Episode 2 Private Confessional

As it is clearly obvious from Cheri's departure, these first few executions are a matter of luck. She was definitely into the game, and I imagine she's not happy at all with having left, and to be fair, if things were FAIR, Beth should have probably been executed over her, but like I said, these first few ones are a matter of luck, so fairness has little to do with it, and that is exactly why I may very well be suffering Cheri's fate soon. I'd absolutely hate it because I've been putting a heck of a lot of time into this game, but it can definitely happen. As I said in my last private confessional, I won't think of it as a failure if I do go this early because of how out of my hands it is. If I go at the final 8 or final 7, then that is a failure indeed, because I had a fair shot at discovering The Mole, and I didn't. I suppose Cheri must've gone 100% after someone on the quiz or just not spread out her answers well enough, but I guess we'll never know.

The execution quiz:

The quiz was totally fair, with a great deal of questions with "A or B" choices, meaning you have a 50% chance of getting them right, which is a great way to do the quiz when there are so many people left in the game. As the numbers dwindle, the questions will obviously become more specific, as they should. My only thing was that… well, in my daily life, I always prepare for things hours upon hours before they happen or before they're due. In college, I'd study for exams tons of weeks in advance, and I'd start papers two weeks in advance, and I'm sure this is all making me sound like a pretentious nerd, and that's not what it is: I'm just paranoid that if I don't do it like that, I'm gonna be overwhelmed at the last minute and won't be able to manage everything. People always thought it was weird. So, of course, for the quiz, I already had prepared all the information I thought I was gonna need at like 6 PM of the day, even though the quiz was not till midnight. The quiz then had two questions involving very last minute things: the odd/even number of posts on the blogs and the odd/even number of message board posts. These things were last minute, because obviously people were posting public confessionals at the last minute to not get penalties, and people were also posting in the "Last Supper" thread in those final hours as well. Those two questions are the reason why the quiz took me 8 minutes, but well, now I should be prepared to answer them tomorrow night. But still, the quiz was great and I can't complain about it. When I was The Mole, I actually contributed to the quiz-making sometimes, and I know how tough it can be to make them and to have to double-check that you've got answer choices that cover everyone in the game and to make sure you didn't screw up any of the questions.

One-Hit Bloggers:

Haha, we are so not winning this one. As of this writing, 73 posts have been made, and there's like 7 or 8 (maybe even more) that have been invalid. The fun part about this, though, is obviously trying to figure out who is making an obvious attempt at looking suspicious and who is being genuinely underhanded (if anyone is). This may easily be the kind of challenge that The Mole is pretty sure will be lost anyway, so why not seem very helpful, since all the help he/she provides won't yield success in the end? There's also a possibility that The Mole has posted a URL intending for it to be a valid one, yet hasn't realized that it isn't valid – as in, he/she may not be intending to sabotage, but it happens, anyway, and that's something that needs to be considered, as well. You can easily go crazy analyzing the reasons why someone posted a link or didn't post a link. When I first read the instructions of the challenge, I thought "Well, what's the point of this? It's so tedious." Now I realize that it's perfect for the game because it can lead you to question so many aspects of what several people do and why they do it.

Dinosaur Comics:

UGH, you have no idea how badly I wanted at least a shot at an exemption. I will do absolutely ANYTHING to get one, lol. Now the hope is that Kyle and Mitch won't get them, and it sucks that we won't find out until a few hours before the quiz if they got them (I'll be stressing about it all day tomorrow at work, more than likely). If anything, I hope at least ONE of the two of them doesn't get it, and hopefully they won't work together in guessing them (I don't see why they would – an exemption is something you want for yourself, unless they are coalition partners and really want to keep each other in the game).

Thoughts this week:

Player #1 (Mitch) – I'm so glad that he was able to loosen up in the last few days. He was kind of reticent at first, but then at the challenge (and mostly after it was over), he went into a hilarious spree of exaggerated accusations in which he'd call out everyone in the chatroom as being The Mole. That was a riot.

Player #2 (Richard) – Okay, so I've come to a decision. My doubts on what I said about him in my last private confessional have been dispelled. I think the occasional moments in which he's kind of boring, it's just because he's shy around other people, but he's definitely not afraid to express his thoughts when talking to me, and I'm quite happy that he's able to do that.

Player #5 (Ginger) – I'm not as pleased with her as I was last week. Here's the thing: no matter WHAT, whether she is The Mole or not, it is COMPLETELY obvious that everything she has been doing is shady. From missing the challenge and pretending she was scared to be executed due to her -1 (and then obviously acting super shocked and relieved upon getting a green thumbprint) to the blatancy with which she has made invalid posts for the One-Hit Bloggers challenge, even making a post in a separate thread with a bunch of invalid links. Let me tell you this, if she is The Mole, what she's doing is extremely dangerous. She may think "oh, they'll just dismiss me because they'll think I'm trying too hard to look suspicious," but the truth is I have no doubt some people will find it suspicious. But ALSO, if she isn't The Mole, then what she's doing is still a bad idea as well because she's clearly trying too hard at seeming underhanded. So, contradictory as it sounds, I actually think her strategy is a bad one REGARDLESS of what her actual role within the game is. That's weird, too, because usually you'd be like "Well, if he/she is The Mole, then he/she's playing well, but if not, then he/she's not playing well" (or viceversa), but this is a case in which I think it's a poor strategy no matter what. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's effective. It certainly is effective at being CONFUSING, if that's what she's aiming for, but I don't know if being confusing will really yield any good results for her gameplay.

Player #6 (Breaux) – From my thoughts last week, you probably surmised that I viewed him as the most annoying player in the game, but I guess now maybe he's sort of tied with Ginger. However, he REALLY isn't around all that much, First of all, he wasn't around much in those first few days because he was supposedly away, and now I hardly see him online, even though he does periodically make posts and whatnot. It just bothers me, and it really does make me want to refer to him as being at least semi-inactive.

Player #7 (Blaise) – I was faced with a choice of partner between him and Brandon when we had to pick our dinosaurs, and I immediately had to jump up and pick Blaise and tell Brandon that Blaise had already asked me, because as much as I like Brandon A LOT, I trust him very little, but more importantly, I don't think he's the kind who would be easily manipulated when dealing with the whole comics thing, whereas the more stereotypical "nice guy" Blaise would obviously prove easier in that regard. Heck, when I talked to Blaise about the project, he even just went ahead and told me to do it however I wanted, whereas I'm positive Brandon would've wanted to have a say in what I did or didn't do, which is something I wasn't gonna be happy with in the least bit.

Player #8 (Brandon) – As I just said, I like him a lot. I'm sure this may be something that changes every week, but I'd say he's one of my favorites here (and yes, you can adore someone and still not trust them - it's happened to me outside of playing games like The Mole, lol). He's the only one who's actually been interested in having hefty conversations about non-game-related things, which is always a relief. I don't care if what we talk about is something as banal as having problems registering for classes; I just care that I can get to know a little more about his PERSONALITY and not worry much about whether he's trying to bluff me with what he's saying. His assertion that he went after Cheri on the first quiz is interesting, and I'm not sure what to make of it. He sort of suggested that I was his top suspect, and what sucks is that, as much as I am trying hard to get people to suspect me, I'd hate it if BRANDON were the person who left because of thinking it's me, just because I like him. I'd prefer someone I don't like leave due to thinking I'm The Mole; that'd give me more satisfaction. BUT I really can't let emotions cloud my gameplay, and if I get him to get executed for suspecting me, that's an accomplishment, and it's one less person to beat (and as I said in my last private confessional, he looks like a formidable opponent, so it'd certainly be a good thing).

Player #9 (Elise) – She's hardly around, really. I really want to call her a semi-inactive like Breaux because she really isn't there a whole lot. I really wouldn't be all that pleased if she were The Mole, because I think The Mole should place him/herself in the line of fire at least a little bit, or else it's just like he/she is hiding. It's like if in boxing one of the fighters is simply evading the other guy the whole time rather than getting in there with the punch-throwing (bear with me, I'm not a boxing fan, or a sports fan in general, but I wanted to use an analogy). I'm sorry that I keep bringing up the games I played in in the past as examples (they're my only frame of reference), but the first game I was in, I won, but I didn't discover The Mole till the final three (my suspect was executed at the final four, much to my shock). My first thought when I realized who the REAL Mole was was "Well, he did a GREAT job, no one caught him till the end." But a few days after the game was over, I realized the reason why he was suspected so little was because he really wasn't around much. I know that there isn't such a thing as a "fair" way for The Mole to play, or a set way that The Mole SHOULD play, but I didn't really think that was fair. When I played The Mole in my next game, I was in the line of fire by being an active player and still was able to do well at keeping people from knowing it was me until the very end, so there's no reason other Moles shouldn't be able to do it as well. So after that long tangent, my main message is that, Elise, if you're The Mole, you're just hiding from us, and you're really not doing it all that well, and if I get executed because it's you, I won't see it as a failure, because you're just taking an awfully easy path in carrying out your role.

Player #10 (Brian) – You gotta KEEP loving Brian! When we were talking about your unenthralled voice (lol) and he said that perhaps you should have a one-man show on Broadway, I thought it was totally hilarious. If anything, it just makes me wish he and I got more chances at having conversations, but maybe it'll happen if we both stay around in the game for a while.

Player #11 (Kyle) – I haven't heard from Kyle in days and he really has been sort of "blah" when he HAS been around, so unfortunately, nothing much to report here. I was also surprised he forgot his first confessional and got a -1. I thought he'd be one of the most active players, but maybe I was wrong. Or it could be a ploy, lol.

Player #12 (Paul) – Okay, before I give off the wrong idea about this, I still LIKE Paul as a person, and I guess every game has someone who does this sort of thing (Al from Mole 2 comes to mind), but his criticism of people doing poorly in challenges is just too much. It's not like he's been a rockstar at the challenges either. And also, he's got the gall to criticize people whom he believes are obviously doing things in challenges in order to look suspicious… okay, maybe their attempts aren't working on YOU, but they may very well be working on other people, so how about you allow people to just have whatever strategy they want, and you just worry about your own strategy, mate? Then in this week's "What is identity?" thread, he doesn't waste the opportunity to take a jab at people by saying that "some of the personalities are a little forced, unnecessarily." I'll be the first to admit that the personality that I'm portraying in the game is a little forced, but using the adverb "unnecessarily" is completely wrong, because you have no idea why people might feel they need to act a certain way. Again, maybe they're not fooling you, but they may be fooling others. I'd assume that, when talking about forced personalities, he's mainly talking about Ginger (which, duh, of course she's forcing her personality) and as much as it'd be nice if she weren't like that, she clearly thinks it's her best approach so, well, why don't we let her be? Paul, if you're reading this, I do think you're awesome, but this is definitely just a bit grating… and you're nowhere near the bottom of my suspect list, so if you think the "hardcore player" role is working for you as The Mole… well… you might be fooling a lot of people, but not me. :)

Player #14 (Beth) – As with the last time, nothing has happened here, other than the fact that she was nice enough to send me her bio details. As with Breaux, Elise and Kyle, I'd really be upset if she were The Mole because of the fact that she's hardly done anything. I'd also be severely upset if I got executed before her, lol – I mean, I guess Cheri probably didn't deserve to go over here either, but still.

If neither Kyle nor Mitch is The Mole and they both earn exemptions, that means 10 people are taking the quiz, but it's really 9 because The Mole can't get executed, so I would be competing against 8 people. Not great chances, though not awful either, I suppose, but look at what happened to Cheri. I'm also constantly paranoid about the fact that maybe The Mole sucks and is making his/her identity very clear, and thus a lot of people will either know for sure or go largely for him/her on the quiz, thus leaving me out of that loop. I just CAN'T imagine, though, that in a game of 12 people, a large majority of them (say 7 or 8) know who it is or have a strong suspicion and are right. People in general think so differently, that it just seems impossible that so many would have the same suspicions AND be right about them. Much like with the last quiz, I'm just hoping there are at least 2 or so people who think I could be The Mole (even though Brandon really is the only one who has stated he may suspect me, but you can't ever believe what someone tells you in this game, lol). It's been an intense weekend for me in terms of thinking about the game, but I don't even want to start to imagine how intense it'll all be come tomorrow and come the torturous 24 hours of waiting, after tomorrow night. Fingers are crossed. You're running a great game, and I'd especially like to note that I really like the pace (it's not going so fast that people get executed every 2 days thus making us go insane, but we have no cause to get impatient either). So I just hope I get to stay in it a little longer.