~TOWN~
Shadow: I don't think I need to say much more than, “He's posting a lot!” given that multiple people agree he's unable to keep up with his town posting volume as scum. I guess he hasn't rolled scum in a while, so there's the potential that he's been able to close the gap between the two alignments, but I'm not worried about that. For one, he hasn't rolled scum so he hasn't had the chance to practice and hone those wolfposting skills, but more importantly, everything else about him is as townie as can be. He's sticking his nose in everything, his analysis makes sense, he's paying attention and remembering details (eg remembering that I had brought up the raeko/t-force pairing at least twice), and he follows up on the inquiries he makes. He's interested and motivated to solve the game. Also, lines like, “I'm a bit lost right now, I think I'll take a short break here and come back later on,” are just so pure-sounding.
Sunfan: I'm not getting the usual paranoia I get about sunfan this game. First off, we're getting mindmelds out the wazoo. I'm right there with him about being cautious about yoshl, I was right there with him about how an ule lynch would lead to more or less no information and how the role/mechanics discussion shouldn't be so frowned upon, and I'm right there with him about how everyone seems to look past freezin without any substantial reason to. (Oh, and I like the clown character from AA too). He's got a bit of the same scattershot approach as dap, quoting posts and replying to them/commenting on them, but it's never without purpose. You can trace the path that his inquiries and comments make, which is especially good since they aren't shallow, two-dimensional reads. As far as tone goes, I know he's faked me out on that front before (being frustrated, making big speeches about stuff, etc), but given the other points in his favor, it reads as genuine.
~LEANING TOWN~
Raeko: I already spoke in the thread about why I was scumreading raeko and suspecting her of being partners with t-force, but I'll go over it again here so it's easier to track down in the future. During d0 I thought that she was focusing too much on who was suspicious rather than who was townie. She was also being quiet and more reactive than proactive, which, even in line with her meta for d0, still didn't sit right with me. Then, when her first point of being aggressively proactive was to cast shade on the t-force wagon, I figured stopping his lynch must've been especially important to her. Combine that with t-force, someone who I think is suspicious (I know, I know, that doesn't align with my last EOD...I'll get to that in the T-Force section), starting this phase off trying to more or less hard clear her, I felt it was too much to ignore.
However, during the reread, I saw that she defended people or tried to interpret their actions in a positive light more than I realized. Her reads and their development also make sense to me. While her case on ule was straightforward enough that it could come from either alignment, her treatment of sunfan has nuance to it that reads as genuine. I also didn't get any suspicious vibes during our recent back-and-forth in the thread, and the elaboration on her thoughts/motivations she made, again, read as genuine. If things keep up the way they have been I'll move her up to town, but for now I want to stay in leaning town since I want some more information to help me boost my confidence.
Haku: I'm paranoid of haku ever since he totally fleeced me. I always thought I was soooo good at townreading him, but, well, turns out that was only because I'd never seen his wolf game before... But outside of that, I don't see anything suspicious from haku. He's playing the town game I'm used to seeing. Any point of contention I had while reading (eg why did he stay on t-force during EOD?) was cleared up later on (he didn't like the FFA/ule/dap wagons and wanted fg/t-force cleared up). I do agree that there was a lack of the classic haku flip-flopping/paranoia in his early game, but it's definitely here now. Basically, I think he's solidly town, but he fleeced me once so he's stuck in leaning town due to paranoia.
Dap: I read dap pretty close to how I read sunfan: his scattershot approach makes sense, you can trace the path his inquiries and comments take, his takes have depth and nuance, and while within his scum range to fake-solve and make lengthy posts, I don't get that impression based on the content of his posts. I also don't know if wolf dap would focus so hard on and reiterate the point about another mislynch leading to MYLO. I also don't think he'd try to keep haku and shadow grounded w/r/t his theory about me/t-force. I feel like he'd fake confidence in the read and try to get them hyped up? Maybe even post some Erika pics?
The difference, then, between him and sunfan, is there's less mindmelding going on between us. For an example outside the obvious one that I'm not a wolf, I disagree with his take that yoshl's evolving read on haku is high effort low reward as a wolf so it's more likely to be genuine. When I'm a wolf, I try to give some natural fluctuation to my reads. To quote Robert Irvine from the episode of Dinner Impossible I watched last night, “The difference between a good dinner and a great dinner is the little details.” In my eyes, the difference between passing as town and fooling everyone into thinking you're town are those little details, and I'm sure both dap and yoshl have gone to those lengths before.
To make a long story short, I'll feel more comfortable with dap either once we start coming to the same conclusions or I have more information to go off of...but in my heart I'm pretty certain he's town.
~NULL~
FG: I really have no idea what to think about FG. There's points in her favor, and points against her too.
For stuff in her favor, I think her analysis generally makes sense. Her read on haku being less paranoid was solid, and it went against the grain of the thread too, which I think is more often townie than not. Her line at #548, “haku if you were town and i were wolf you bet i'd be town reading you rn” would be a fantastic wolf play, but I lean towards it being genuine. Same with how she interrogated him then eventually seemed satisfied with the explanations he gave.
I think her treatment of FFA gives points in her favor too. At #617 she said to yoshl, “ i have a null read on ffa. i mean
voting him off isn't something i'm totally against.” Like sunfan said, FG was looking forward to playing with FFA, and FG asked us all to “do her a solid” by letting him live. However, when it looked like he was gonna be the lynch, she said, “ you know, i hope y'all are right. that's all i can say.” That reluctant willingness to do what's potentially best for town, even if it goes against her interests, reads as townie behavior to me.
The null read comes in because, one, each of those interpretations could just as easily go the other way, and two, I'm super confused about why she shied away from t-force after being so adamant about making his lynch happen. She said her heart was broken, but then she was also willing to lynch FFA too (and, in her words, she went with ule over him because the ule flip would help her solve more than ffa's would, which I take to mean she'd vote to lynch ffa if it were the better move for her game). I can't make heads or tails of it.
Also, I don't think there's a t-force/FG pairing going on. She pushed for people to vote for him (told shadow to do it, thanked yoshl after he did it, etc). Dap suggested at one point that if they are W/W she might not've expected the t-force wagon to get as much traction as it did, but she only dropped her vote four minutes before EOD. I think if she were trying to save a partner she'd have made that move well beforehand.
~LEANING WOLF~
Freezin: Freezin is another confusing player to me. Like FG, he has points in his favor and points against him too.
For good points, I think some of his analysis sounds genuine. The point about sunfan being ambivalent about lynching people when he's scum is something I've looked for too (since I remember sunfan specifically saying like “t-force can die” a few times in the nonary games game but never committing to it), and his reasoning for why he went with ule over others makes sense (ie he supported shadow voting FG, but for not voting FG himself, he felt it was more of a 50/50 between her open wolfing and joking around, whereas with ule he had more concrete suspicions). He was also the second person (after shadow I believe) to post a reads least, no matter how janky, which is always good.
For bad points, when I asked about how freezin plays town, dap said that he doesn't care about clearing himself as a townie so that other townies won't have to worry about him. That's why him starting the game off by saying stuff like “i'm going for the volume clear” or that he'll be happy with a slank lynch doesn't sit right. It sounds like a gameplan for how to play the phase, not a gameplan for how to catch wolves (similar to the point yoshl made about xiz). Plus, if he doesn't care about clearing himself when he's town (and based on his argument with sunfan, I'm guessing it's true), why announce he's going for the volume clear? I think that might be a slip of sorts in terms of where his motivation is at.
There's also his reaction to the flip, which to me reads like distancing (ie saying the kills were bad and that, “xiz was playing alot clearer and more focused than ive ever seen, we cant have nice things i guess”). He also said this about t-force in his early reads list: “a few spicy posts that i liked so he's above average.” I'm pretty certain there weren't any spicy posts from t-force at that point, so it seems like a weird read to give...but if they're partners, that makes more sense.
Yoshl: I know, I know, I'm paranoid about yoshl in the same way I'm paranoid about haku, but I feel like my intuition is more likely to be right on this one. While he's made some good points that I agree with (eg how shadow and haku in the early game were trying extract meaning from stuff that had no meaning and how t-force looked more like he was doing stuff than actually doing stuff), and while there was one line of his that sounded like it came from a very townie mindset (842, “it sits pretty badly with me, but i'm probably going to need to just look at some other things for the time being.”), ultimately I think too many of his points come across as disingenuous.
For one, I sense he's moving towards a scumread on haku for haku's flip-flopping and stuff like his big wall of quotes that were more commentary mode than fresh insights. Haku having the tendency to swap around his reads or just post a lot of stuff that's more thinking out loud has been brought up quite a few times this game, yet it hasn't influenced yoshl's read, nor has he reached out to others about it for clarification. His case against xiz for thinking too much on who the best target is at the moment rather than what he can do to get more info to make a better informed lynch also didn't seem right since I feel like xiz was still in the “EOD is tonight” mindset. Casting shade on sunfan for telling people not to blindly townread him for tone and analysis seems fishy to me too...I can understand how that'd be frustrating if yoshl's town and people are reading him right and for the right reasons, but I don't think sunfan's take is wrong either, and I think yoshl would understand that and try to approach sunfan from that angle.
~WOLF~
T-Force: I'll start off with the two points that are in t-force's favor: one, he responds to my questions fully and accurately, and two, when it looked like he was close to being lynched, he didn't struggle that hard or try to meme out.
Buuut, aside from that, I agree with the points others have made against him in terms of the passive play and so on, so I'll only speak on what hasn't been said already. The game I see here is more or less identical to the nonary games wolf game. He'll defend himself when necessary, but he'll also ignore a lot of pushes and prods from people casting shade on him, which I think is one of his tells. Also, regarding the FFA lynch, he said at #704, “Might as well warm another seat. I'm fine with this today.” It feels disingenuous to leave out the fact that voting for FFA is self-pres for him. There's also his push on me, which, bias aside, I think is pretty weak. It hinges on FG's vote on me being an attempt to distance ourselves, me playing devil's advocate/being wishy washy in one of my reads, and me having TMI because I was right about how the ule flip would go down. That's pretty much it. It feels like he's tunnelling on me since there's momentum there already, then he can be like, “I'm happy with where I'm at” for the rest of the phase. Then, lastly, going through his EOD, he talks way way more about haku being sus than FG. In fact, he even says right here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWGma
I'm not saying FG is a wolf here.
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That's a weird thing to say considering he had his vote on her right up until 7 minutes before EOD!
All in all, his play just seems so much more in line with what I saw in the nonary games game than the AC game.
Oh, and as far as why EOD went down the way it did on my end of things, I really did believe t-force about his passive play and so on being NAI. I know I was wrong about him in the AC game, so I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I also felt like ffa was more likely to be a hit.