I didn't see that "trent and drealmer; A love story" coming, and while I don't agree with a lot of the points and arguments adaliabooks makes, and wouldn't count some of them as telling (adaliabokks went into very much detail), It sure has made for an interesting day.
So, let's start with getting the points I disagree with out of the way.
1. trentonlf and reveal of picks - I've already said what I think of that, especially as it being in cahoots with drealmer7 seems a bit too obvious of a slip for skilful scum-trentonlf that early in the game. Either way, I'd not put much into it.
2. trentonlf and reads - I didn't read it that way back then, and still don't. adaliabooks overlooks the fact that while the rest of us know treantonlf's aversion to such lists, and stands by it also as town, gogtrial34987 doesn't, and they were the one asking trentonlf for a list.
3. trentonlf's go at drealmer7 about his 3ds long absence - I see some bias on adaliabooks part; he reads Lifthrasil's go at drealmer7 as proof of the former scum-reading the latter and thus part of a genuine attempt to get him lynched, because he town-reads Lifthrasil, while it's the opposite regarding trentonlf, because not only does he scum-read him, but is also convinced he's scum-buddies with drealmer7.
4. trentonlf contradicting himself with his town-read of RWarehall - trentonlf is right that "being scummy" and "one could be scum" are not exactly the same thing.
Now, regarding his point about trentonlf buddying up to him - I have to admit that I overlooked trentonlf's wording at the time, and that on second read, it does look quite strong, but then, he never actually called adaliabooks scummy during their D1 clash.
What I will give adaliabooks is the bit about trentonlf buddying up to me. Except that I wouldn't say that it started as early as adaliabooks says, and I'd not call it an attempt at pocketing me; he's too smart to actually think it'd work. I see it more as acknowledging that it would be quite hard to discredit or pass shade on me, so the better scum strategy is to strongly town-read me and defend me; scum need to town-read at least a couple of townies to be more believable, especially when they hide their buddies in the town pile.
trentonlf plays close to the chest as town, and is rather reluctant to volunteer things, but he volunteers even less as scum, a lot less; if one wants his view on anything, they have to drag it out of his mouth, and simply asking once often won't do the job.
adaliabooks is also right that trentonlf is not the sort of scum-player that will cave and crumble under pressure, he's the "never, never, never quit; fake it 'til ya make it" kind. And with volunteering so little, he always reserves enough room to do it.
I will also give adaliabooks that trentonlf's surprise about Hunter65536's flip feels a tad overplayed; the way things went down, there was no real need to stress surprise.
I've watched trentonlf play as scum, perhaps more importantly, we've played as scum-buddies. I know what he's capable to pull off, I've witnessed how smooth and slick scum-trentonlf is passing as town. I've been watching him this game since the beginning, and I tried not to alarm him (much); he's smart and has probably been watching me too to see if I get on his trail, and may have suspected what I was doing with my batch of questions to him.
I have to say that I've seen a good chunk of that play in this game. While on the face of it it seems like town-play, it's more calculated and carefully worded as to not corner him into a situation he'll have a hard time wiggling out.
As drealmer7 said, trentonlf has said (out of his own will) pretty safe things - like for example, posts #26, #31, #166, #400, #443, #463, and some others in between.
He also replies to questions with what I call round arguments, avoiding specifics as much as possible, and may even attempt to go around the question (like he did in his post #474/ answer #2), to steer the focus into a safe direction.
As I said, he won't volunteer, and won't commit if he can avoided. A good example is post #474/ answer #3 - he did not partake in the discussion about the N1 NK, not even to add his voice to the "I was surprised GammaEmerald/JMich was the NK" ones, which he only said during my questioning him, and I had to drag out of him that he had thought about it; I was pretty certain that he did, and wanted to see how he'd reply.
And it took an open confrontation with adaliabooks for trentonlf to bring up the argument about drealmer7 being different in the Smurf game where he was actually scum, an argument made prior by Lifthrasil.
That thing with the "get more discussion out of everyone", then hardly partake in said discussion? When he's town, he's focused on actual scum hunting, thus any questions he asks are within that context, and not just try to find subjects of discussion to prevent the game from stagnating.
As for Lifthrasil's reasoning of he'd expect him to be more active and steering others more, I disagree; scum-trentonlf's activity is of the necessary level to not raise suspicions, and he's not steering or confrontational, unless it's safe to do so.
Prime example is his latest clash with adaliabooks whom he finds scummy, and protests against adaliabooks arguments/accusations. Putting aside the fact that his lengthy counter-arguments in his posts #497 and #501 are pretty much a repetition of 3-4 points (a couple of which I'd give him as facts, even from my PoV), what stands out to me are two things:
1. For someone finding adaliabooks scummy, I see very little to no offence in his rebuttal, and a lot of defence. And not just any defence but:
2. The textbook "Convincingly appeal to emotion. Getting upset works better (than getting sad)" sort.
Since trentonlf town-reads me, I expect the sad sort of rebuttal from him, along with some shaking of his head.
I won't go into the level of detail adaliabooks went with his love story; my read of trentonlf is based on how he comes across overall from his play, and not in connection to another specific player.
I expect the question "Do you think he's scum-partners with drealmer7? If not, with whom?"
For now, I'm inclined to say that I don't see this scum-pair, in spite adaliabooks effort to support this case. I won't deny that trentonlf has not been going after drealmer7 as one may have expected of him. But here's the thing - drealmer7 is always an easy target. A hard push on him, makes whoever does it look bad when he flips town (still a good chance, imo). And scum do not want to be that someone, scum want town to mislynch their own and think they're going to hit scum.
I'm not ruling him out completely; as I said to Lifthrasil, trentonlf clears two players (three for the rest of you), and has a total of three possible partners, so shouldn't be too hard to figure things out Tomorrow.
Next question may be "What about RWarehall and your suspicion of him? They can't be scum together!".
True, they can't. But I keep coming back to
what I said at the end of D1 - "the scum-pair is a much much less apparent one, one that did a good enough job D1 to not raise suspicions to either one of them, let alone to them as a pair". The so far lynch-candidates do not fit with this, they've been, to varying degrees, too obvi-scum, and the way RWarehall resigned himself earlier today feels more town than scum. And before anyone jumps in, this does not equal town-play in my eyes, just that I'd expect RWarehall to be more... feisty as scum.
So, for me, it's trentonlf. And since this got pretty long-winded:
Vote trentonlf @gogtrial34987 - good enough for you?
<trentonlf - you know I love you, pal, but the thought of you kissing my arse is really not appealing to me. :-P>
