process most of the time but that's kind of what makes playing with you fun, and is also why I've asked you stuff only to revisit it during downtime instead of making it a priority lmao

[Prism]

Why're you so confident in Pooky town? I think I get that Tanner voting Lavender over beeboy and going for LHF isn't a great look...but I really get it. I do think the Puppy vote deserves more of an explanation, though. Do you have anything else about him I should look at?

not really, the Puppy vote is also where my interest is re: Tanner and i don't think Tanner has discussed it in response to prompting yet, though i could be wrong.

i'm confident in Pooky town because... i feel strongly in my empty heart that he is.

i believe that, town or scum, he did come into this game wanting to have a positive outlook and be a positive presence, and his behavior follows with that.
i thought his kitty progression was very good, convincing in a way that did not seem made-up for the purposes of looking like a real push, and his solving since deciding to go for fights we can agree is really good, too.

i townread him early for his commitment to sparing, i think it would be harder for scum to show that devotion to a bit, and i generally think scum care less about the

method

of their win. pooky wanted to play this game differently, because it's a unique setup; do scum care about that sort of thing nearly as much?

Okay I didn't read this before sending my previous post and this is hilarious because both of these are why I think Pooky might be scum (Wanting to be nicer NAI, I put too much stock in the strategic comment from the game, his catboi case was always very hostile/unforgiving imo but now it's easier to look back and think it might have been in bad faith)

In comparison his vote on beeboy+his play today has been much stronger imo, instantly able to whip out justification on reads and they all line up pretty well

[Prism]

Some of these were actually replying to A50, the one in particular I remembered laughing at is this post from Buttersnap calling your hydra nonsensical but Ctrl+F "Chara" in my Evoker ISO, and this quote from a third game:

Chara has bothered me repeatedly but has played a clean game at minimum and is mostly intelligible.

Somehow is

not

from 2020 but is instead from

April 2017

[Prism]

Lavender, this is like manna from heaven. Thank you. Do you have any posts from Puppy that you liked in particular?

How do you feel about Tanner pushing you yesterday, but then shifting his vote to Puppy today?

[Prism]

For Chara, yeah I agree that hashing out playstyle differences right now might not be the best approach...but maybe it is? I think revisiting 610 from my perspective of maybe-scum-Pooky and seeing what you think might have value. Is there anyone else you want to engage on-maybe more Tayl0r, maybe someone else?

I am glad to have you here.

[Prism]

I blocked both of those games out of my memory too don't worry