Confessionals

[mattywhitmore]

This is the thread in which I will post confessionals, I suppose.

[mattywhitmore]

Okay, so I guess this is my first confessional, then. The game is afoot, as Tarzan would say, or our very own Max Dawson. Let's get it.


So, within the first hour or so of meeting everyone, I'm messaged privately by Sarah. Now, any other player might think "Oh, alright, she likes me, and now we're going to be best friends forever," but I think it'd be dumb to assume she hasn't also approached a good amount of people aside from me. The same thing occurred again when I was messaged privately by Eddie. I think both of these players are playing the game hard from the beginning, which gives me a humongous advantage in the game . . . because now I wasn't the first to approach them! This means that they're relatively disarmed. They've put themselves in a position to think that they're the ones playing me, which means they aren't expecting me to play them. Seeds should be much easier to plant now with Sarah and Eddie. For now, though, I'm just going to focus on befriending them. They've both played in multiple ORGs, and this is my first Survivor ORG, so I'm going to use that to further make myself seem even more vulnerable to manipulation. The more people think they can control me, the more they'll want to keep me around. Think along the lines of Sophie Clarke with Coach.

In other news, I'm super happy with my tribe! We're calling ourselves the Vaginas. The other tribe is the Toenails. We plan on having them clip each other one by one. I think
I can see myself in an alliance with Danielle, though I'm sure that's a byproduct of the great social game she's been playing so far. Of course, Sarah and Eddie are also on my tribe, and so I'll try to work with them as much as I can. I don't think I've even seen Abi-Maria yet, which isn't a good sign for her. Same with Jay and Stephen, really. As of this minute, I think one of those three will be the first to go from our tribe, unless somebody else royally fucks up before then.

This is the funniest thing, though -- there are people in this game who are already shooting themselves in the foot. You have Chase, whose been bragging about how he does fantastic in school without studying. You have Max, who continuously quotes past seasons of Survivor and shit. You have . . . well, I could probably go on for a while with that, so I'll hold back for now. The downside so far is that it's hard for me to relate all that well with the other players. So far they've been talking about Frozen, High School Musical, Orange is the New Black, and I'm not into any of these things. Even worse, some of their favourite players from last season include the likes of Shirin and Jenn! I mean, those were probably my two least favourite! I don't get it.  I sort of feel as though I'm playing with a bunch of sixteen-year-old girls. It'll be tough to continue fitting in, especially if it continues on throughout the season. At some point, I may snap and set fire to the shelter. I may hide the machete. I may USE the machete. I may throw a coconut at one of the hosts. You never know. I'll try to hold on to my sanity, though, for the time being.

[mattywhitmore]

June 18th:

RIP Toenails. They might have stood a chance if both Max and Bobby Jon hadn't thrown their spears ten minutes into the game. I'd imagine that it really came down to which tribe communicated better, and from what I saw, our tribe communicated and worked better together than I would have guessed. The weak link was very obviously Stephen, only popping in every twenty minutes or so to ask which castaway to throw his rock at. The other tribe targeted me first, which is both a curse, as well as a blessing. On one hand, if a tribe swap happened tomorrow, it's almost guaranteed that they're voting for me. On the other hand, however, every smart player on my tribe should want to take me as far as they can, because they'd know that I'm going to be targeted before them. 

The tribe itself performed way beyond my expectations in the Immunity Challenge. It was a slaughter. During the challenge, I helped a lot with creating a strategy, and then after I went out, I became our official tabulator. I'm being thanked for "taking the lead", which means that they view me as the leader of the tribe or some shit now. I'm not an idiot, though. I completely understand that one or two of them is pushing for me to take that leadership position, so that if we mess up down the line, they can blame it on me. The thing is, though -- down the line, should I have to jump shit . . . the less strategic players are going to have me up on some sort of pedestal, making them more likely to go along with me over others. I mean, as long as they like me. Think along the lines of Rob Cesternino in The Amazon.

Oh, and I suppose I haven't even mentioned what "The Ship" is yet. Well, this evening I decided that it was time I start to think about alliances. I brought it up to Sarah, and we both agreed that Eddie and Danielle were who we wanted to team up with in order to create a strong four. I approached Danielle and pitched it to her, and she was all for it. Even better, she mentioned wanting Sarah and Eddie as our other two without me having to even bring it up. I'm still in shock how smoothly it all went down, however I don't think I need to be suspicious of anything just yet.
Anyway, I'm now in a four-way alliance with my number one, Sarah, my number two, Danielle, and my number three, Eddie. If I can get Danielle to see me as her number one, as well as Sarah, then I'll be set. 

The common consensus on the tribe seems to be that Stephen is the first boot. He rarely says anything in our tribe chat, and during the challenge, he was basically irrelevant with his rock throwing. I feel bad for him, because he does seem like a nice guy, but you need to be as helpful as you can during the tribal stage of the game if you want to stick around. In the end, though, it works out for the alliance, because once Stephen goes, our four will be the majority. Outside of the alliance, I like Darrah. She seems to think strategically, and I respect that. I may consider creating something of a side-alliance with her in the future, but nothing explicit. For now, while the other tribe votes one of their teammates out, I'm going to continue building my relationships with my own. 

[mattywhitmore]

June 19/20:

Holy crap, out of all the Toenails, Chase is probably the last one I expected to be clipped! This raises a lot of questions. Did Max find and use the idol? Were we wrong about Max? Is Max in the power alliance over there? It's strange, for sure -- Chase seemed to be a very active member of their tribe, so I can't see why they'd vote him off first. Maybe he just fucked up and everybody  didn't want to play with him any more? Perhaps I was right, and the humble-bragging finally got to them. All I know for sure is that they voted off a competition threat, and I'm happy about it.

Unfortunately, everything wasn't all roses and daises over on our tribe, either. Tonight, Stephen popped up in the tribe chat and threw Eddie under the bus HARD. He claimed that Eddie had been sharing "tribe secrets" with Sierra. Things such as how we'll probably vote Stephen out at our first Tribal Council. Amusingly, it came back to bite him in the ass, because the other tribe took the information and leaked it right back to Stephen, along with Eddie's name, all wrapped up in a bow. It's kind of hilarious, really. I doubt Eddie is going to be trying to play both tribes for a little while after that.
Still, the fact remains that Eddie was attempting to create connections with the other tribe, and I can't have that, as much as I respect it as a player. It wasn't long before Eddie admitted it to the tribe, and I hopped on the chance to message him privately in order to create a stronger bond within the game. I helped sweep it under the rug, and by doing so, hopefully made Eddie think of me as his #1. As long as he hasn't told anyone about our alliance of four, I should be able to work with him fine enough for a couple more rounds. 
That's not enough, though, and so I've got another contingency plan, should we need to take Eddie out before the merge. Sarah mentioned to me that Abi offered her a final two, and that she wants to create a four-way alliance with, you guessed it, myself and Danielle. So, we now control Abi, which will be invaluable down the line, should we need numbers that don't include Eddie. 

At the moment, Stephen is as good as gone if we don't win immunity. Even if Eddie is leaking information, he's been way more active than Stephen has, especially during the challenge. Now isn't the time to pick off strong players. We need as much of an advantage during the challenges as we can get. Stephen has made it very obvious that he's the weakest player on our tribe, and so he's just going to have to go.

[mattywhitmore]

Challenge Screenshot:

i.imgur.com/zeVtzmy.jpg

[mattywhitmore]

June 21:

Welp, I may have dun goofed. We began our second immunity challenge, and I, for some reason, took it upon myself to do the "Hard Jigsaw Puzzle". It was a stupid decision, and I regret it. Should have claimed to be colourblind. At least then I'd have a good reason to just do the word-search or some shit. I did horribly, I think. The puzzles I'd been practicing were nothing like the one I was given. It sucks, but this again presents me with an advantage if I play it off right. See, ever since the last challenge, I think people might be thinking of me as a very strong player in challenges, what with my strategy and such. Being shit in this challenge might help to offset that. I'd prefer not to be viewed as a competition threat by my tribe for as long as possible.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Sarah, who did amazingly in this challenge. I have a feeling that's going to come back to bite her later on in the game, which is good for me, because now there's actually a legitimate reason for others to vote her out after the merge. She's still my number one, of course, but I need to be prepared to take her out if (and when) it becomes necessary. 

[mattywhitmore]

Danielle is an idiot.
Okay, maybe not an idiot, but she made an idiotic decision, in some ways much worse than my own in the challenge. Let me set it up here . . . so, apparently Toenail decided to give the second idol clue to Danielle. At this point, their intentions were pretty clear to me, but I refrained from saying anything because them painting a target on her back might be a good thing, given that it might be between myself and Stephen tonight. Here's the kicker, though: They supposedly told her that they'd give the idol clue to her on the condition that she told them what it said. She said yes . . . and then proceeded to actually go through with it. Ugh. If it were me, I wouldn't have told them shit. I may have even made up a lie. Why shouldn't I? If Danielle felt secure in her (now multiple) alliances, what's making her feel so uncomfortable? Strike 1.
Now they can easily guess, check if their answers were correct, and then tell Stephen their results, which not only means that Stephen probably has the second clue, but also a handful of contestants who are incorrect. Second Ugh.

I'm suddenly feeling a lot less safe. Not so much in regards to Stephen himself, but rather what everyone else is going to do in reaction of Stephen possibly getting the idol. Would he vote for me? Would he vote for Danielle? Eddie? Sarah? Something tells me he'll go for me, which makes complete sense in his position. He doesn't read the tribe chat, so all he's seen of me this round is how shitty I did on the puzzle. Third Ugh. I hate inactive players with a passion. Seems like my allies feel the same way, because all of a sudden they don't want to split the votes. All of a sudden it's "too early". I have a feeling they wouldn't be saying that shit if they knew it was their asses on the line, and I'd have split the votes to make sure aforementioned asses stayed on the tribe. I'm willing to do that for me, but they're not willing to do that for me. Strike 2.

So, I'm now forced to consider voting for somebody else so that if Stephen DOES play the idol, I might not be the one to go. My options seem to be Danielle or Eddie because they've both sketched out the tribe to the point where it might not be so far-fetched that they get a vote or two at Tribal. I'm still unsure if I'm going to pull this move or not. There are a lot of risks . . . but it'd suck ass if I went out because of a badly designed puzzle website. The chances of Stephen actually getting the idol are low, I know, but I don't like them nonetheless. Danielle just shouldn't have been an idiot and given the other tribe the second clue in the first place.

Maybe I go to Stephen and propose that we work together? At the very least, he'll be less likely to write my name down if he thinks I'm working with him. I'm technically not supposed to know that the other tribe got the second clue as well, so it hopefully wouldn't seem like I'm only doing it so he won't try to get me out at Tribal, which I totally am. This is risky, too, but nowhere near as risky as my other plans so far. Might be worth considering.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention my new alliance! With Danielle . . . and Sarah . . . fuck. But, at least Darrah is in it, too! I mean, that's cool, I guess. I'm sort of uncomfortable being in so many alliances, but what am I going to do, say no? So now that alliance exists. Woohoo, go team.

Obviously I'm not going to express my feelings to the tribe, or to anyone in my alliance. That'd be idiotic while I'm already in danger of going. I don't need my tribe thinking (or knowing?) that I'm going bananas over here. I'm just going to continue conveying the same image as usual, keeping my frustration and sheer annoyance at these people tucked safely in the back of my buff. I'm not going to sit here and do nothing, though. A move will be made very soon . . . especially soon if the third strike is achieved before the end of the night.

[mattywhitmore]

June 22:

Yay, so I didn't get blindsided! In fact, Stephen seems to have voted for Eddie instead of me. Strange. I definitely didn't see that coming, and it just shows me that I need to chill the fuck out. I'm a little like John Cochran in that way, where if I feel like I'm in danger, I start freaking out and shit. I'm pretty glad that I never pushed the issue. I've gotta remain Cool, Calm, and Collective. In the end, I did decide to vote for Stephen. I realized that it wasn't worth the extra safety in exchange for alienating myself from my allies. I had a plan to converse with Stephen, but he never came online, so that didn't work out. I'm still shocked that he chose to vote for Eddie over me, especially after I practically shit on him at Tribal Council. With all that said, I still trust in my alliances a lot less, and when the time comes, I'll very likely flip on the majority of them. I look forward to this becoming an individual game, because that's where I seem to thrive. I've only played two other ORGs prior to this one, and I won the second unanimously. Hopefully I can keep my paranoia in check until the merge so that I get a chance to REALLY play.

Anyway, as for this new round, I plan on just taking a seat in the back of the car and letting other people drive. After my shitty performance in the challenge last week, I can't risk fucking up again this week, so I'll let somebody else fuck up. Luckily my birthday is tomorrow, so I have a decent reason to not perform 100% in the challenge, so people probably aren't expecting too much from me this round, anyway. If we end up losing, I could see Jay being in trouble, because he's the only one (to my knowledge) that Danielle, Sarah, and I don't have an alliance with as of yet. Plus he's probably the least active on the tribe right now. I do hope we win the challenge, though, because Jay is still a decent competitor, and I don't think he'll be so quick to flip on the tribe in a swap. So long as everyone shuts up about who's on the bottom this time around, anyway.

[mattywhitmore]

June 23

My god, I cannot wait for the merge. I'm not even religious, and yet I'm here praying for the merge more and more each day. I'm surrounded by idiots. Okay, again, they're probably not actually idiots, but they make such stupid decisions, is all. The Immunity Challenge is a creative task where we've got to put together a little comic involving the tribe. They're disorganized as all hell. They want to keep the comic in the context of Survivor, and yet the story line doesn't fall into the context of Survivor. It's frustrating, because it doesn't raise my confidence at all in regards to winning this challenge. I'm a writer. I know how to throw together a half-decent story. Here's the thing, they want to do a Scooby Doo-esque comic strip, which is a great idea, really. The faults are in the details. They want Stephen to be the villain disguised as Vahiné, which means "Polynesian Woman". In what universe are they living in where Scooby Doo monsters are just cross-dressers? Then they want Stephen to be an ex-worker at a Rice Factory, where he's back to take vengeance on those who laid him off. Not such a bad idea, either, however . . . it doesn't fit into the context of Survivor at all, which is what they wanted. The worst part is that I can't TELL them their ideas suck. It's absolute torture. I'll just sit back and keep my mouth shut, though. I said at the beginning of this round that I'll let somebody else fuck up on the challenge, so I'm not going to push the issue whatsoever. Sarah is creating the actual comic, because she took a class in Photoshop last year. What nobody knows is that I've taken three classes in graphic design and even considered majoring in it at one point. I've thought about revealing that to them, but I think I'm just going to stick to writing a synopsis based on exactly what they tell me, and then my job will be done. They really can't say I didn't try, either. They wouldn't listen to my ideas. At this point, I'm just hoping the other tribe's comic sucks more. lol

(Can you tell I don't work too well with people?)

[mattywhitmore]

We lost the challenge, and I totally called it! It's ridiculous. I did the best I could in regards to the synopsis (considering what little they gave me . . .), and that seemed to be the judges' favourite part of our submission. Regardless, the bare essentials of the story barely worked within the context of Survivor, and it translated poorly to a short comic strip. I knew this, but what am I going to do? Tell them that all their ideas sucked? I knew the strip wouldn't be so great, so I figured I'd try to sway them a bit with a well written synopsis. The other tribe didn't even write a synopsis, and we still managed to lose. Ugh. Ah well. It's not like I didn't see it coming this time around. I know that Sarah and I put in a good amount of effort to make something half-decent, but it looks like with the rest of the tribe only BARELY participating, it simply wasn't enough.

Regardless, I should be safe at tribal council tonight. I feel a lot more safer than last the time so far, anyway. The talk of the town is that it's Jay or Eddie. The former because he's probably the least active on the tribe, and the latter because I guess people are still a little sketched out by his wheeling and dealing with the other tribe. Me, I don't really care -- if I'm his right-hand man, whatever puts him in a better position puts me in a better position. Jay is the only one left on the tribe that I'm not in an alliance with right now, so that's probably where my vote is going. I think it'd be kind of neat if Eddie got blindsided, though . . . just as long as I'm not blindsided right along with him! I wonder if he'll suddenly think splitting the votes is a stupendous idea after Stephen wrote his name down the last time . . . Hehehe

[mattywhitmore]

June 25:

What the fuckshitcuntdick, we've merged after three rounds . . . well, there goes all the plans I had for this ORG. We're down in numbers, and I'm probably gone now if I don't win the individual immunity. Fantastic. The last challenge was bullshit because the other tribe didn't even write a synopsis for their challenge, so they shouldn't have even won in the first place. Mehhhh. I doubt the "judges" even bothered to read either synopsis. One of them asked "Is this based off of Scooby Doo?" Like, really? The title literally reads "Matty Doo".
At this point, I don't even care enough to try to pull anything off. Sure, I could flip, but what's the point? They'll just pick me off within the next three rounds, anyway, once they have the majority without me. If we go back into tribes after this round, then my allies won't trust me anymore. I think I've gone from being in one of the best spots to one of the worst, and my jimmies have been sufficiently rustled. 

For now, all I'm going to do is try to win the next immunity challenge, and if not, make myself look like less of a target by going relatively inactive. If I go out now, at least it won't be my fault.

[Host Chelsea]

I read each one to the judges on skype before they judged.

[mattywhitmore]

Jun 26, 2015 3:29:47 GMT Host Chelsea said:

I read each one to the judges on skype before they judged.

Honestly, that's even worse.

[mattywhitmore]

June 26: Part 1,

Alright, so I've basically done the exact opposite of what I said I was going to do so far since the merge. My jimmies have finally settled, and so I was able to think with a calmer state of mind. Cool, calm, and collective, right? My goal is the same now as it was during the first round. I'm going to converse with people and hopefully convey an image of friendliness, but also slight stupidity. I want them to see me as a potential ally just waiting to be manipulated. If nothing else, at least they might vote somebody off before me if I'm fun to converse with. 

. . .  and as it would turn out, it may have worked! Pete and I have been talking for a while tonight, and then a little later, Eddie messaged me. He told me that he'd been talking with Pete prior to the merge, and apparently Pete has mentioned that he may be willing to vote with the Vahiné tribe. Of course, we have to make him feel as though he's not on the bottom, so I told Eddie to offer him a F3 deal with me, Eddie, and himself. It'll be good to have an ally from the other tribe working with the two of us secretly, especially down the road when Vahiné starts turning on each other. I hope I'm around for that, and so I hope this deal with Pete works out. The perks of being Eddie's right hand man, eh? Well, hopefully, anyway.

Sure, maybe it's a trick, but I'm willing to go with just about anything at this point. I kind of have to. It definitely beats just sitting around with my fingers crossed. I've also made sure to mention to Alexis that I thought I was in danger of being voted off of Vahiné because of my shitty puzzle score. I'm hoping that she'll spread that to her allies, and then maybe that'll buy me some more time in the game, if they don't perceive me as as big of a challenge threat. Guess we'll see what the tribe dynamic ends up looking like is after the next challenge. 

[mattywhitmore]

June 26: Part 2

So, it doesn't look like the deal worked out between Eddie, Pete, and I. Eddie told me that Pete wanted to bring in Max as a fourth, and I guess Eddie got all weird about it. He should have just told Eddie whatever he wanted to hear. I mean, literally whatever they wanted to hear. His responses should have been variations of "Of course!" and "I wouldn't have it any other way!". We only really needed their trust for the next vote or two, anyway. Ah well. I don't like Max all that much, anyway, so maybe it's better I don't have something going with him. 

My strategy for Tribal is to just make them think Sarah and/or Eddie are bigger threats than me. It seems that Tané will be sticking together for this vote, and so I need to just make sure my name isn't the one being written down first. I'm going to spread some paranoia about the merged tribe going back into two separate tribes. That way, they'll want to take off a big challenge threat and now somebody who is terrible at puzzles. That's assuming they're not morons, anyway. Or maybe it'd only work if they are, in fact, morons. Hard to say. My strategy is only really based on that these people are Survivor fans, and so they should understand certain facets of the game well enough to be predictable. 

With all that said, I wouldn't exactly be shocked if I got voted out. I mean, maybe they think I'm a strategic threat or something, get spooked, and then write my name down. I can see that happening. I'm sure we're all very paranoid at this point, though, so there's really no sense in getting worked up over things I can't do anything about. I don't feel in danger enough to where I'm compelled to start making deals myself. I'd probably just end up making myself a bigger target. That said, a part of me kind of wants to see if I can flip this on Tané within 24 hours. Hmmmmmm.