Here's the quick breakdown: I think Pesco and Rou are scum. And I was going to talk about Rou, HW, and Pesco, but I've cut down on the HW and Pesco sections and decided I really only need to talk about Rou. Pesco follows suit as Rou's scumbuddy.
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Let's "Keep It Simple Stupid." Rou's switch and hammer is downright scummy. Rou voted Pesco earlier and then at 9 minutes before deadline with a L-1 tie in the balance, hammers a Townie. Implications are obvious. Let's review his reasoning for switching to K4U.
I've been giving it some thought, and after HW's latest input I'm considering shifting to K4U for the day. lolgutvote is still pretty horrible, and her refusal to do anything other than stick to her gut does nothing to help Town. It's like she's trying to get away with the Assassin game meta of 'I know what I'm doing, so I can do whatever I like'.
Notice that Rou first qualifies his thoughts with "after HW's input." Why was huh what's reasoning enough to deter your suspicions about Pesco? Feels like a deflection of responsibility right there. You kinda take potshots at me too, but you didn't explicitly say "after Kiro's input" either. And in examining the quote above, the points he levies against K4U are bad things about her, but not scummy things. gutvote is bad, but not necessarily scummy in Day 1. Stick to her gut is bad, but not necessarily scummy in Day 1. And the meta comment is only speculating. And of course, she flipped Town. So his reasoning to vote K4U is very flawed.
Plus I'm pretty sure Pesco knows better than to deliberately try pissing me off when he's scum. So yeah.
What? I don't understand this at all. If that's the primary thing that caused you to clear Pesco above K4U, then I've got nothing else to say except that it absolutely sucks.
In Day 2, Rou believes Pesco's claim so fully that he votes huh what to L-2 which would ordinarily be the threshold we don't cross with these numbers. Impression is that in his relative haste to vote, he's trying to reinforce this case for the rest of us. Where's the restraint Rou? Rou's reasoning is pretty much stated in #116: that it'd be too much of a gambit to do. But objectively, that's not true. Pesco was already a top suspect heading into Day 2 so the gambit of having to compete with a rival copclaim is only a small risk to him considering how close he was to the chopping block in Day 1. And let's face it, meta wise, Pesco is capable of doing it. Why are you not willing to consider that? The KISS answer is that you are scum with him and this is an all-in move.
Rou's insistence on Pesco's roleclaim being true feels too brazen to be that of careful Townie play. Because if we lynch Pesco and Pesco flips scum, Rou shoots himself up the suspicion list possibly dooming Town. I am not willing to believe Town Roukan could make this kind of a mistake: that he believes in his meta impressions of Pesco so much to not only clear him in Day 2, but at the end of a Day 1 as well when there is nothing solid to work off of. And it's not comforting to see this type of defense continue in #134 and #137.
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Regarding huh what: there's less objective information to work with, but the short of it is that his statements don't make it feel like he has a scumbuddy to talk to. The back and forth with UK feels pretty free-form and unrestrained on his part. UK kinda baits HW in certain ways and HW gets caught up with it a bit, yet his answers are decent.
Let's also not ignore the simple fact that he could have hammered K4U, but decided to vote Pesco instead. He was not on the mislynch wagon and while his #79 is hard to read, it makes sense from him saying it as a Townie so it passes.
You're all finding inconsistencies with him in Day 2, but that feels more like a Townie adjusting to new information rather than part of a scumpair with a plan in mind. His mistakes like saying the cop could be insane are not scummy mistakes and not even really possible scumtells. They're just null slipups. Otherwise, his points in Day 2 are all fair.
In other words, he hasn't voted poorly and he hasn't said anything anything that makes me suspicious. He actually feels the most Townie to me out of everyone minus the fact that UK is the doc.
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Regarding Pesco: Pesco's actions I have decided are not really reliable indicators of anything. His spacy behavior is fitting for both a scum playing loosely and a cop sort of treading the middle ground to avoid actually being killed on N1. His early vote on K4U matches either scenario and so does his late Day 1 questioning of HW and early Day 2 actions. So I don't feel there's anything objective enough to bring to the table on that and don't want to engage in WIFOM circles with him.
But on a personal level, there are 2 things that make me lean scum on him. One, is obviously my feelings of huh what being innocent as stated above. Two, is that acting slightly scummy and then coming out with the roleclaim on a LYLO day is just terrible strategizing. He'd have to be absolutely confident that we lynched Scum Day 1, but judging from his halfhearted comments about K4U and other players in general, it doesn't really feel like he made the effort to scumhunt to that end. That in itself is also scummy.
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I can understand why Affinity wants to lynch Rou first. Without the copclaim conflict, Rou is probably the single most scummy player in the game now. And a Rou scumflip almost certainly seals the deal that Pesco is lying since Rou pushed hard enough for HW's lynch. Scum Rou's actions don't make sense for him to bus Scum HW because 1) he wouldn't have bothered to do the hammer switch on Day 1 since both wagons would have been Townie and 2) he would have had no idea Pesco was actually a cop and investigated HW and probably would have gone against Pesco to secure the Day 2 mislynch instead for the win.
Let's face it, the Townies amongst us can argue circles between Pesco and huh what, but if we can all agree on Rou as Scum, just lynch Rou first and logic pretty much dictates that Pesco follows. That's kind of how I see it. Affinity doesn't strike me nearly as scummy as Rou and I'm not willing to believe that Affinity is just ultra lurking scum while Rou is playing the absolute worst game as a Townie as possible.
