Penner's Dissertation - Round 1

[Jonathan Penner]

To start off, I would like to thank the host for casting me. When I saw the purple board and looked back at your first season and the graphics, I felt like I needed to be in this game. I have been out for about 4 months and hadn't really been into joining any games, thought I was done, yet here I am; congrats!


Just a note to all who is reading:
I am aiming to play a different style than I'm used to. This is going to be experimental, but I definitely hope to entertain in personality, gameplay, and confessionals. I appreciate interaction, so feel free to like/comment whenever you want -- it makes me feel good.


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Well, coming into this game, I didn't have a set way I really wanted to play. I had a direction, but my moves will be calculated based on who I'm playing with. The game got off a bit slow, but I made sure to be present on the boards and interact a bit while we waited for people to check in. I would sarcastically take a dig at someone in a way that was obviously playful and then follow up with that person with a PM that was me making sure they knew I was joking. The two people I did this to were Coach and Rich in hopes I could start up some sort of conversation that appeared very innocent and not like I was PMing everyone.


When we got to the tribe division, I was elated to see that it was guys versus girls. I don't know why it made it fun, but I've never competed in a game that did this, so it's new. Also, the fact that this meant both Coach and Rich, two people I had been in contact with, were on my tribe made it that much better. Once tribes were designated, of course people started flooding online as they posted their aims. I took this time to try and contact as many people as I could. I was out when tribes were made, but as soon as I got home, I made sure to get chatting with as many people as I could.


So let's talk about my tribe thus far:



Carter is very much like his character in terms of terminology. I like the guy and he is active which is always a plus. For some reason though, I don't feel like he would be someone I could put my trust into during the course of the game. I'm hoping that will change, but for now, he is someone I'm going to keep a close eye on. The fact he likely knows Rudy is also a turn off for me because that could be an easy pair on our tribe that I don't want to have to combat. More on that later.



Coach is interesting because he doesn't replicate Coach whatsoever. I am used to anyone who plays as Coach to be someone who talks very oddly and philosophically and he doesn't do either of those things. He says he knows how to get in Coach mode and I'm hoping he does because I'll be very let down otherwise. I think he is someone I could work with in the future, but definitely more on him later.



He was the latecomer and, although he left me frustrated because of it, I'm not going to count him out as a possible ally in the future though I initially wanted to. I got to chat with him for the first time this morning and I have to say that I was surprised. Usually people who play Ethan are dicks, but this guy just likes them. On top of that, he held a conversation well and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. I like him, but I'm not sure how great of an ally he could be since no one else seems to have talked to him much yet.


Frosti is one of the people I enjoy the most. Him and I made a sort of pact the night of tribes and him and I are looking to work this tribe and go far together. It's always hard to put your faith in someone and make an alliance so early, but there are other people that it just feels right even so early and he is one of them. I didn't think he would be a close ally at first, but it quickly shifted after we talked more and more. It kind of happened really fast that it was a little unnerving, I have to admit. Like maybe I'm not the only one he is attempting this with, but for now he is one of my only deals and I'll learn to trust it more as time goes by and more experiences unfold. Right now, I'm riding the Frosti train.



I like Jon a ton! Our first conversation flowed really well and they have only continued to be better. He is a newbie to these games supposedly and he seems to be figuring everything out which is fun for me. Just tonight, Jon and I made an alliance called Jon Squared aka J2. You know when you make an alliance name that it is a legitimate alliance, right? We will see, but I like this guy so far and we have been sharing a lot of opinions and thoughts. I think we can ride this forward and I think he will be a very loyal ally and I will be the same in return. I'm glad I've continued to talk with him because I think he will end up being my closest ally throughout this entire game.


Those baby blues and can charm like Togepi.



Rich has some foreign name as his profile username and aim username. I'm not sure what that is about, but it makes it harder to see him as Richard. Anyway, he is a good enough conversationalist. He has been very open with wanting to have my back and pumping me up for the challenge and stuff. I think there could be strong chances of bringing him into some sort of alliance in the future, but I'm a bit reserved because there is a good chance he could be with Rudy because it would make sense two people from the same season would try to align and could do it with ease. I'm not going to try to let that cloud my judgement, so I will be going forward with whatever he offers and proves to me. He seems like he enjoys me so far and I like him enough that I could see good things for us in the future.



I already didn't talk to Rudy much, but on top of that, he posted an advertisement for his game in the thread from his actual profile. He obviously is not trying to stay alias at all. He could be a good ally if I actually wanted to align with him, but that's not that case. I now plan on making sure he doesn't last very long in this game and that could have all been avoided if he never posted that silly game. I will kill him.



Spencer is from Australia, so talking to him is already going to be an issue. He stays up really late though which means he will be around much more often than another person outside the states might be, but counting on him for challenges and socializing might be hard. I liked him from what I saw and I very well may have saved his butt from being chosen to compete in this challenge, so maybe I can use that as leverage. Other than that, Spencer is just average to me.


I don't want to talk about the girls because there isn't really a need to. We seem far more active as a tribe than they do though. And whoever suggested that they should rename their tribe VaJayJay should get out.


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Moving onto this challenge:
When I read the challenge, I was driving. I was completely blown away. I knew as soon as I read it that I needed to get on aim and start talking to people. I went to Coach when I got online and asked where his head was at. He did not hesitate to tell me that he wanted to have me compete. He asked if I was okay with it and I said "definitely not". The thought of putting myself in a position where I would be 1 of 3 people that could be voted out is a scary thing to think about. I've never been a first boot in a game, but that could be a good way to ensure that I am. Anyway, I realized I was hasty in saying no without even thinking of what I could benefit from competing. I could prove to my tribe that I'm good in challenges, I could show Coach that I am on his side by giving him an easy out by forcing me to compete, and I could also use it as an opportunity to strike a deal. So I did just that.


I told Coach that I would compete on two occasions. The first was, knowing that he was considering Frosti as another competitor, that I would be chosen but I would want him to choose Rudy to compete against me. Since I know Rudy, I know I can beat him in at least 2 of the portions in the challenge. This would also ensure that two spots are taken which would keep my other closer friends safe since I knew Coach wanted to put Ethan up to get rid of him. So Rudy would compete next to me and Ethan. The second part to me going up would be that, since I am showing trust and faith in Coach, he would do the same for me and look out for me while we are on this tribe together. Will I need this protection? I have no idea, but I might as well take the opportunity to gain an ally of sorts while I'm putting myself in the line of fire. I'm not going to just put myself out there without getting anything in return.


So, Coach chooses myself, Rudy, and Ethan to compete just like I want. Aside from the fact that I'm the biggest idiot in choosing to put myself in this position, everything is going smoothly and the way I want. A lot of people are going in with the intention that Ethan will go, but I'm going into this with the anticipation that Ethan will become an ally (he has expressed he wants to work with me if we both survive) and that Rudy will be eliminated and I can get a potential threat and enemy out of this game very early. The only issue I see with this is if I do all this going against others in the tribe and going behind their backs to get Rudy out. I may be thinking a bit ahead of myself, but there is a certain way I would like this round to go. I told Ethan that he had to try and talk to as many people this round as he could and just work on presenting good scores for the challenge to prove he can help in challenges. He seemed pretty clueless overall -- I had to explain to him that he doesn't just do one part of the challenge, but he has to do all three and one of us three would be leaving. That's not something that makes you feel comfortable when trying to pick allies, but there are worse things that could be wrong, I suppose.


Ultimately, I've been told that the popularity portion of the challenge will be mine which is the most important in my mind. Assuming that is true, I feel very confident in the puzzle portion. Rudy told me his first attempt was in the 30s while my first attempt was 22 minutes. The difference? Well, he had a mouse and I was just using my trackpad. I need to do it a few more times, but I think I am going to focus most of my time on ensuring I walk away with that puzzle win. Ethan said he is awful at puzzles and that could not be more sweeter to my ears. My confidence has gone up in this challenge, I just have to hope people are keeping their word about the popularity.


Sorry for the long update, but there was a lot to touch on. Hopefully I continue to last in this game.

[Jonathan Penner]

What sucks about this position I'm in is that I don't want to be one of two people up for being voted out, but at the same time, I'd hate to win all three portions of a challenge and show myself as a strong competitor right away. My initial strategy was to come in and just not come out so strongly personality wise, strategically, or in challenges. I'm hoping that maybe I won't scare anyone right away. At the same time, I could be worrying about this and then Ethan or Rudy blows me out of the water in all three areas. Time will tell.

[Jonathan Penner]

It's safe to say at this point that I will be walking away with the win. I don't think Ethan or Rudy will touch my puzzle time and, whether I win the popularity or not, neither one of them did the posting from what I can tell which means I will automatically win this challenge. This is good because it's what I wanted, but I'm just hoping this challenge won't show me off as some big challenge junkie when in actuality, I'm not.

As I'm talking more and more with my tribe I'm realizing a few things:

1. I don't really enjoy them. A lot of the talk is still superficial though, so I'm going to give them more chances. We also haven't been to a Tribal or anything together so I haven't had to rely on anyone yet.

2. People like Rudy are annoying the ever-living hell out of me. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, I just want to super glue his hands together so he can't type anymore. He's in our tribe chat talking about how he had sex with Frosti's mom who now has STDs and then Carter chimed in with this unwholesome talk on how she had sex with a bird. My cup of tea? Hell no. I understand wanting to liven up the chats or the game, but there are more tasteful ways to do that stuff.

I've heard that Rudy tends to pick these odd stereotypes and overplay them to the point that, what already wasn't funny, tends to become even less funny and borderline annoying. I don't know if he thinks he's charming the crowd, but this is one person that isn't really putting up with it.

I just wish at this point that Ethan would do a little less of "OMG <333" talking and be a little more intentional and straight forward with his approaches. He doesn't seem to be picking up the pace at all in terms of saving himself, so trying to get the tribe to flip and vote out Rudy may be nothing but a failed attempt at this point. I'm going to continue to try to feel out the rest of my tribe, but as of right now, I'm a little irritated. I wish it was just Rudy and Spencer up for elimination instead.

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I have my deal with Jon still. I still like him, but I guess he's a lot more clueless than I thought. Unless he is brilliant and is a master at these games but is just pretending to be clueless, he must not be a very strategic player. He has explained to me where he came from and how they played there, so it makes sense his relocation to these boards is leaving him with a lot of questions, but I feel he would at least understand basic concepts. So it makes me nervous that I've been explaining a lot of strategy and plans not actually knowing if he is just trying to get information from me or if he is just clueless. He said he messaged the host before the game about alias game concepts or something which makes me think he is just new, but I still need to be more cautious; I may have been saying too much.

I'm also noticing that Frosti is very open about being in connections with a lot of people. He said that he thinks Coach, Rudy, and Carter are together and we need to form a majority to counteract that one before it is too late. He also said Rudy tried to align with him? I don't think he would be telling me this if he didn't want me to trust him more, but I'm wondering if he is going to try to play middle man and be protected on both sides. That is something I am going to watch at this point. Not only that, but he says he is pretty good about reading people and I think he is very off with the whole Rudy/Coach/Carter thing. From what I've spoken to Carter about, he doesn't trust Rudy much. I guess there was blood shed in a past game between them and, although Carter doesn't necessarily want to vote Rudy out now, I don't think he will trust him in the long run. Better for me, I suppose.

I'm going to continue to just work my way into some sort of deal with different people and just choose a path that works. If I can get every person involved with me to some capacity, that would be good for me.

[Jonathan Penner]

Sigh...back to puzzle doing.

[Jonathan Penner]

How did Jeffra get picked as their Alpha? She can't even say a proper English sentence.

[Jonathan Penner]

If Ethan and Rudy don't even do the posting after making us extend, I'm going to make it my personal mission to hunt both of them until they are gone.

[Jonathan Penner]

Spencer's post in the challenge thread is the most productive thing he has done yet in this game.

[Jonathan Penner]

It is pretty clear at this point who will be leaving. I had hopes that Ethan could come around and kind of be a vote for me, but it looks like the chances of that are 0% and, to be honest, I'm alright with that. I think I have myself situated quite nicely over here. I really went to work to make sure that I became appealing to others to want to work with and I think I did a pretty good job.

First off, I'd like to say that I was shocked Rudy beat me. I'm going to blame it on the fact I had a trackpad on my laptop while he used a mouse, but I'll get him on the next one! I'm using this as a means to put doubt in people's minds about Rudy. Him posting his advertisement in the thread already put a target on his back and people know him because he has a following. But on top of what they already know about him, him lying to me about his puzzle time and making it appear he was horrendous at them is showing people he is going to be playing a bit shady. I'm throwing as much shade his way as I can at this point without it being overbearing because I want his head on a platter.

So, last night, Coach came to me and said "I have a deal to propose to you since I put you in the line of fire this week." My initial thought was he was going to hand over the Alpha position to me next to pay me back, but then I was thinking how it would make sense if he wanted to bring me into an alliance since part of our deal was that he would look after me if I stepped up for him. So, I started thinking who he could possibly have an alliance with and who I would be joining and for some reason, my initial thought was Frosti. It would just make sense to me since Frosti seems to be socially on point and he would also offer my name up to Coach as someone he would want to work with. Turns out, Coach wanted to bring me into his alliance between him and Rich.

This was actually something I was all for, only I thought his approach was very wrong. Right away, I feel like a third wheel. But at this stage of the game, third wheel means nothing except I am in a three person alliance which is something I need right now. I'm definitely happy and I like both Rich and Coach for the most part, so I can work with this. We started deliberating about our future in the game -- where we would like to end up, who we would want to align with, who we would want to target. I made sure the conversation ended this way because I need to understand the tribe dynamics at this point. No one has been talking about alliances, I've only made deals with a few people, but they have been one-on-one. It makes me feel like there are groups in our tribe, but I'm not a part of them.

So as we are talking, Coach reveals that he would want Ethan out now, but next he would prefer either Spencer or Jon. Well, this is shocking to me. Coach says he thinks Jon is one of the more inactive members which is funny because myself, Frosti, and Rich have all expressed that we've talked to Jon a lot and like him and would potentially want to get a group going involving him. Coach also revealed that he wouldn't mind Carter leaving soon because he doesn't trust him. All of these things Coach is saying is money to my ears. The other really odd thing is that Coach wants to bring in Frosti (not the weird part) and Rudy (that's the weird part). Rudy? He doesn't even talk to me. I made it a point to say that, although I wouldn't mind getting to know him better to make things work, I would prefer adding someone else. Coach didn't seem to budge as much and his approach on how we should manage the alliance is not something I agree with. He doesn't really want to bring in anyone else, but rather be good with each person on an individual basis so they will do our bidding but we won't have actual ties to them. Interesting approach; I'm learning a lot about Coach in these last few minutes of talking.

I had already made a pact with Rich which, I assume is why he brought my name up to Coach, and so I felt comfortable expressing my concerns to him about the whole Rudy and Jon mixup. I definitely don't want people thinking I'm close to Jon, but I don't want Jon to be an early target. I definitely won't be telling Jon that Coach is bringing his name up already because it's irrelevant at this point, but it is something for me to note. Rich agreed with me about not wanting to align with Rudy so much and wanting Jon instead. He actually brought it up instead of me which is perfect. We both decided though that it is best to let it rest and deal with it when things come up.

Now I got a little sneaky. I need Frosti to trust me and I need more security than just this three person alliance that is happening, so I went ahead and informed Frosti that there was an alliance starting to form and he is someone being brought up to be a part of it. I don't want Frosti to be against that alliance or try to take it down, but I want Frosti to know I'm trying to get him in and keeping tabs for him. I told him that we needed to get something going with Jon finally to secure our spots in the tribe and he agreed. So Frosti, myself, and Jon came together to form an alliance called The Rebels. I liked the name because it was like we were forming a counter alliance to secure our lives in the game.

It's clear to me that we just need a fourth member and we will control half the tribe after this vote. My initial thought after talking with the Coach alliance (which is called The Intellects by the way - decided based on my speculation that the three people involved are all three "intellectuals" on the actual show. The story tellers, if you will), Carter is our best choice for The Rebels. I haven't mentioned the fact that Carter told me he doesn't trust Rudy and I won't mention the fact that Coach doesn't trust Carter, but it's pretty clear to me at this point that Carter is actually a solo rider and we could easily pick him up.

I am getting nervous that I may be playing with a bit of fire right now trying to cook up different alliances and trying to get my way with who is in them, but there are certain things that need to be done and, at this point, I feel like I have a pulse on the tribe. I think these last 12 hours or so have shed light on a lot of relationships and eased my mind on them. It has also shown me that I really don't like my tribe as much as I thought I did initially. They're just showing their true colors a bit more now that we're situated and I am going to have to figure out my plan from this point forward.

I know for a fact I can't go this round which is why I'm trying to work hard to situate myself, but next round, if we go to Tribal, things will be tested. If Spencer goes, which would be the easiest solution for us, my alliance with Frosti,Jon, and hopefully Carter, will control the tribe from that point forward which should at least get me to a swap or merge. Spencer can also be pulled in because I doubt he has really made any bonds and I can try to just get Rudy out of here. We shall see where the winds blow, but for now, I feel confident in my ability to make it deep into the game.

[Jonathan Penner]

Just for reference of what deals I have flowing around right now:

Final 2 deals:



 






Final 3 deals:

 

 

Other deals:




I'd say I have my bases covered, but these will definitely be tested this next round.

[Jonathan Penner]

Rudy is grating on my last nerve. If we happen to lose this next challenge, I will make sure he dies!

I'm also wondering at which point Rudy is going to know how much I despise him. Hopefully never.