Anyway, an actual reads list with what I have in mind and without going back to read posts from the players, ordered from towniest to scummiest, with comments on a few of them. Note that I hate giving out null readings - feels like I'm cheating and avoiding making my mind about someone. So I'll avoid that label altogether.
TOWN
Natiko - Reasonable, confrontational and not really pushy about his views. Natiko is my top town read at the moment. I feel like he's in the perfect spot for veteran good player, putting down his views clearly and being incisive about them but without being too on the nose about it. He's scum hunting without putting out busy work.
cabot
Sorian - Had a moment where I suspected him for hedging for Stan, but since he flipped Town I think I can put that behind me for now. Looks to be paying more attention to everyone and all topics of the thread. Picked this up as a town-sign of his, since he admittedly picks some players to ignore when scum, especially in big games such as these.
Faddy - Don't agree with a lot of his opinions, but I read him as a wholesome Town. Faddy can be a bit controversial and he's not quite there this game, but I like his inputs so far and his read on Brazil is interesting.
Dr. Monkey - This is probably her paranoia getting to me, but seems a bit fluffier than normal? Still, good insight and posts as always. Reminds me of a particular post by Monkey back at D1.5 about Flux that helped me form my read that I need to go back to later.
GREY ZONE OF MESS
Fran
CeeCee
Chuggernaut
I'll just put these 3 here.
Right now Fran is hard town to me (though I want to hear more from others on his turbo claim come day start with a Day Vig in plain sight with questionable alignment still alive). Chuggs is a mess, but I'm town reading him at the moment.
LEAN TOWN
Sawneeks
malus
Kyanrute
Fireblend
Blargonaut - I liked his true self shining through the shit-posting back when Stan hit the fan at D1.5. Hope we get to see more of that soon, since this read will drop down a lot if that doesn't happen today at D2.
Brazil - I planning an ISO on him soon so I can review and explain my thoughts on him and the potential Terra "link" I had in mind.
Fantomas
turmoil7 - Seems pretty sincere. I know from previous games that he loves balance talk and paying attention to breadcrumbs to try and solve the game, so I don't find his mention today all too strange. He's pretty contained this time around though so I want to see more today.
LEAN SCUM
Pirate Bae - A lot of what she posts don't seem to land anywhere, so I don't have a lasting impression on her views exactly. Could definitely see as scum skating by.
rac - Fantomas (?) said rac mentioned in a scum chat recently that he sucks playing scum. I could see a unmotivated Scum! rac in here not willing to post much and lurking here and there. Seems he's here to defend himself whenever people start pointing towards his direction. Will see later if I'm right on this.
Zubz - Same can be said here, get the feeling Zubz isn't really trying so far and they seem to always come in late for the conversation.
SCUM
FluxWaveZ - Flip flopping a bunch with a lot of defensive posts. Don't remember any instance when he was, without a doubt, scum hunting. I definitely need to ISO him to form an hard stance on this.
KetKat - Been playing weird since the very start. Most of the time inactive and not adding much to the discussion, with I believe zero aggressive playing. Hate it being the crux of my case on her, but I remember Ket making the towniest post ever back on Monopoly that completely turned the tables of that game and lead town to their hard fought win. I don't see any of that here.
WHO?
nin and AbsolutBro go here. I sincerely have no read on either of them and don't think we should bother voting here today, at least not now.
I wanted to start with this readslist from Fando from mid-d2. At this point, like many of us, he had Ket as scum. Cool, fine. That's pretty normal. I want to point out a few others, though:
Flux is scum here.
turmoil seems pretty sincere.
Bae is a lean scum.
nin and AB are not worth voting because total nulls. I just want to track these as I go through Fando's posts. CeeCee is ?????
This is also the reads post that had NO read on cabot. Nothing.
I point all these out absolutely knowing that yesterday's wildness means a lot of folks' reads changed but Fandorin has been giving me vibes so I wanted to go through his progression.
Fandorin's very next post after this was the one where he said it sucks to see nin go because he was supposedly taking notes. I called this out because it just seemed so weird, but here, nin goes from a total blank to someone Fando wanted to keep around. We get that slant reference to scum chat here. So it's gone from nothing because no posts and then with no posts in between from nin, scum possibility. Small thing. But worth pointing out.
In #
2526 Fandorin comments on Fran's read of Sorian and gives reasons to be cautious about Sorian even though he also townreads Sorian. I wanted to bring this up because it's a both-sides kinda thing and maybe it's Sorian paranoia, but also Fandorin doesn't usually rely on this wishy-washy discourse. It sticks out to me because I
know I do it, it's always an issue, and when I'm scum I do it on purpose to play up to people.
His next reads:
If he isn't scum I will eat my hat
KetKat
Pirate Bae
rac
turmoil7
CeeCee
Fantomas
Chuggs
Blargonaut
WTF are you smoking? He is no way scum
This probably doesn't align exactly with my past reads list, so a few more recent comments on them:
Hard for me to decide between KetKat and Pirate Bae as the scummiest. I'll echo the thread's sentiment that KetKat's contributions have been sub-par, with dozens more posts defending herself than actually scum hunting. Sawneeks's ISO read on her is also telling and she has a few contradictory posts. At the same time, I can see where Flux is coming from when he pointed out that she's "a lone wolf" in the game, not minding much of the heat and just expressing her thoughts on whatever gets her attention (sorta like he does). This could just be the effects of a early scum bus though, removing her from the rest of the group plays and mindshare. She's the top scum read to me.
At the same time, I agree wholeheartedly about how suspicious Bae has been about defending KetKat. Natiko pointed out the stark contrast between her other reads and the long thought post she made defending KetKat, and later others (I remember Kyan) mentioned this looked like a scum player building up a townie to gain some credit later when the later flips. This makes a lot of sense considering the thread is still very much for a KetKat lynch and was even more so back then. I confess I don't think I've read a response to all this from Pirate Bae, so I'll need to look for it later.
rac is still being his usual grumpy rac without adding much. I mentioned he seemed to always be present to defend himself and throw shade in the general direction of those that scum read him some way, and believe that still rings true.
turmoil feels like he landed completely flat on the ground this game. He turned the tides and won my very first mafia game almost single handily, so I've come to expect a lot from him, but I really don't see that here. I know he likes to solve the game using balance and looking for soft claims and breadcrumbs to come up with solid reads and not budge on them, but so far none of that. I'm still leaning town right now, but really a hard read.
CeeCee is a mess. I don't think I ever bought that he had 2 more shots left, but I was surprised when he said he has none.
Balance talk: for now I'm scratching him as Town Vigilante considering we have no counter claim and only 1 night kill at N1. In a game this size, I don't think scum can only kill via it's factional command, so other kill mechanics should be in place. If we get confirmation that scum can kill 2 people per phase (e.g. 2 town kills at night; someone claims some sort of protection at night, like a wasted bulletproof vest or a doctor save), that would solidify CeeCee as our Town Vig. However if that doesn't happen and we instead keep getting Nights with a single kill, I think there would be a high chance that CeeCee gambited hard and is actually a Scum Vig.
Fantomas is so-so. He's very active and contributing a lot, but nothing he posted so far stuck to me. Could be I'm just not paying that much attention to him so far, but it's something that's on my mind. Neeks said that he could be playing like she does as scum, posting a lot and sharing a bunch of artificial reads, and that could be well be it. At the same time, just as Neeks did I liked how he bumped me and her down to Null reads without bringing attention to it; felt like he didn't need to shove his reads down the thread and was just being honest about his reads. Liked how he owned it up too.
I will do an ISO on Chuggs. I sweat it. But right now, I'm reading him as a bumbling townie afraid of getting overridden who claimed too soon and wanted to share his reads. The confusion with his reads lists and response to the Fran list is also giving me townie vibes. Looks like a honest mistake that a scum player would pay more attention to. WIFOM at the end, yeah, but I'm leaning town.
If Fran leans more towards his lynch today I'll work this read up.
Finally, I'm not really town reading Blarg, but I want more of him before consider his lynch. He is very contained for D2 and that could be worrying.
Still Ketkat and Bae at scummiest. Okay. rac's down low. Some consistency there. But look at turmoil - who came more and more into the spotlight as the day progressed. And the text of the read itself is interesting. "I have no reason to townread him because look at this stuff but I'm doing it anyway." What's interesting is that from what turmoil was posting and what we say from his attempt to escape the lynch, he was doing the things Fando expected of him. He
was looking for softclaims and breadcrumbs and maybe what he found wasn't accurate but that's what he was trying to glean/force from what he said. Is Fando trying to misdirect here and again play both sides of this read? Especially since people had opened the day focused on
turmoil's weird post about Flux hinting at a PR.
Fando was all over the place re: CeeCee. Here he's a mess and doesn't think that he's a town vig unless something else happens, but he's higher up on the list. Why? I don't really know what to make of this except that it's confusing. Chuggs he has as town. Blarg he doesn't know but doesn't want to lynch him, so that's whatever. He had been townreading him earlier. Maybe Blarg's gif focus changes his mind. I can give the benefit of the doubt on that one but it's still really soft.
He clarified then in 2666 (I didn't grab the link, sorry) that he figured CeeCee for a scum JOAT or (scum?) vigilante, but CeeCee was still up higher in the spectrum than turmoil - those two are just weird in that list. He also spends
2691, as a followup, talking about balance and setup, kinda the things he says about turmoil, which is interesting but maybe NAI.
Also in
2691, he says now he's townreading Flux this phase and that Flux has said some good things, but he says this in agreement to Febe without specifying anything that caused the change.
I'll continue this in another post. My multiquote borked so I'm doing more links and summary.
