Brave the Elements/Confessionals

"catarina"

- So, the first Main Match is almost essentially a reskin of the 123 Game. Honestly, I might pull a Junseok here: go 0-9 with someone else and hope they give me the ToL. This may or may not work with the distribution order, but we'll see. Honestly, I might just team up with Pory, because we know each other from other ORGs. But we'll see.

"catarina"

- Okay, so I should probably do my basic going into the game assessment of the cast huh?

I'll do it list style in order of who I could see myself working with at the top, and not so much at the bottom! (top 3 are on the same level really)

Tyler: Okay king honestly, I adore this guy and I hope he knows it, I love getting the chance to play an org with Tyler again! Having people who I can immediately trust in this game should be a huge advantage.

Emma: My queen, I feel like I can honestly tell Emma anything and I love her so much, I hope that as the seasons only girls we can make a deep run!

Hunter: We've already spoken about wanting to work together through the game and I'm here for it, I loved hosting him so much on main org, hes such a sweetie and I can't wait to play this with him!

Nathaniel: We go all the way back, he hosted me on my first wiki org and we've worked together on a couple of things since, I feel like hes a really genuine person, and is someone I'm happy to have around.

Rhys: My fellow brit, I recently played Egypt with him where we were aligned, so it's nice to get the chance to play with him again!

Rexxy: This is my first time meeting him but hes my favourite person who is new to me as of now, we have a nice conversation flow going, so hoping to keep up a good social game with him!

Devin: Haven't talked with him as much as Rexxy, but I do like him so it'll be interesting to see how he moves up my rankings

Matthew: Haven't really spoken one on one yet but he seems like a good kid, wouldn't be my first choice to work with based on age, but thats just me being a judgemental bitch really.

Pory: Again not spoken 1 on 1, his reputation worries me though, I'm not too sure how well we will gel, but we shall see...

Gevonte: Another person I'm not sure of based on repuation, he stans latrice though, so common ground maybe?

Ryan: Haven't seen anything of him since he said hi, if he goes first I wouldnt miss him too much I guess...

"catarina"

- Omg aaah I missed Phoenix last time too, again havent spoken to him, but he seemed busy yesterday, he seems nice though!

"catarina"

- I don’t know how long I will last help

"catarina"

- Also i have been talking to pory tyler not much plus hunter gevonte rhi and devin. Devin approached me and i am happy about it i need somebody to carry me this first round

"catarina"

- Well hello! We have arrived into the game and already my initial strategy went out the window! XD

Originally, I wanted to use my social game to build bonds and then eventually get cutthroat. But then I saw the cast.

Tyler, Rhi, Emma, Gevonte, like god damn you want me to be cutthroat to THESE PEOPLE????

So Plan B, be Mr. Nice Boy again and go from there.

So far, meeting the others has been interesting. Ryan is certainly very nice, as is Devin. Pory is already starting to play by coming up with an elaborate strategy for the first Main Match, and I'm being involved so...yay for me and my social game I guess! Rexxy also seems pretty chill, and I haven't heard much from Nathaniel, Rhys, Phoenix and Turtle(?) yet.

I was hoping this game wouldn't be as complicated as Survivor but I'm already starting to dance in these mental gymnastics and I'm quickly realizing...it's gonna get complicated.

But I was ready to play mind games so let's do it!

"catarina"

- The game has officially started! I’m really looking forward to playing the Genius with these people and hopefully not getting sent packing too soon. So immediately I see Emma, who’s the host of the survivor game that I’m playing, and I message her. Within an hour or two I had a strategy formulated and she agreed to play all her cards against me and split the wins 5-4 (in my favour). With my plan in place super early, today I’ve just been trying to message people and see who I might be able to work with in the future. So far a lot of the responses have been middling, but I feel a really strong kinship with Phoenix. He and I seem to have a similar mind for strategy, and he seems to be one of the only ones who’s actually seen all the genius seasons. So moving forward I’m gonna have a few options, but I should be safe for this round.

"catarina"

- Alright...so...I might have been a bit of a shady little shit...and I'm enjoying it :)

So I have this whole plan being built with Pory about how to ensure someone we like wins the Main Match.

But in the meantime, I had to tell someone what was going on and I chose Rhi. She says she's not confident in herself, which I can see as a strategy to lower her threat level (but it could make EC fodder like damn Rhi), but still she hosted me, I like her, she SAYS she likes me, and she seems loyal at least for now, so I'm going for it!

also team feminism

Anyways! Soon, Pory tells me Turtle is trying to make a group with himself, Pory, Phoenix and Rexxy. Okay...wow that was fast. Pory says he'll try to get me in but it's like...wow we have been together not even 24 hours and you're building a group of people who I JUST MET in this game today. It didn't include anyone I already know.

I get it, prior connections shouldn't factor into a game that much, but like...A LOT OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS GAME HAVE PRIOR CONNECTIONS. I'd be stupid to just allow those I know to be left behind right from the get go.

So I tell Rhi, and she says she's thinking of building a counter group just in case.

Oh okay perfect. So now I know of one group for this main match, a possible group in the future, and I'm sitting over here just going with the flow.

I know I have to take actions of my own at some point in this game, but if I can't play cutthroat like I wanted to, I'm content being the little shit who spreads information around to cause chaos.

IT'S FUN FOR ME AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS!

"catarina"

- So last time I said that I'm gonna work with phoenix and math, but I ended up emptying all my cards with gevonte

now I still like math and phoenix, and will probably work with them next match both of them are still sexy mf

but there's a bit of a switch in plan

So the plan was to have a 4 person group with pory, math, and phoenix. We'll coordinate it so that one person will have 15 points while we give the other guys 1 so that the person with 15 pts could be the MM winner (Or 18 pts to one guy and the others got 0, the 18 pts dude give the token to one of the zero guys and pick the person with card remaining).

And whatever happens, the number of group members have to be even. (I'm too lazy to explain why, just watch the first 10-20 minutes of The Genius S1E1 on youtube lmao)

however....

Pory said that he wants to bring hunter to the group, since they're close, which makes the number odd

and then Gevonte asked me if we want to do it together

So yeah, pory math phoenix and hunter can do the thing, gevonte and I clear our cards, then hopefully all of us are safe to the next round 😀

"catarina"

- I feel like Phoenix is not real like a fake contestant born on april fools o no mam hes a fake contestant i am now in a alliance with Tyler Rhi Hunter and Nathaniel i still need to keep Devin close tho

"catarina"

- Hmm okay...this is getting strange.

So Phoenix ALREADY PLAYED ALL HIS CARDS, because of the deal originally made by Rexxy with himself, Pory, Phoenix and Turtle. Phoenix didn't like the plan changing and played his cards with someone else. Okay weird.

But then he comes to me saying I should try to get my "partner" (since I hadn't told him Pory dragged me into this) to play with me since he's afraid I could get left out to dry.

So Pory didn't really talk to Phoenix about the plan and now if Pory is up to something else I could be fucked. This was not how I wanted to spend the first round.

I think Pory will play all his cards with me but he's still wanting to do 8-1 so one of us wins. I don't care anymore, I'll do what he wants but it seems he tried to plan TOO MUCH for the first game, and I'm annoyed. I was supposed to go on a cruise ship ride, not a fucking boat ride into a thunderstorm!!

"catarina"

- Whoo! First challenge and I didnt fuck up! Thank God sweet sweet Rexxy came through! We made up a flawless system. So now we have the same points, but no cards. Which for me is a good first outing. I'm not dead last, but I'm not outshining anyone. Right where I want to be out the gate.

I'm pretty excited tbh. Me and Hunter are working together from the jump, which Im in love with! Although him or his secret partner might win with their strategy (dont think I didnt clock the deception), it's good to know I have someone to rely on early on. ZIf I had to do a cat power rankings. Everyone that's not Pory or Ryan would be st LEAST good teir since they actually talked to me lmfao! So I'm definitely happy with where I am now~

"catarina"

- Oh good lord. Everyone is a fucking idiot.

I go up to hunter and talk game with him. I really like hunter. So I want to work with him in the MM. We form a mini partnership. Ok, reasonable, right?

Turtle messages me, wants to work with me. Alright well I can't say no so here we go ig. Says rexxy wants a 4 man group, me turtle rexxy and someone else. Reasonable? Yeah

I say to bring in hunter as a 4th, since Hunter is the guy I trust the most. Rexxy wants Phoenix because he thinks he can control him. Narrator: he could not.

Ok so Rexxy and I debate who to bring in, but then, Rexxy is like: "Hey Gevonte wants to work with me so you can bring both in peace"

WTF?

Actually what the fuck.

So, whatever, issue is Phoenix doesn't like the group of 4, but it has to be made anyway since it's kinda too late. Sucks, but what has to happen happens.

I play with hunter and turtle, giving me 11 points, and each of them 1. I wait for Phoenix to come back. Ok, good.

Phoenix comes in, and is like "I don't like this group im not gonna do what you're saying peace" WTF? WHAT THE FUCK? TURTLE HAS A CARD NOW AND CANNOT GET RID OF IT. EVEN IF YOU'RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH HUNTER, TURTLE YOU WERE OK WITH. YOU'RE JUST FUCKING HIM OVER!

So now, everything is a fucking mess. If turtle does become EC, I know I'm fine, but still like. what the fuck? What the fuck is he on? Did Phoenix betray us and use that as an excuse? Does he not realize he has no other choice but to work with us? Like, what the hell is he on?

I have to save turtle, no matter what. Ughhh

Fuck people.

"catarina"

- So far in this game I feel fairly okay, Ive reached out and talked to most people, and gotten a grasp of them. So fingers crossed Im good on that front and I wont be any target for a death match anytime soon.

This main match I managed to know the strategy of not loosing straight away. It says people with cards remaining at the end of the time, get an automatic 0. Sounds easy to avoid, however there is an odd amount of cards, resulting in 1 person having 1 card left over atleast!

So just pair up with someone to prevent that and easy. Luckily I managed to pair up with Tyler as we got on quite well in the first day. I also tried to start working with Phoniex due to his knoweldge of the game. Im not nesicarily the smartest person, but I get vibes that Phoniex will have an easier time understanding main matches and death matches so he is a good ally to have.

He proposed an allaince of Me, Tyler & Ryan making a 4 person group. Havent talked to much to ryan, but its kinda hard to say no without putting a target on your back. Anyway in this group, Phoneix says we should split it so someone gets 16 wins, so theyre most likely guarenteed a win. I said yes not to cause much comotion. However I know when this result is revealed people will be worried. As its clear there is a group working together.

Phoneix may be overplaying? Atleast it isnt a target on my back though.

"catarina"

- So I finally got rid of all my cards in the first main match. I decided to play with senna because I knew her from my survivor game, but she proved to be kind of a wild card. We played six of our nine cards and she suddenly went MIA for a few hours, leaving me stuck holding three cards and panicking slightly. At the same time I’m developing my relationship with Phoenix more, and he’s saying to me that he would have totally been sketched out by this behaviour, which honestly gets me thinking. Several hours later, Emma comes back online and I’m able to get rid of the remainder of my cards. Now, she did play exactly the cards that I told her to, in the order I told her to, but I can’t risk something like this happening again. If she leaves me holding the bag in the future, that’s no bueno. Going into the second main match (which from my snooping is always some form of werewolf) I still want as many social connections as I can, so I’m not icing Emma out right yet, but I can definitely see my allegiances shifting more towards Phoenix. At the very least I think my chances of going to the death match this round are pretty slim.

"catarina"

- So, Main Match 1 came and went.

At the start of the Main Match, me, Pory, and Rexxy all expressed interest in working together. However, Rexxy had to do stuff with Gevonte, and left me and Pory with Hunter and Phoenix. This plan fell apart after Pory played me and Hunter after Phoenix refused to play Pory. This ended up with me and Tyler somehow being tied for last when I thought I would be the sole loser.

Do I forgive Phoenix? Kinda. Him and I talked near the end of the game and we expressed interest in working with each other in future Main Matches. Now, I have to hope he picks Tyler as EC and not me.

"catarina"

- Me at the tomfoolery going on in the main chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEg62Qbr2cA

"catarina"

- Ok so starting back from day 1 I’m so excited to finally play this! Kinda nervous because I’ve never seen an episode of the genius and admittedly I haven’t really paid attention to the other seasons. I only know that John won and that’s literally it! So finally I get to play a game and expand my knowledge!

When I get here I see Nathaniel, Rhi, Rhys, Hunter, Gevonte, Emma & Pory so that makes me a little less nervous than if I was by myself. Rhi and I clicked up immediately and formed an alliance of 3 with emma, which later than became an alliance of 5 with Nathaniel and hunter

"catarina"

- Then I somehow got myself into another alliance with Phoenix, Ryan and Rhys lmao and we did the challenge together. Phoenix has this super long plan which I dead ass didn’t even read all the way I just knew that I wasn’t gonna be the focus and Phoenix would be because he started to overplay a bit!

I also made it a point to talk to Rexxy & Devin some just to avoid potentially going into the DM! So fast forward to the challenge being over and Phoenix wins! But myself and Math are at the bottom with a score of zero, which was the plan!

Pory came into my pms and were like what happened and I told them what was up and what had happened aka I told them it was work, which is why I’ve been in bed by 8 pm (not a lie true story lmao) and then when I went to sleep it went DOWN

"catarina"

- So Phoenix stuck to his word with me and gave me the token of life & sent Math to the DM! So then Phoenix and Pory went at it and Math was like “I want everybody to give me a name on who I should choose for the DM, otherwise you’ll be closer to me choosing you for it”

Also Math seems to be taking well and I wished him luck but I still feel bad because apparently Phoenix ignored that alliance for almost a whole day just to pay attention to us and I was like 😬😬😬

So now I’m safe and sound and I won’t be first boot! Idk who’s going but it won’t be me this week ^.^

"catarina"

- So I gotta confess... I'm having a ton of fun so far!

It seems like I got VERY fortunate that whatever Phoenix was involved with at first gave him pause, and led him to reach out to me and form a plan along with Rhys and Tyler and I that we all stuck with. I was happy to help give someone a win, as long as it meant I could get rid of all of my cards and not be the one left with the old maid at the end.

I think I've got a good pitch in mind for Math in order to try and keep myself and the other +1 scorers clear of the death match... I really want to highlight the fact that the players who scored 4 or 5 points either didn't think their plan through well enough, or possibly didn't understand the full extent of the rules of the main match... with ~someone~ always ending up with 0 no matter what, there is little difference between a score of 1, and a score of whatever 2nd place achieved. So why try and split your wins with one other person, when better long-range/strategic thinking would mean working in a bigger group to ensure the safety of 1-2 of you, like my foursome did. With all of that in mind, I would say a 4 or 5 point scorer would likely be an easier opponent for Math to take on in the death match, help him win, and stay in the game. I only talked to him briefly starting yesterday, but he seems nice, and like someone I could potentially work with going forward as a fellow 703 outsider.

"catarina"

- So the aftermath of the main match results have been ... interesting.

What we have learnt. Phoneix is a messy player. 1 - He was semi-involved with an allaince with Rexy, Pory, Hunter & Math. He then left said allaince in the dark causing a whole bunch of drama. 2 - Later Phoneix comes to me saying 703 people are targeting the non 703 people? What the fuck phoneix no. Math was lost in who knows where cause hardly anyone has spoken to him, and the same with Ryan. Like enough with your consipiracy theories. 3 - Pory says he knows about our little group (while leaking his own), so my guess Phoneix is the one to blame, while trying to fix his broken trail.

Im in an allaince with this person, but is he worth it. I originaly just joined forces because im a dumb fuck and wanted to exploit his smarts to keep myself from being the looser of main matches. So for now I will leave it, but im going to start to un associate myself with him, as he is a sinking boat. So im jumping ship.

Also Ryan who was put in for death match, but yeah im aligned with him but he doesnt talk so fuck him.

"catarina"

- WELP, I was afraid of that... I know I'm not the most social person around (hard to break in to this particular group dynamic),, but Math choosing me to go up against was a mistake, I think. I'm a straight up kinda dude (always my downfall), and was completely sincere when I told Math that I would like to work with him going forward should we both survive this round. It didn't occur to me that what he was looking for was a consensus rather than a well thought out argument, but it is what it is... and what that is, in my humble estimation, is a cop-out.

That said,, I can't say I'm super confident about my chances going into this DM.. I'm glad it's not one that the safe players can have a direct affect on, but there are many layers to this one, literally and figuratively. But I'm motivated to do well and stay in, and while I'm not underestimating my opponant one bit, I just hope there's some aspect of this game that he will overlook, allowing me to have an edge. We shall see :)

"catarina"

- Okay, I've been busy for the past few days, so I have a lot to talk about. It all revolves around a certain man named Pory.

So jump back to the Main Match, Pory is pissed at Phoenix and is asking Turtle if he would consider fighting against Phoenix in the Death Match.

I know Pory was gonna be pissed so this is no surprise.

Jump to results, Phoenix is safe and appoints Turtle as the Elimination Candidate; cue Pory losing his god damn mind. He rips into Phoenix about he isn't loyal and couldn't follow the plan and how he's screwed Turtle, and Phoenix isn't having it. But here's the thing; this was funny until Pory thought bringing MY NAME into it was cool.

Pory talked about how I was good and sticked to the plan. You would think this would be a good thing but I'm not pleased. I don't need people thinking I'm gonna be some follower for Pory or that because I did this one round with him I plan to just continue playing with him. I don't WANT to be tied to Pory, and I feel like him bringing me up as an attack to Phoenix, might do that for some people.

And yeah, Pory can also being very pushy with his plans, and now I'm in this group with him and Rexxy, and Pory is gung ho to try and get Phoenix out, yet I don't want Phoenix out this soon because he's done NOTHING to me, and has actually been more helpful, but if I don't try my best to get Phoenix out then Pory's gonna get all pissy with me.

Like god damn he's too much! I feel like if I do anything that he doesn't agree with, or try to fade away for one round, I'm gonna be a devil too!

Just...ugh I hope this next main match isn't too complicated and I don't have to tie myself to Pory.