In your previous post, you mentioned that you felt that Jake was strongarming the tribe personality-wise. What made you perceive him as a big social threat? You said that this is a boon to you that you can act as a shield behind, but what do you think his impression of you is? Is this meat shield someone you would want as an ally long-term or are you willing to part ways sooner rather than later?

So I definitely wouldn't use the word "strongarming", if that's how it came across then I should rephrase. I think everyone likes Jake, and I suspect that everyone talks to Jake more often and more deeply than they do to most people. His form letter opening PM may have been a little corny/hamfisted, but I think it did get conversations going into game mode almost immediately so that while the rest of us are feeling out "hey what do you do for fun", he's already talking about approaches to Survivor. So that's great for him, I think everyone feels good about their relationship with him, but I think he's also doing this in a way where like, I think it's obvious to us all that the others have similar positive feelings? In a long-term sense I'm not sure how he can shake that perception. I'm gonna be curious to see how he's perceived when we swap.

Now, as to how does Jake see me? I'm not really 100% sure. It'd be nice if he did see me and Scruff as a trio with him. I think that's the case but I could see him being happy with Leon or even Paul maybe in there instead of me? Who knows? It's not super important, I might not be at the core of the onion but I'm a layer somewhere, and I don't think the outermost.

I could see him going deep, I'd be fine going deep with him, I doubt that I'd be cutting him anytime soon.

In addition, you mentioned that you had a flaw in which you may not know the best transition into game talk. In previous iterations, what were the mistakes you made? Have you seen you have made any corrections in this cycle? If not, do you think the tempo of the game may play into a factor and your mood?

In my last game I think people saw me as cagey because I wasn't talking as immediately or openly about game (also just in some circumstances, I was genuinely clueless and people mistook that for caginess). Anyway, I broached game talk with Paul and Leon, got responses, like everyone basically says the same thing, Jake and Scruff are cool, Paul/Leon seem okay too, Hannah hasn't connected as much, and nobody really connects with Ace. If we were to go to TC, I think Ace would be the likely target.

Welcome to the game, Lennie!

I saw you're a big Survivor/BB fan. Which player's style do you think you'd like to position yourself in this game? Or if there really isn't one player, do you have a strategy you have in mind in order to become the ultimate Survivor?

I'm sure this won't be anyone's favorite choice because the season left such a bad taste in people's mouths (for completely justified and understandable reasons), but Tommy Sheehan on Island of the Idols played a really great game (even if he's kind of a boring guy). He was able to be loyal when it made sense and switch things up when he needed to, he was well-liked without being targeted for it, had a bigger target in front of him in the form of Lauren. It really was the perfect old school social game. No bag of tricks, no immunity runs, just really good social and strategic Survivor play. And he managed to win from the position of being dragged to the end, which people had previously used for goats.

Now, I'm not saying I can pull that off, we'll see how it goes, but yeah that's how I'd like to do it ultimately if I can. I suspect that the players in this game are a lot more capable than Dean and Noura though, so I dunno if a Tommy game necessarily fits into this game.

Well I should write an opening confessional I guess. Hi, I'm Lennie Briscoe, big Survivor/BB fan, happy to be here.

Chat today started quickly with Scruff and Jake messaging immediately, I had to start the chats w/ my other tribemates (which isn't a big deal but worth noting). I guess I'll just go tribemate by tribemate:

Jake - wow, he came out of the gate hot. I'm just gonna quote his first PM, which was like 7 minutes after the game started:

Hahahahaha I'm completely unprepared for this game. They asked me to replace in yesterday.



Well yeah, obviously.



Well that seems apropos for Survivor.

Hi! How are you. I'm Jake. If you had to describe your Survivor-self in three adjectives, what would they be?

I'm not sure if he sent this exact one to everyone or what? I do suspect Scruff and I at a minimum got similar ones? I may dig into that some more but it's not a big deal. Honestly in a way it's a bit of a relief to just get to talking about the game and playstyles right away, and I think we clicked pretty well? I said I played kinda old school, treated the game as social (though I'll be frank, I'd like to play socially, dunno how good I am at it in this format), wanted to build early bonds, etc..

He agreed but talked about how like he doesn't like lying (SNOOOOORE) and how bad it is to backstab and blahblahblah. Whatever. He seems to be making a distinction between lying when it's "expected" versus not, but bleah, people who focus so much on what a horrible thing it is to lie are not my favorites (as a fan at least). For an ally, that's fine and a desirable trait too be honest and trustworthy but the emphasis on it unprompted is so weird, a bit of a red flag? But whatever, it's early and I would expect anyone saying that to at least stick with it early on. He sort of called back to that when talking about how Jake and Lennie the characters are standup guys, etc.. Again, whatever. I don't disagree, this is fine, I think we're good and can work together.

We eventually talked about the tribe, he said he likes Scruff and Leon, it's good that he's telling me positive things about specific people early so I'm down with that.

Scruff - So we exchanged a couple messages early and I missed a response for an hour or two? We caught back up though, I told him that I felt good about Jake after Jake had told me that he felt good about Scruff, I figured this would be a good way to connect with Scruff by being positive about someone he is likely to feel positive about himself. He responded pretty frankly that Jake had spoken positively about me to him, and I actually probably went a little too far in suggesting we align as a three. He seems receptive to it but talked about how Jake didn't want to make anything concrete just yet, which is fine, whatever. Scruff also is positive about Leon, he and Jake both seem pretty high on him. It wouldn't shock me if I'm looking at this as "oh me, Scruff, and Jake can pull in Leon" and they're looking at it like "we (Scruff and Jake and Leon) can pull in Lennie". we'll see.

Scruff was good to talk game with though, I definitely get a good vibe, and could see us working pretty closely though weirdly we didn't connect too deeply otherwise. I'm sure we'll get there though.

Hannah - chatted some, she'd mentioned tabletop gaming in the main thread and we got to talk a bit about that. I brought her name up to both Scruff and Jake as someone I felt good about and they both hadn't connected much with her, which isn't great. Apparently there'd been some snafu in communication with Jake on Hannah's part (didn't hit send or something), hopefully they're patching that up.

Ace - the first person I contacted after replying to Scruff and Jake. I dunno how well we've clicked, doesn't seem too chatty. I know he talked to Scruff and Jake and said he liked everyone he'd talked to, but neither of them had even mentioned him so they might have had the same experience I did.

Leon - big personality, coming out strong in the tribe thread, I get the impression I'm old enough to be this kid's dad, which itself isn't like a bad thing but I dunno how well we'll connect.

Paul - the last person I was able to connect with and we didn't exchange many messages, but I actually liked talking to him. Slow start but I could see this being a valuable connection.