).And now, mine in turn (alphabetical by tier 'cause I'm too tired to rate within rankings):
Santa's Nice List:
-Blizzard: Blizzard's general tone feels very genuinely trying to figure stuff out and not being quite sure, and she actually sidesteps a couple opportunities to get free town cred to set the story straight, which has zero utility as scum and speaks to a generally truthful MO.
-Boogie: Boogie sometimes coasts under the cover of lower activity but has changed his style in recent times. I like that he seems to be legitimately trying to figure things out but isn't putting, like, loads of effort into it yet. That feels like a very town Boogie thing, as does waffling on the Dodd wagon... if Dodd's slot flips Town. If we do see a scum!Doddslot then suddenly Boogie looks a whole lot worse.
-Jack: I feel like Jack's doing a good job pushing against the general consensus in the name of seeking his own answers, while at the same time being willing enough to compromise but not so eager it feels like insincere sucking-up. Also his joking re: flavor is probably the single most convincing for me that he more or less understands the setup and is just having fun with it, in this way that could get way way way too WIFOM to be worth discussing for joking about flavor text but I still feel good about.
-Paige: Paige is dialed in from the start, chasing leads and taking names, and cracking jokes along the way, all of which are generally good indicators of engaged, legitimate scum-hunting. I like the push on Dodd's slot and the discouraging others from getting side-tracked, regardless of how the slot ultimately flips; it's what I expect from Paige sniffing for clues and I think it's a good vibe for town in the current circumstances overall
-Zetsu: The specifics of her poking, prodding, questioning and searching are all classic town Zetsu to me. She's a good player who likes to build cases based on connections and I see that going here--I at least think she's legitimately chasing connections but watch the game actually be multiball and all my reads fall to pieces.
/shrug:
-Fenris: A wee bit of coaching directed in Jace's direction specifically but most of it feels pretty genuine and is widely appreciated. Overall, Fenris has been quieter than last game and I wanna hear more from them when they get to it but they've been cooperative and are busy and what is there is solidly neutral for me.
-Goose: I like Goose's reads on Cactus and Jace, and I really especially like that he eases off the gas--it's a good look when we were hurtling towards premature mealtime. That said, there's not a ton here, which makes him hard to read. Goose is in general more of a lategame player in my (likely flawed) recollection which is fine but makes me want to avoid giving him credit for fairly low-hanging fruit early in case he's scummy scum and capitalizes on that to ruin everyone's day when he really activates in three phases.
-MS: Basically, MS came and poked at me for info (I like that!) but then jumped on the Dodd policy dinner date and appears to have decided to hold heavy analysis for tomorrow in light of the flip. On the one hand, I like the poking for info and what honestly feels like extremely minimal effort put towards trying to look even a little town--it's not that he's being scummy so much as that there's zero care about optics, with the scant reasoning and late bandwagoning. On the other hand, anyone counting on getting to post next phase is preemptively counting chickens and/or scum. But due to the overall lack of playing to the crowds I'm inclined to set him at a neutral and wait to see those involved posts and/or give my best "Warned you bro!"
-Ricky: He's not voting for me, so something's wrong.
In seriousness Ricky reads as not all-in yet and he's giving good context but it's not a lot to pull reads from. It feels like he's sorta still coming off hosting which means he has a massively different view of half of this game and their most recent plays which makes his reads valuable but also makes him harder for me to parse.Invited To Afternoon Meal:
-Irina: This is faint, and there's one thing that really makes me think Irina is town (which is that she randomly soft-claims for absolutely no reason--faking this sort of slip is a more advanced scum mind game move than what I have reason to expect right now from her. But... the soft-claim could be the only fake part, and the slip in sharing this info apropos of nothing genuine. I dunno. My big frowny moment though is the setting up Jace to be town regardless of what Dodd's slot flips, which is very suspicious when Jace is suspicious. If he flips town Irina moves upwards because while there is a decent play to make for scum going to bat hard for town I don't expect it from her phase 1 and I think the execution would be different.
-Jace: So I do like the effort from Jace but the thing that gets me is his claim is incredibly convenient and he's fighting tooth and nail to retain a slot that is fundamentally of low value. That could just be a function of relative inexperience with the mathy side of things but the concentrated focus coupled with the refrain of "Yet I know I'm dead regardless!" just doesn't feel right to me.
-Yugi: Quiet (not always bad), flavor speculation (not bad per se but a perennial way to scoop constructive townie points without actually hurting scum, and in this case also muddies the waters with third-party talk), and an admitted desire to lay low until Day Two (after scum have a whole night to shoot the breeze) all combine with this weird moment of quasi-coaching to have my eyebrow certainly raised in Yugi's direction.
And, the one I left off the tiers (besides myself, obviously unimpeachable!
): Honestly, it's really hard to get a read on Dodd's actions/slot especially knowing stuff's been rough OOC, but if I had to speculate based on where he sat in the web of the game I'd say I expect him to flip Town. Not incredibly strongly, not enough to tilt at the lynch in favor of who-knows-what with who-knows-if? as replacement, but I get the thought processes at play and agree with them more or less. At the same time, the flip gets me info on just about everyone I have my eye on so I'm down to make it happen.
