Round 02

[Ethan]

I have decided, for as long as I have limited time available, to refrain from posting conversations in my confessional. It adds about an hour of extra work every round that I need to spend on other areas, including strategizing. If I ever get a break, I may take the time to post all of my conversations in the future. They're all logged.

So, the plan formed by Silas did not work. This is quite unfortunate for me because Brandon was probably my second-closest ally while I have no connection to Stephenie and have never talked to her, besides exchanging offline message hellos. It may be premature to think about jury at this point, but I wanted Brandon there. I could have dealt with potentially separating him and Silas later in the game. Now I just need to really stay sharp and determine who voted for who and follow the trends of the round to see what I have to do to give myself the best chance of lasting long-term.

I could possibly be in tremendous danger, almost a sure-boot if I'm vulnerable at the vote this round. Brandon may have been the target because people knew he was close to me and Silas --- and I'm obvious close with Silas, so they wanted to weaken us. There may already be an all-out attempt to break up the remaining members of this semi-obvious alliance next round consisting of me, Brett, and Silas although my connection to Brett isn't incredibly strong.

I can't determine whether or not Kelly, Parvati, or Sugar voted with us or not --- which is mainly because I have not yet talked to any of them. As far as Marcus, his communication style is fairly plain, so it's difficult to distinguish whether he lied or not. I feel confident about 4/7 of the votes for Stephenie: me/Brandon/Brett/Silas. If Marcus lied to me when he told me that he voted for Stephenie, I may be in even more danger if he told the other 8 players that I voted for Stephenie to go. I'm depending on my connection with Shii Ann to be one where I can be fed information from the other side, so I hope that my cover isn't already blown, but it likely is if Marcus lied to me, learned how I voted, and then told Shii Ann. From what I can tell, here are the current factions with how I think that they voted:

Brett, Ethan, Silas (my group, voted for Stephenie)
Shii Ann, Stephenie, Tracy (opposition, voted for Brandon)
Ace (wild card, voted for Brandon)
Kelly, Parvati, Sugar (wild cards, voted for Stephenie?)
Rocky and Russell (wild cards, voted for Brandon?)
Marcus and Jerri (wild cards, voted for Stephenie?)

I really could use myself or an ally winning the events this round to make sure I'm not vulnerable at the vote. Because, to this point, I have done a poor job of communicating with everyone and strategizing. But there's plenty of time to change that. By jury time, if I'm still around, I need to be close to everyone so that I have a chance to win this. I'm nowhere near that level yet.

[Ethan]

Let me try to summarize things quickly:

Based on the fact that Marcus has been communicating more frequently with me and Silas…and Sugar’s involvement with the opposing group of people in the challenge, I would say that it is safe to assume that Marcus was the 7th vote for Stephenie and Sugar was the 8th vote for Brandon. So, with Brandon gone, that puts the sides 6-8.

My Group

1. Brett: Don’t see him online much, but we seem to be on the same page. Trustworthy.
2. Ethan: Me. :-)
3. Kelly: We’re apparently never online at the same time, but Parvati and Silas like her.
4. Marcus: Incredibly difficult to read, but we seem to be making progress bonding.
5. Parvati: Now my second-closest alliance. Long-term, I think like she’ll want to break up me and Silas, but I feel that she’s trustworthy for now.
6. Silas: Most obvious alliance ever. But he’s the one person I talk to everyday and completely trust. He may consider me a pawn and be slightly playing me and manipulating my thoughts? But oh well. We're on the same page. Even if I disagreed with his decision to target Stephenie instead of Rocky.

Opposing Group

1. Ace – Seemingly involved in group. Hardly talkative.
2. Jerri – Seemingly involved in group. But told Silas she’d target Shii Ann?
3. Rocky – No one in my group has seen him online. Possible flip vote?
4. Russell – No one in my group has seen him online. Possible flip vote?
5. Shii Ann – Close to Stephenie? Involved in group? Possible target to exploit?
6. Stephenie – Close to Shii Ann and seemingly involved in group. Doesn’t talk to me.
7. Sugar – Seemingly involved in group. Doesn’t talk to me.
8. Tracy – Seemingly involved in group. Doesn’t talk to me.

We really need to shake things up and take people out of the opposing group…like the next 3 rounds or we’ll be fighting a strong, opposing force every round with the risk of being evicted. We can’t win by depending on the challenges. We need much, much better numbers, so hopefully something goes in our favor. Even if we can get Jerri to flip, it’ll be a 7-7 tie with Ace deciding the tiebreaker unless we can get one of our members to have 3 gems.

Silas seems to be a tad overconfident and overtrusting, but I’m not going to blame him for the vote last round. I mean, I didn’t do anything to try to help, really, so I can’t blame him. How were we supposed to know that all those people were at least loosely connected together? Sure, we should’ve tried to get more votes, but there was an assumption that a few people (Rocky, Russell, etc) were wildcards and wouldn’t vote for either of the main targets. It was a miscalculation and a complete failure for us. Fortunately, we still have a chance to rebound.

I don’t feel confident or comfortable at all with 2 gems. I want a 3rd one. It’s difficult to say who the opposing group's target will be, but Silas and I have an obvious connection, so we could be in danger to go. Even this round...if we don’t win the robber competition and lose our gems. So, the results of this challenge could decide whether or not I stay in this game until final 13.

[Ethan]

Have I actually not posted for two days? Well, it doesn't seem like much has happened, at least not from my limited point-of-view.

If Jerri flips and votes for Shii Ann with me, Silas, Parvati, Marcus, Brett, and Kelly...then we'll have a 7-7 tie. I'm not even confident we can get Jerri to flip and have all 7 of those votes for the same person, but if she does, then Ace will decide the tiebreaker UNLESS we can get someone on our side to have more gems than Ace. Brett, Marcus, Silas, and I winning the challenge and collecting a gem would be excellent because it would mean that we'd have an actual chance. And I'm safe as long as no one takes any gems from me. But if someone else wins, I'm nervous that they'll take my gems, and then I could be GONE at the vote this round. It's a highly, highly realistic possibility with my challenge strength and obvious connection to Silas. In fact, I would be surprised if I'm not the target. I don't want to go this early, and I'm prepared to fight and do what it takes to survive if I'm vulnerable. Winning this challenge would be a step in the right direction. It's going to be tricky, but hopefully we can pull it off. Otherwise, if I'm vulnerable, I have plenty of options that I'm thinking about. Hopefully these people aren't completely close-minded and keep me a chance.

Is Shii Ann even the best target for this round? I don't know. I guess that right now, getting anyone out would be a success. But it's possible that even getting rid of her, we are right back where we were this round with 6 people up against 7. We still need to fight and find that hole, win the right events, or we'll be outnumbered again.

We'll see. We need to win this challenge. I don't necessarily need to win, but someone who I communicate favorably with needs to.

[Ethan]

So, I've been thinking. Am I responsible for this rift in the game between the two groups of people?

Shii Ann told me that she was close to Stephenie, and she told me that Tracy told Stephenie about last round's vote. I told these things to Silas, and Silas possibly confronted Tracy and definitely told Sugar what I told him. Since Sugar wasn't really loyal to him, I think that it is quite possible that it forced these people with loose connections to work together for their own protection. And it likely blew my cover when other people started knowing and talking about things that Shii Ann only told me. Blah, that wasn't supposed to be happen. If I get another gem or if I'm in danger, I may risk some more "playing both sides" to further my game. But for now, I am laying off and letting this round play out because it looks like the outcome will be Shii Ann going. Rather than warning her or saving her (because I feel like she's pretty wary of me) I'll let her be voted out. No need to create unnecessary conflict.

I finally talked to Kelly, so now I've discussed Shii Ann going with Silas, Brett, Marcus, Parvati, and Kelly. This group of 6 players may not be incredibly close, but we all realize that it is important that we stay together to further our game. There were rumors that Jerri would flip to us, which Silas told me not to tell anyone else about. But now, it's public knowledge to Kelly and Silas that Tracy, Sugar, Russell, and Jerri will be voting for Shii Ann. Apparently, Shii Ann wanted to vote Kelly out, and the rest of that group tried to change the target to Parvati. Then, Shii Ann decided she wanted Tracy out and said she had the numbers. This is a really strange story, but it does fit the whole "Shii Ann doing her own thing" style. Whatever the case, I'm just going to settle on Shii Ann going for now and trying to collect all of the votes for her. We can't split this vote. We need to keep the numbers.

There will definitely be 6 votes for Shii Ann. Hopefully 4 more, maybe 6 more. But if it's a tie, then Marcus will likely send Shii Ann home. Hopefully this vote isn't 6-8 with Kelly or Parvati going, but that does make me nervous.

Btw, I want another gem. Just missed winning the challenge. Hopefully I can get one next round.

[Ethan]

I would absolutely love to change the target this round to Russell or Tracy. Shii Ann won't self-vote. If we can just get one person out of the majority alliance to vote for Shii Ann, then my group of 6 could pick Russell or Tracy and AT LEAST tie and probably cause them to go. This would be work as long as they're not all lying to us. And if they are all lying to us, our plan will fail either way. So we could do it and leave Shii Ann and possibly Stephenie in this game to split everyone up and cause chaos. It would be beautiful. But Kelly and Parvati seem pretty settled on Shii Ann, and they're hardly around enough to change the vote. Same with Brett. Marcus is away for the weekend, supposedly, and already voted for Shii Ann. Silas is intelligent and opportunistic, but I don't think that he's really grasping all of the angles involved in all of the decisions.

So I guess we'll just have to bank on the majority alliance not lying to us and vote for Shii Ann. Hopefully we'll have something to work with next round to control the vote. I'm nervous, though. I felt like we unnecessarily created huge conflict BEFORE the vote during the first round, and I feel like we're not creating enough conflict AFTER the vote this round. As long as the 6 people in our group keep the information to themselves, we could easily blindside Sugar or Tracy without affecting what anyone else does for the vote. But I guess we're going to just take the safe route.

This is a harsh game, and these people will vote to execute us the second that we're vulnerable. They need to go. Taking out Shii Ann, who is relatively harmless and probably more beneficial than anything to our group, makes sense but probably isn't the best idea. It may still work out and will be impossible to predict the "what if's" but having to depend on winning challenges to stay in the game isn't the best strategy. Ugh.