Welcome to your confessional!

[Lennie Briscoe]

I should have left more time at the end of the night to write a confessional.

So Jake eventually suggested a group PM with Hercule so we can talk out how we want this to go. Long story short, I think Jake wants someone from the former 99th to go, and I think that if that happens then he's going to be unwilling to flip and the Narcotics Unit 4 of Scruff/Leon/Rust/Pikachu can just pick people off with him. The one hope is getting Penelope to vote out oone of Leon/Rust/Pikachu

Tonight was pretty frustrating, basically 10 people messaging back and forth "I haven't heard a name, have you?". Poirot and I talked and kind of came to the conclusion above that one of Leon/Rust/Pikachu has to go, because if they don't then the four of them have Jake or Penelope on their side and we'd need both of them to flip to avoid rocks at the next TC.

Penelope messaged late in the night saying that she wasn't hearing anything, felt isolated, etc., and I actually was pretty honest with her about how I saw things (what I described above). This could be a huge mistake but if it is then my fate was probably already sealed. I said I would prefer to vote out Rust or Pikachu, but if those were dealbreakers for her I would entertain voting out Leon.

I really don't want to vote out Leon, not so much because I think he's a loyal ally, but because what a fucking shitty way to go, yoou go to 8 out of 10 TCs pre-merge and then you're the merge boot? But still, I know that I'm at best top 5 in his book (and more likely top 7 at best), so I can't really feel like it's that much of a betrayal. I'm hoping Penelope is open to Pikachu or Rust as the vote (hopefully Pikachu).

[Alexandra Cabot]

so what are you leaning towards currently 🥺👉👈

[Lennie Briscoe]

so what are you leaning towards currently 🥺👉👈

Jake is saying Leon would vote Pikachu next round, which makes things a little easier. I think we might end up voting Lucifer out here, which both Jake and Penelope would be on board with. We'll see

[Lennie Briscoe]

lol fuck me

I dunno if I can even recap what happened today because I wasn't privy to so much. Initially the vote seemed to be Lucifer? A bunch of people led by I guess Rust/Pikachu/Scruff organized a vote on Jake. Pikachu weirdly interrogated me asking if his name was said and who was saying it.

We had me, Jake, Leon, Poirot, and Judy on Pikachu, and we assumed Scruff was with us, but like shortly before the deadline he sends all of us sans Jake (I assume) a form letter saying he was going to vote for Jake because he's the biggest threat in the game. So fuck us, I guess. Poirot and Judy switch their votes to Jake since it's a losing cause, I figure there's really no point in switching my vote, and then Jake pulls out an idol and Pikachu goes home. So I guess I got my desired result? through no action of my own?

Now, I actually was kinda busy today so I didn't have time to message a lot, and also I was being kept out of a lot of the real machinations so I wasn't getting many messages to begin with, just ones from Jake and Poirot about how there were giant group chats formed to alternately target me/Poirot/Judy or me/Jake.

Scruff immediately messages with this cockamamie story about how oh nobody told him we had the votes to save Jake, he thought Poirot and Judy were going to vote for him so it was a done deal, but it did NOT match up with his stupid form letter. He also thought it would make sense to try to blame me/us for not communicating better with him? Not that he's making it to the end but it was fucking insulting and I'm not a bitter juror but he went a long ways to losing my jury vote with that bullshit. And the thing is, when I hear from Poirot, he definitely makes it sound like Scruff must have been in on this from the start. Judy says he was the driving force, and "pleading" with her to vote Jake over Pikachu. Honestly this doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I think Scruff must have been really really hoping that he wouldn't be the deciding vote.

After the vote I reach out to various people, I feel like I at least smoothed over things a little with Lucifer and Grouch. Scruff can go fuck himself. Rust I haven't heard back from, but it's fine, I get it, his best ally (I assume) got idoled out. Oh also, Penelope reached out almost immediately after the vote and said that she hadn't lied to me today but obviously hadn't looped me in. Eh, whatever, it's not awful. It's not that different from the Nick vote on the Strike Team? I have yet to hear back from her though.

Most of my messaging tonight happened with Leon though, he was saying "oh well Scruff is saying blahblahblah" and I tell him Scruff's full of shit, and also I tell him about how a couple days ago Scruff was talking about how we couldn't take Leon to the end because he'd win (I'm dubious on whether that's true and whether Scruff sincerely believes it; I think it's just as likely he brought it up to try to get me to agree with it). This honestly seems to kind of really rattle Leon? I think he thought of Scruff as his #1 and this is his first real feeling of betrayal by a close ally? And he also realized that oh, maybe Scruff manipulated me into voting Cheddar (even though Leon didn't feel great about Pikachu) because Scruff was close to Pikachu and it would alienate Leon from Grouch. Honestly that's a pretty good insight, I'm impressed.

Anyway, where we stand now is that I'm kind of fucked, like today did not go how I wanted it to, even though Pikachu is out and I'm thankful for that. I really really don't want to be dragged to the end as some fuckup losing finalist, that's kind of my worst fear. So I guess I need to try to create a case I can argue at FTC now. I thought I had an okay path for that but this definitely shakes things up.

[Lennie Briscoe]

So I didn't write a confessional last night, I guess I should do one tonight.

Scruff went home, which is kind of what I wanted, I just needed it to happen in a way that Jake and Leon didn't feel too burned, and I think we accomplished that?

So revisiting the merge TC, I still don't totally know what happened. I still feel like Scruff had at best resigned himself early to losing Jake, and maybe sincerely thought the votes were going that way, but I also think he saw a good path forward for himself with Jake out of the picture so he didn't mind it at all. Honestly, I got kind of heated in our PMs, I strongly implied I didn't buy his story at all (basically outright said it), and also it was telling that in his response, he basically tried to throw Jake under the bus talking about how Jake didn't value me, I was the fourth to the trio of Scruff, Jake, and Leon (which I suspected from the start), I was just a vote to pick up, etc.. I probably was too forward in saying that I knew Scruff and Jake were licking their chops at the prospect of dragging Leon along, but I don't think I was wrong either. Anyway, I eventually apologized for being so heated and he did too but honestly, it was clear that we'd always be mistrustful of each other going forward, which is why I was happy to see him go. I do think this was a misplay on my part; him going still might have been the best result but I burned a bridge unnecessarily and that's entirely on me.

Today's vote was kind of hectic, Jake (along with Scruff) was trying his damnedest to put it on Grouch and Lucifer but while also trying to blame Rust for that push when talking to Grouch/Lucifer? It became apparent that that vote wasn't going to happen, and the supposed other vote was going to be to vote for Rust, but Jake and Scruff's scheming ended up in the vote landing on Scruff, and I'd already implied to several people on the other side that I was okay with a Scruff vote, which probably made it easier to pull off.

Scruff's post in the TC thread was honestly kind of accurate, at least in broad strokes? SVU is strongly together, people should be afraid of us, and everyone who isn't us should probably be teaming up against us, but the thing is that Penelope, Grouch, and Lucifer kind of loathe Jake for understandable reasons, and Jake is with us almost by default (but also he, Poirot, and I are actively working together, so it's more than just default).

If SVU + Jake rides this out, the jury is going to fucking despise us. But hey, they'll have to make someone the winner. I think I have a decent shot? I'm not doing as much as Judy or Poirot, and sitting next to them could be a serious issue for me winning. I think I could probably beat Jake and Leon. We're still a long ways away though, so we'll see.

I realize in the last post I was like "oh no everything is awful" at the end, which was probably dumb in retrospect, I think it was just because I heard just so little directly during that TC, this one went better. I do think there's a danger that I'm not active enough, I feel like other people are having more conversations, and I need to be talking more game? This may be a regret in the end. We'll see.

[Lennie Briscoe]

Well being a huge nerd paid off I guess.

I'm trying to drive the "we need to vote off a 99th" narrative with Rust and Penelope, and apparently it's not really landing since Rust supposedly relayed my conversation with him back to Poirot? Which is so weird because like, I said I wouldn't vote Poirot to Rust? I mean I guess this is to stir up the Jake vote.

Poirot has said for a couple days that he realizes that this round he's going to blow up his spot and betray loyalties. I thought trying to push the 99th storyline miiight give him a little cover but I guess not.

Leon said that Grouch told him that Judy had said Jake's name first? I said I think that's probably not a big deal, and I think it probably isn't, but who knows. I brought that to Poirot, still waiting to hear back.

The thing is, I could see it making sense for them to vote Jake off maybe? or Leon? Like Poirot and Judy have to be kind of concerned about a final 5 of me, Jake, Leon, and them. But it seems so early to do that. Also, Poirot is saying so much about how he's going to need to betray the 99th, and how it should probably be Grouch, and detailed messages about the pros and cons of taking Jake versus Leon, like if he's playing me here, that's an awful lot of ammunition to offer up? Maybe it isn't ammunition if he's telling them he's offering it. Similarly, he didn't need to tell me that Rust was relaying my conversation with him to Poirot either. I dunno, the game makes you paranoid.

It'd be so nice if you could just write confessionals where you see every aspect of the game clearly and every relationship but sadly that's not how it works.

[Lennie Briscoe]

Poirot said it was just Judy being Judy, which makes sense.

[Lennie Briscoe]

Well Grouch went as planned.

Afterwards didn't go so well. Rust and Penelope did not seem keen on being kept out of the vote and I haven't even heard back from Lucifer.

Rust really lit into me a bit, and I'll admit my message to him initially did not come across well, I dunno if it sounded cocky but it absolutely projected like "I'm probably not working with you in the future", which was stupid and a big mistake just given the conversations we'd had about Jake's social failings. Anyway he strongly implied that a) I was drawing dead if I made it to the end, and b) that people would see my positioning and target me as a result and I need allies outside our SVU + Jake alliance to ensure that doesn't happen. Maybe those things are true, I dunno. It's possible they are, but this was in part an act of desperation. While he's telling me I'm drawing dead, he's telling Poirot that I'm going to win if I get to the end and need to be taken out. I think he's sincerely annoyed with me and I probably did damage in losing a jury vote here, but I don't know that it's entirely unsalvageable?

The thing is, his angle doesn't make sense. If I'm drawing dead against any of SVU/Jake, how the fuck am I going to win against the other three? Like maybe Lucifer? Certainly not Rust or Penelope. So if that's the case, why would I want to lose to him, I'd rather just lose to Poirot. Ideally if I'm drawing dead I don't even want to be there in the first place, to be quite honest. Either way, none of this makes me think "Oh wait I should be sitting next to Rust at the end", but maybe he's just being realistic and realizes that's not going to be a conclusion I ever come to, and this is just bargaining to make it some incremental bit further.

Penelope was a bit less pissed outwardly but who knows if she is on the inside. She asked me to be honest about what her future looks like, is she just a sitting duck, does she just have to win out, etc.. It's maybe a mistake but I was relatively honest with her? I said I think she isn't a sitting duck right now but that she is going to be perceived both as a challenge threat (obviously) and a jury threat because she hasn't pissed off anyone other than Jake really.

Poirot talked through various final 4 scenarios and I'm afraid our interests inevitably differ there. I've said it before but I don't think there's any way I (or honestly anyone else? maybe Penelope or Rust?) win at the end next to him. I'm trying to entertain this stuff like we definitely want to be in the final 4 together and the final 3 after that, but it just doesn't make sense. I think my best bet is against Jake and Leon, and he knows that which is why he's making arguments about why we can't be in that final four. We'll see how this goes. If that were to be the final 4 and I won immunity and eliminated him, I still think I'd get his vote. It might be the only one I get, lol

[Lennie Briscoe]

Judy won immunity, okay. Jake immediately messages the group of SVU + Jake and says that he's going to tell Lucifer it's him, and then reveal that to Rust, but we'll all vote out Penelope. Typical Jake, no discussion, no input, just presenting the plan and you have to confirm or deny.

This isn't my favorite plan because honestly, I like Penelope? And I thought maybe we could keep her another round. I tell Poirot this and he says Judy isn't totally on board either. It takes a couple messages and he says actually not only is she not on board, she's looking to flip on Jake, which I think makes total sense for her. I don't think any of us were planning on her in the final 3, and while I'm not sure flipping makes her odds particularly more likely, it at least a) keeps Penelope around as a challenge and jury threat and b) creates a certain amount of chaos, which could benefit her. Poirot is basically saying that if Judy forces this that he can't do anything to stop it, which I think makes sense for him. He's still trying to convince her not to do it though.

The funny thing is Rust suddenly got a lot more "gosh, tell me what to do and I'll be on board". He did this before Poirot told me Judy was looking to flip and I was already like "this is a little odd" and it made a lot more sense when I found that out. I'm still playing dumb and now we're just talking about how Poirot and Judy are a pair.

I kind of expect Jake to go here, it makes sense for a lot of people. I still think Judy can't make it to the end without virtually winning out but if she does I'll be happy to vote for her.

I really would have liked to have sat next to Jake and Leon but I doubt that's happening now. I'm not sure who I can beat. Everyone talks about "oh who even knows who's a jury threat" but I feel pretty solid in my views of the game? Like if I were a juror, I'm not saying my opinion couldn't be swayed, or that FTC questioning doesn't matter, just that I definitely have preferences. I'm gonna be kinda sick to my stomach for days if I'm at FTC against people I can't beat, it sounds like utter fucking misery. And I kind of worry that's my fate here? We'll see.

[Scully and Hitchcock]

SCULLY: We just got done reading your report.
HITCHCOCK: I usually only read books they make movies out of, but this... wait, no.
SCULLY: You mean movies they make books out of.
HITCHCOCK: Right.  This was good though, what's next?

[Lennie Briscoe]

Hahaha my game is a fucking mess right now.

So after Jake went I really made a decision that I needed to do something affirmative to try to secure a win, which I probably should have been doing more actively beforehand but I'm not claiming to be good at this game (even if I shittalk other people which probably seems hypocritical or stupid). Anyway, to that end, I proposed a final 3 to Lucifer with Leon as the third, even though Leon would rather be with Rust (who I think is far more threatening).

I also took a risk before the challenge and kind of preemptively indicated I'd be interested in going against Judy this round to Rust overtly and Penelope more subtly, and I guess Poirot also brought it to Penelope and said I was on board.

So fast forward to the challenge results, Penelope has won, hooray! We can get Judy out!

Except no, Judy actually won.

Now everyone scrambles (probably Rust in this case I think?) to Judy saying I wanted to vote her out, she asks Penelope, who confirms it (even though to Penelope I never said that, but I said that I wasn't happy with Judy). So she brings that to the LL 'cule J group chat, and I own up to it, I say last round I felt very left out and didn't feel like I was a part of her plans going forward. She comes back with a big whiny post about how she was just working to keep our alliance together and gosh, sorry she didn't PM me because she thuoght we were good. Total fucking bullshit, I know that she was saying to Poirot that she wanted me out right after Jake, she can cram that straight up her ass as far as I'm concerned. That said, I'm not going to say that because I'm never going to blow up Poirot's game.

I tried to see if I could flip this onto Lucifer, since both Rust and Poirot had strongly hinted or said outright they wanted Lucifer out and were worried about him going deep. Poirot also told me that Rust actually kind of prefers Leon to go over Lucifer here, and that might get more traction with Penelope, who completely shut down a Lucifer vote. But I really have no idea how to broach that with Rust since we've been talking mostly about him, me, and Leon going far.

I think there's a good chance I'm going here, and if I don't, I've burned at least a couple relationships.

[Lennie Briscoe]

So Poirot basically said to just put it out there with Lucifer and Rust, explicitly propose a final 4 with Poirot, say we'll vote out Leon. So that's what I did. It's late so obviously no response but we'll see how this goes.

Leon told me Judy's voting for me but he's voting Penelope, which makes me feel kind of awful (even though I really still barely know if he as any actual loyalties other than constantly wanting to vote out Penelope)

[Lennie Briscoe]

So yeah, things didn't go great today. Rust and Lucifer were like "oh yeah I'd be interested but is the other guy?" It sounds like this was mostly Lucifer not being on board for whatever reason though who knows about Rust.

Poirot tried to put together something where him, me, Rust, and Leon vote out Penelope but me trying to pitch Leon apparently made him (quite justifiably) feel pretty burned/angry, I'm not surprised he wouldn't be on board.

I don't normally quote my PMs in confessional, but I was proud of this quip on the way out to Poirot: "BTW can I tell you that the absolute worst part about this is the utter disrespect for classic American literature, Lennie is supposed to kill the rabbits, not the other way around"

I'm glad Scruff and I were able to bury the hatchet in jury, I really do feel bad about how all that happened and my behavior specifically.

It might not seem like it very often but I did have a good time playing, thanks to the mods and the specs (shout out to Doug Judy for filling in on that challenge, you did a great job and I appreciated you stepping up). I feel like I'm probably not actually fun to watch? But I hope people see some value in me being generally pretty honest in my confessional.

[Lennie Briscoe]

My one observation about the jury is that Judy's perception of events seems kind of off to me. I'm not looking to really argue about it, and maybe I'm the wrong one, so there's no point in raising it up (though I did reply to her take on why Nick was targeted on the Strike Team).

I'm obviously hoping Poirot is in the final 3 but if he isn't then I'm looking forward to him giving his perspective on things. At a minimum we'll at least be able to talk about Big Brother.

[Lennie Briscoe]

FUCK YEAH POIROT YOU BEAUTIFUL BRILLIANT BELGIAN