TWG 210: Vanilla Ice Cream in Sprite [GAME THREAD]

[ShadoWolfe]

so I said earlier I'd explain the structural case against DBP and I want to do that now before EOD while I have the chance. thus far, his major moves this game have exclusively been anti-town, and near optimal wolf plays if wolf. with that said, town can make mistakes, so I tried to focus in on the moves themselves and figure out if they came from a genuine town perspective.

starting with D0, the progression of his reasoning for steering the wagon onto and mislynching benguino:
post

#439. DBP rescinds his mic drop/wet fart and pivots to "the freezin/ben interaction is wolf theater."

#448 he finds a specific ben post where ben said his read on someone depends on sunfan's opinion and calls it "very smelly."

#518 he says "I think I'm locking in on benguin."

I posted in #541 that I was worried about a ben lynch because all my reasons for it were associative and there was no wolf flipped to draw actual association from. DBP responded directly to that post in #549 and provided a framework for why the associations didn't matter as much. he said ben was specifically "couching" all his reads, always hedging, always keeping an exit: "I think X might be town, but I want to hear what sunfan has to say." "This person might be a wolf, but maybe X is instead." "If X is town, then Y is a wolf." he argued this was preemptive wiggle room, not genuine uncertainty.

then #555 he escalates it to the "escape hatch" framing, basically arguing ben's entire posting pattern was strategic maneuvering: "If a CFD happens on a bug wagon, then Ben can always 'safely' vote star instead." "If bug is town, then H&H is a wolf." "This is clear as day to me. IDK why no one else is noticing these things."
at this point, he had essentially cleared bug for the day so the failure to follow up with a vote or push on H&H seems weird.

zenith immediately responded in #565: "I didn't until you pointed it out in this way." the two of them validated each other's case on ben in real time

the connection between DBP and zenith in D0 matters for D1. DBP came into D1 with three votes on him between star, bugkid, and sunfan. he posted his will (#1013): "Im dead so here's where im at... ill at least leave a will." then "use your votes, cowards" (#1020). then when sunfan told him his despair seemed fake because zenith was dead if he just voted there, he said "I actually do but I'm beyond that despair" (#1024).

by VC #1044 he had no votes on him at all (haku moved to botchi, bugkid moved to botchi, sunfan moved to zenith), but he kept performing his dying man act til the final hammer
when he finally gave up the NV he had held throughout all of D1, he joined the zenith wagon briefly, probably because sunfan had given him an out that he couldn’t ignore, but as soon as the HnH wagon became viable, he ditched it. I saw the switch happen and moved back to zenith to put it in KitB.
HnH flipped town. zenith survived. and DBP's D2 agenda (#1058) was "revisit botchi, revisit xelnya, resolve freezin and shado." zenith isn't on it.

last thing: reading through EoD, his vibe does not seem to carry the same crazy frenzied EoD rush “WHAT ARE WE DOING” feeling that I think all of town is feeling in those moments