The Place in Which Confessionals Shall Periodically Occur

[alexismaxwell]

Ayy, so I know the game hasn't really started yet, but I figured I'd give y'all some sort of introduction, prior to the game being afoot. I've never really done that before, actually. I've played in three other ORGs aside from this one; a Big Brother ORG, and two Survivor ORGs. Won the Big Brother one, but I'm still looking to claim the title of Sole Survivor. I won Player of the Season and Strategist of the season in my others, though, so I suppose that's not too bad, either. I'm looking to change up my strategy a bit this time. During the other two games, I became a very big presence due to being very active, especially in regards to actually playing the game. This time, I'm going to try and restrain myself a bit, at least during the first half, and let other people make themselves targets while I sit under a tree somewhere eating coconuts. Of course, that's not to say I'm going to be AFK, either. I might even get carried away and end up becoming a big character once again, which is sort of likely. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve planned for this season already . . . and I'm pretty psyched to try 'em out!

[alexismaxwell]

Round 1 - Pre-Tribes

Alright, so I've just gotten on AIM about half an hour ago, and I can already see that there are two strong possibilities for the first half of this game:
A) A large, strong group of very active male-characters will dominate pre-merge, or . . .
B) A large, strong group of very active male-characters will be targeted each round pre-merge.

Let me explain -- so as soon as I got on, a couple of people in specific were absolutely dominating the ORGs group chat. Mike, Greg, Dave, and Erik. They seem to be absolutely hitting it off, joking around about dicks and such. Not that there's anything wrong with that, they're certainly entertaining, but a connection like that early on is dangerous as all hell, especially considering that four people accounts for 1/4 of the players this season.
Here's where it gets interesting . . . if they all end up on the same tribe together, then whoever isn't Mike, Greg, Dave, or Erik on that tribe are probably screwed. However, if they don't end up on the tribe together . . . the smart move would be take at least two of them out pre-merge. If all four of them make the merge, there's no doubt in my mind that they'll be working together, and you simply can't have that on your tribe going into a merge.

Mike was the first to shoot me a message 1on1 on AIM, and I'd imagine he's been doing that with a good amount of people so far. Creating those social bonds. Mike will likely be a dangerous player later on, so it'll be good to have him believe that he has me in his pocket. Right now I'm going to focus on creating a bond with him, if I can, so that if scenario A occurs, and I'm stuck on a tribe with those four, Mike may try to keep me around as long as possible.
Sean also messaged me, which was turned out to be a little awkward, considering the conversation lasted all of five minutes before he went offline. To each their own, though.

I'm trying to figure out how I want to approach these first couple of rounds. In real life, I'm kind of a socially awkward person, but I may actually play that up here, just so I seem a little more vulnerable, and a little more easier to manipulate. I mean, who doesn't want to create a F2 with the socially awkward guy? On the other hand, that could easily backfire on me, 'cause then maybe people vote me out early because they didn't enjoy communicating with me as much as somebody else. I think for now, I should just be myself and wait for the tribe divisions to be announced before trying to put any crazy strategies into effect, really. lol
One thing is for sure, though . . . I won't be outwardly targeting anyone until he lines in the sand are crystal clear.

Edit: Oh, there's 18 people playing! For some reason I kept thinking 16.

[alexismaxwell]

Round 1 - Post-Tribes

Letterman Tribe - Myself, Penner, Danielle, Malcolm, ?, and ?

Penner is trouble. He came to me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to be in an alliance with him. That's sketchy. Luckily, I think he may also be kind of an idiot(sorry Penner), because he most likely kind of exposed that he's done the same thing with Danielle. Anyway, I'm not an idiot, so of course I accept the offer, and we strategize a bit. He wants Malcolm gone BAD, supposedly because he feels that Malcolm has Danielle already. My assumption is that Penner doesn't like this because Penner wants Danielle. It's kind of silly, really, especially during the first friggen round, but I told him what I thought he wanted to hear.
This guy is going to be an absolute trainwreck, and I'm torn between going along with his plan of voting Malcolm off, or exposing it to Malcolm and Danielle. On one hand, having a guy like Penner around is good because he'll always be viewed as a larger target than me. On the other hand, a player like that is unpredictable, and tends to make bad moves just for the sake of making moves. Malcolm likely won't be much of a target, at least during the tribal stage, so having him around won't offer me very much protection, but I like him a little more as a player, just based on what I've seen so far.

Conversely, this could all be a plan to get MY ass voted off first! LOL -- think about it. What if Penner is just leading me to say all of these incriminating things just to turn around and show Danielle and Malcolm me saying them? Moreover, the three of them could have made an alliance last night, and this is all some sort of dumb loyalty test. I mean, I don't know, it's just all too good to be true so far. Penner's plan is to create a four-person alliance of himself, Danielle, Malcolm, and I, pull in the last two members of the tribe, and then flip on them. This makes me think that Danielle would be on the chopping block next, though, and Danielle seems to be vibing well with me so far. At this point in time, I'm leaning more toward just siding with Danielle and Malcolm, even if they have a Final Two or whatever. I mean, come on, it's the first friggen round. Somebody having a Final Two deal with another literally means nothing to me. The same could easily be said about Penner and I, or Mike and I. As of right now, I'm leaning toward flipping on Penner.

How to best do it, though, is the question. I don't want to bring the information to both Danielle AND Malcolm, because then I'll be subconsciously thought of as the third wheel. Conversely, I don't want to bring the information to the incorrect player, either, because if Penner DOES get the numbers, and the person I tell is an idiot, then RIP my game. For now, I'm definitely going to wait until we actually lose a challenge first before going down that rabbit hole. Ahh, the game is certainly afoot!

[PW Colleen]

Always gotta watch out for the Penners

[alexismaxwell]

Oh fuck, both the best and worst case scenarios just occurred! Penner shot me a message and told me that earlier today, Dolly had formed a majority alliance consisting of herself, Penner, Malcolm, and Danielle. I'm not sure how that occurred, considering Danielle hasn't been online since last night, but that doesn't really matter, if such an alliance is fanfiction or not. The point is, Penner wants to target Dolly now, which is fine by me, because Dolly isn't somebody I have a very good feel on. All I really know about her objectively is that she uses good grammar, and likes the same kind of women I do. Other than that, eh. I'm going to schmooze, though, because apparently she wants Taj out first, and I can't have that changing.

So, essentially on one hand, Malcolm is no longer Penner's target, but on the other hand, if I don't do as well as Taj during this first challenge and we lose, I'm probably screwed. Ick. I've never been in this position before. I have a plan, though, and that plan is to just remain as social as I possibly can. My key players are Penner, Malcolm, and Danielle. I need those three to like me, and I need those three to want to replace Dolly with me. Coming into this game, I wanted to be a something of a low-key player, but now that there are only three tribes instead of two, I may have actually hammered a few nails in my own coffin by being so reserved. There's nowhere to hide when your tribe's only got six people on it.

I'm still very suspicious of Penner. This is a stretch, but maybe he made up this supposed majority alliance and then told me about it so that I'd feel like he's 100% loyal to me, and so that I'd become 100% loyal to him in turn. Regardless, though, I need to make an alliance between Danielle, Malcolm, and I, and then maybe also Penner just so there's always a bigger target. I've been speaking with Dolly, but I really don't feel much of a connection with her at all, which is unfortunate. Taj spoke with me today, as well, and I actually felt like she'd be a good ally. I'm not sure I want to see her go first, either. Hmm . . .

[alexismaxwell]

Welp, I'm pretty sure I've figured out who Dolly is. This is awkward. She told me that she's 13, and I only know of two 13-year-olds who play these things, and one of those 13-year-olds happens to be obsessed with being viewed as mature. The other probably wouldn't try to form a majority alliance an hour into the game. Anyway, this gives me something of an advantage, because now I sort of know the perfect way to feed her ego -- tell her she's mature. I guess that's kind of unfair, but I can't really stop myself from realizing who people are, so eh. And besides, I'm no hero. I've always been a villain. Why change now? Unfair advantage, let's gooo!

I wonder if anybody has figured out who I am yet?

(Also, do y'all dig the fluorescent pink colour? Ah yeaaahhh )

[Host Kenny]

If you couldn't tell. Fluorescent pink is my jam.

[alexismaxwell]

Man, this round just keeps getting crazier! I love it. Malcolm agreed to be in an alliance with myself, Penner, and funny enough, Taj. Our supposed goal is to vote Dolly out if we lose the challenge. I'm not completely sure if Malcolm is truly on board, mostly because Danielle is not part of this plan, but as long as I'm not the one pushing for shit to happen, then I should be fine no matter what happens. If Dolly doesn't go, then Penner will, most likely. My goal is to continue to make sure I'm in everyone's good graces, in case Penner gets himself voted off prematurely. I have an actual reason (read:excuse) to be on board with targeting Dolly now, which is good. She's having a lot of trouble understanding how this challenge works, when to post, how to post, etc, even after I gave her a spreadsheet showing her when to post and everything. I honestly can't tell if it's an act or not . . .

I'm going to be off of AIM for a good chunk of tomorrow, so knowing I'm sort of set up well no matter how things go after the challenge is comforting. Meanwhile, I've been planting seeds about Mike, Greg, Erik, and Dave. It seems to be working, too, 'cause I just saw it brought up in our tribe chat by Penner. Huehuehue.

Losing this challenge really wouldn't be so bad, in all honesty. I anticipate a tribe swap of sorts after a couple rounds where three becomes two. If we have lower numbers in that scenario, we're most likely going to be used as swing votes, which is a great position to be in pre-merge, as long as you know how to do it correctly. I won't be intentionally throwing it, of course, but I wouldn't mind losing this one.

[alexismaxwell]

Round 1 - Post-Challenge

Alexis is Back. . . exis . . . fuck, nevermind. Anyway, so I haven't been able to play the game the past day and a bit, aside from posting on the challenge forum and such, and I come back, and shit's going down AGAIN. It's great!

Somebody has the idol. Penner thinks it's Malcolm. I think it's Penner. It's just too convenient. He says that Eliza showed him how to get the password to the Rice Box, and when he went in, the idol was gone, instead being replaced by an edited post containing only rice. I confirmed this myself after he gave me the password. The accusation is that only somebody else with a strong social game could have gotten the password, which narrowed it down to Malcolm or I. What's to say, though, that Penner didn't just take the idol for himself and then now is simply pinning the lack of idol on Malcolm? He'd already wanted Malcolm out before, so it's not much of a stretch to assume that he'd try and build a case against him with whatever he can until the oppurtunity comes.

Unfortunately for Malcolm, Penner having the idol is irrelevant to me because I'm in good with Penner right now, as far as I know. If Malcolm has the idol, then of course having Penner going around planting seeds is beneficial to me. If Malcolm doesn't have it, then those seeds will just make Malcolm a target, which is also beneficial to me.
What IS relevant, though, is that Penner messed up a bit by indirectly exposing to me that he has an alliance with Eliza. Who else is this guy aligned with? He may be a big target later on, sure, but if he's got all of these alliances separate from each other, going deep with him may not put me in as good of a position as I'd previously thought. On the other hand, Russell Hantz made a craptonne of alliances at the beginning of Samoa, too. Could I pull a Natalie this season? Or at least, ride Penner's overplaying up until mid-jury? Hmm. I wonder if I'm really the only one thinking that . . .

[alexismaxwell]

Round 2 - Pre-Challenge

Ayy, Eliza bites the dust! I guess I won't have to worry about Penner working with her on the side anymore. Another threat has emerged, though, and that's Malcolm. Penner no longer wants Malcolm to go, and has told me that he's Penner's second-closest ally now. I'm not sure I like that, because telling me he's the "second-closest ally" seems rather targeted(?) to say. It's all not too bad, though, because now I have that information to use later on if I need to make somebody else look like Penner's other half. Apparently Penner has been arguing a lot with Danielle lately, mostly due to him mentioning her inactivity in the group chat this morning and last night. We're most likely going to Tribal Council tonight, so the move this round seems to be to vote Danielle out instead of Dolly. Penner is pushing for that, and it doesn't really matter to me who goes out of the two. My own reasoning would simply be that Danielle seems to be really inactive, which Penner would get all of the fallback for after she goes.

Taj messaged me last night saying that she wanted to discuss the game with me, which got my interest. We're in a majority alliance together, but I think she may have something else in mind moving forward. I haven't had a chance to follow up with her yet, though, because she's relatively inactive . . .

Dolly communicates about as well as you'd expect a 13-year-old to communicate, but at least she's fairly active. I know who her targets are on the other tribes, so it would benefit me to keep her around during a tribe swap.

Malcolm literally talks ZERO game with me. Unless Penner has been lying about talking game with Malcolm, in which case Malcolm is a horrible player. We do talk about Big Brother, though, so that's what I'm using to try and build my relationship with him. We're hardly on at the same time, though, so it's tough.

Danielle is a meh conversationalist. She tries to really walk the line verbally with me, which makes her come off as a bit bland in my opinion. For example, she told me she doesn't like the term "lel", but then followed up by saying that "I can laugh however I'd like, though". It's sort of like I'm talking to a politician during election season. She doesn't want to piss anybody off. Unless you've got an alliance with her, of course. Lel.

I've submitted my challenge thing already, so I think for the rest of this half of the round, I'm going to try and speak with Mike. I plan on telling him that I haven't been able to make any good connections on my tribe yet, mostly in hopes of if his tribe wins and they're supposed to give something to a player from each losing tribe, he may try and sway them to give it to me. Free immunity is always nice to have.
If not, at least he may expect me to flip later on, so it'll be great to have that path available, should I feel like it'll give me a better chance of getting to the end over sticking with my original tribe. Flippers. Sometimes. Win.

[alexismaxwell]

Round 2 - Post-Challenge

We lost the challenge!    I'm not upset at all, really. I never expected to win, and I didn't really want to. I need to see where my ally's true loyalties lay before I can really start playing the game, and that's what I'm going to find out after this round is over. Malcolm is very reluctant to vote Danielle out before Dolly, even after Penner and I ganged up on him with reasons to vote Danielle first. That's suspicious behaviour, and I'm not completely sure Penner is as worried as he should be about it.

Penner's latest play is to continually bring up that he formed this new alliance in order to save me, which I find kind of ridiculous. They'd have to literally be a tribe of idiots to vote me off instead of an inactive Malcolm, an unpredictable Dolly, and an overly-aggressive Penner. They'd have come to me eventually with new plans. Still, the fact that he's willing to do that shows me that he truly does want to work with me for a while, assuming he sticks with this new alliance and not the other one.

*I actually just finished conversing with Danielle. Like I predicted above, she wants to team up with me and blindside Penner next round. I feel a little bad about voting her off, especially after telling her that I'd look out for her, but I have no choice, really. Voting Penner off before merge would be incredibly bad for my game. He's not exactly helping the situation either, though, what with trying to control the tribe. I sympathize, though -- I filled that role in my last ORG, and somebody does have to be the bossy one who micromanages the tribe. Problem is, it puts a target on your back. Which is good for me. Unless he gets himself voted out. That's not so good for me. Blech.

So, I told Penner about Danielle hinting at blindsiding him next round. Mostly to build trust, but also to make sure there's a divide between the two of them, just as extra insurance. I've also told him to be quiet about it, so that she continues giving me information. He ate it up, and so far, it doesn't look like he's repeated it to anyone. If it comes down to it, though, I could probably pull off just saying that he bullied me into giving him that info or something. I'd look weak, but I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to save my ass if he turns on me.

Taj still hasn't been online today, which is starting to worry me. If she penalty votes, we all may have to put our votes on her after all, which isn't great for me no matter how next round shakes out. Ugh, I had a plan and everything, but Taj actually being here tonight was a BIG part of it . . . god dammit. I say it every season .  . . I hate inactives.

[alexismaxwell]

God dammit -- so Taj never showed up, and now I'm forced to vote her ass out. On one hand, that alliance of Danielle, Penner, Malcolm, and Dolly still existing is not so good for my game, but on the other hand, having an inactive on the tribe is arguably even worse, so . . . bye Taj.

Penner claims that he's set up a F8 for us consisting of myself, himself, Malcolm, Dave, Sean, Erik, Mike, and Greg. I'm not sure how much stock I want to put into this F8 when there are still 17 of us here, but it's nice to have that option if we're all still around at merge, anyway. I have to set up a contingency plan, though, in case Penner is just being an idiot. I think I'll propose an alliance between Dolly, Danielle, and I, just to make sure I'm safe going into this new round, and when we swap tribe. That seems to be where the game is heading, anyway. I would love to actually work with them down the road, but they're rarely online as it is. Inactive allies are no fun. I need someone to actually bounce ideas off of, not a solid brick wall.

Apparently we're supposed to pick tribe captains for a challenge tomorrow, so I think I may push for Penner. The more his ego is fed, the happier he is. On the other hand, I feel like this could be a golden opportunity to create a new target. Could I get Penner on board with making Malcolm the captain? I know it'd be an easy decision for Danielle and Dolly. I guess it'll all depend on who can be on at 8, though, since that's part of it. INB4 three-way Battleshit.

[alexismaxwell]

Lol'd at Battleshit. Not even fixing it.

[alexismaxwell]

Round 3 - Pre-Challenge

Okay, so I'm pretty sleep deprived, but I've also got nothing to do at the moment, so I thought I'd outline my current plan for this round. This plan was formulated within the mind of a zombie, though, so.

Basically, I need to make sure I'm the swing vote if we go to Tribal again. I don't trust that Malcolm is truly on Penner's side 100%, and so the way I see it, either him or I will be the swing vote. My plan, should we lose, is to tell Danielle that Penner told me about her big alliance, and that he's trying to blindside her this round. I'll ask which numbers she thinks she has, to which she'll obviously reply with Dolly, and maybe Malcolm. I'll tell her to just make sure she and Dolly write down Penner's name, and I'll do the same. The only risk here is that she's a terrible player and blabs to Malcolm or Penner. Perhaps I could just take the honest approach and let Penner know that I'm simply leading them on?

My issue is that Malcolm may be loyal to Danielle, and Malcolm voting with us is essential to this round working out in my favor. Out of Danielle, Penner, and I, I believe I'm probably the one he's least closest with, in which case I could be in trouble if he flips. The best play for him would be to give his idol(supposing he has it) to Danielle, vote with Penner and I, have Danielle play the idol, and then I get the second most votes from Danielle and Dolly. The worst part is, I can't even manipulate Malcolm into voting with us for sure, because the guy is literally never online! Ugh. This game is not going well so far.

So, I pretty much need to do whatever I can to make Danielle think that I'm with her and not Penner. I need to give her information. A decent amount of it. Essentially, I need to make sure the idol isn't played. Kind of hard, though, BECAUSE SHE IS ALSO RARELY ONLINE. Fucking Inactives, man, I swear.

[alexismaxwell]

Round 3 - Post-Challenge, New Tribes!

My new tribe is awesome! I mean, they're kind of idiots, but at least they're active idiots! So far, anyway. We lost the challenge, and so as far as I know, Ami is pretty much gone. We're supposedly putting an extra vote on Greg, too, just in case she plays an idol. I'm not so sure I believe that. Would it not make much more sense for them to put the extra vote on me? Penner is my only real ally on this new tribe, and it seems like he's made sure literally everybody on this tribe knows we're working together. If they have the same ideas about Penner that I do, it'd make way more sense for them to sacrifice me instead of Greg. I've only just begun to know these people, though, so that's just my two cents as of now. For all I know, Greg could be a right cunt, and I wouldn't even know it yet.

When the challenge began, I immediately suggested that we use a CPU in order to predict which moves would be best. Nobody was having it. They wanted to do the challenge themselves, and I let them. I can't risk putting myself in a position of leadership this early in the game. I don't have any allegiance to Amy, either, and so seeing her go will be irrelevant to my game. I only learned about the extra vote plan after we lost, though, and I'm a little paranoid. Greg isn't part of the F6 deal Penner told me about a few days ago, so that makes me a little more comfortable, and everyone seems to be striking up conversation with me as usual, so I'm not sure I should be as worried as I am. On the other hand, though, it did seem a bit like they were throwing it.

Ah well, I just need to keep up with my social game, and then I should be relatively safe for now. As long as I survive this round, Malcolm SHOULD be targeted before me, just because he's not on as much, and so his social game is likely lacking.