Tribes have been officially created, and I’m just slightly underwhelmed. I had really, really wanted Snape, just because he’s my favorite person in the cast (even if he absolutely despised me). He was the highlight of the pre-game, no doubt. I do have Fred, which is excellent, because he’s someone I like and that I think I can trust. Pomfrey is fun as well, so that’s all good. Ron laughs at my jokes, which is neat. I feel like Rita is someone who likes me a lot, just from a few short conversations. I wasn’t completely insane when talking to her, and that’s worked in my benefit in this case. She seems like she has a solid head on her shoulders, and I just feel super comfortable around her, which is good? I’m hoping it’s closer along the lines of we’ve clicked rather than she’s just insanely easy to talk to, which is a very real possibility. There are some people in orgs (lookin at u KAITLYN) that you can just talk to forever right off the bat, and those people tend to be the scariest players of all, just because you’re not the only one that usually feels that way.

Hagrid and I had one quick conversation, but it’s clear he’s willing to indulge me and just have fun, so with some time I think he’ll be someone I like. Cormac is okay, it’s very obvious he doesn’t enjoy my antics, but I don’t blame him for it. He does seem socially competent though, just not with me. There are always those players in any given game who you never really get anything going with, but you can tell it’s a chemistry thing rather than a them thing. He’s one of those guys. Draco sucks, he’s trying too hard to roleplay - this might sound odd, but hear me out. Rita and Maxime are playing their characters and role playing, but they don’t incorporate only past knowledge about their characters into it. Both are their own people drawing from a HP character to have fun - Draco can only use information from the books/movies when talking to you. He can’t deviate at all from it, and it makes talking with him extremely predictable and dull. Everything links back to his father, his status as an elite, or his role as a student at Hogwarts. He’s gotta change it up, otherwise I’m gonna be bored to tears. Albus I haven’t talked to, and I think he’s not actually around. My money’s on him going home from our tribe first.

I hadn’t intended to do a cast assessment but oh well, next time will be BETTER. As for Gilderoy Lockhart’s general Round 1 plans in order from most to least important, they are:

1. Participate in the challenge - pretty self-explanatory, I don’t want to miss it and cause any problems for my tribe. It’s the first challenge, gotta make a decent impression. Lord knows I haven’t up to this point.

2. Socialize with the people I’m not comfy with yet - I’ll force the convos I have to with everyone sans Fred, Pomfrey, and Rita just to make them feel better about me. Those three are people I’m already good with, so I don’t need to force with them, it can just be casual chit chat about whatever.

3. Don’t make any fucking alliances - I’m too good for this, people better come to me and kiss my feet.


Lastly, I’m pulling out an old card from my playbook. When I divide into tribes, I find one player who I talk about negatively to the rest of the tribe. Because of this, that person usually ends up being an early target if we lose, and can help get me in the door with voting plans. If I tell Fred, Pomfrey, Ron, Hagrid, and Rita that I don’t like Malfoy, they then know that this is someone who can get killed early and I’ll already have one person ready and waiting to do it with me. Additionally, if you only say negative things about someone, anyone else who was neutral will start to pick up on the negative aspects. Anyone who already disliked that person is now someone you can bond with - hate brings people together faster than love. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the way the world works. It’s easier to bond making fun of Donald Trump than it is talk about how amazing Liz Warren is.

Back to the three important points I had out, my shift at work could conflict with the challenge, which would be awful. I’m hoping they’ll wait till I’m off, which probably will be the case, but you never know. I think they technically have to, but whatever.

Draco is so fucking bad at this challenge

I'm underwhelmed at my lack of activity just in pure terms of socializing this round, due to going out and doing stuff at night and only really having time to talk in the mornings. Pomfrey is usually the only one who's online early, which is great for me, I love talking to her. It's just annoying when I haven't had time to talk to a lot of my tribe in two days. It's fine though, I'm free tonight and I'll have time tomorrow during the day and on Wednesday/Thursday, so that problem will be solved. My larger than life personality also helps hide the fact that I'm not around as much as I'd like to be, because someone always has a "look what this dickhead did now" story to tell. I can't be sure if that's the case, but I've been able to do this in the past - I can trick people into thinking I'm more active than I actually am. In past games, be a huge larger than life figure early on, and then take a round off (usually if you win or have an inactive), and 99.9% you're completely fine.

Because of my lack of fraternizing with the peasantry, I don't have a lot to add on tribe dynamics and how I'm feeling about certain people. That leaves me with two speaking points: our flop in the challenge, and the vote.

The challenge was, by all accounts, a disaster. Pure and simple. They drew up the order while I was coming home from work, which was fine, being towards the back is less pressure on me to perform (and EVERYONE is looking for my mistakes to point out due to how massive my ego is). However, Malfoy had himself listed first, which means if he fails, we lose the challenge. The only benefit to that would be my Malfoy Smear Campaign (which has hardly started due to how unavailable I've been) just got another round in the chamber. I actually wanted him to succeed, because I do like winning challenges. They're definitely not necessary for me, but I think the other tribe is boring and as an entertainer, it is my moral obligation to try and nuke them so only the finest are left at merge. Anyway, Malfoy started posting and fucking SUCKED. He was so slow on his own. I think it took him 16 minutes to finish the first thread, and on its own, I don't think it's terrible - but every other thread not involving Rita or a Fred mistake was faster. This was exemplified by Ron fucking killing it right after Draco meandered around for a bit. From there, Pomfrey lost her power, but still ended up doing a good job. Fred had two big mistakes which fucked us, including MESSING UP ON 599. The entire tribe collectively wanted to die at that moment, but because it's Fred, he gets a pass. I won't hold it against him at all, mistakes happen. Just know if I didn't like him, I would harp on it like a Fox News correspondent and spread a sophist web of bullshit to get him out. Meanwhile, Cormac was slow for his first post but was ultimately fine overall, but there was someone who left me frustrated: Rita.

So, like Rita, I didn't read the rules really. I just watched to see what our tribemates did, and copied them. Simple, right? Apparently not. Rita didn't read the challenge thread, didn't understand what was entirely going on, and didn't ask any questions before starting the challenge. She wasn't around when it was her turn to post, so I was going to step in, but she said she had it. I should've just done it, honestly. She lagged behind everyone else, and was slower than Malfoy. I'd sit there waiting and in the chat she'd take SO long to get anything sent through, and it was noticeable. I don't think she had everything ready before each post, or maybe her internet speed was just shit? Like, my computer has been kinda slow, so putting me in the back half was a safe bet, but she took longer than ANYONE else. I wasn't an all-star this time around, I was a weaker link in the challenge for sure - but I didn't slow us down that badly. Following behind Ron or literally anyone else would've been better, because they didn't take forever updating the tribe chat. I'm hoping this was an outlier and not indicative of her effort in tribal challenges, because that won't fly. Not unless we start to become close, then it's fine I guess.

The last low point for us in the challenge was Hagrid. Now, I think Hagrid is European, because this didn't make sense to me at all, but Hagrid hopped online to do the challenge around 1 AM EST. Yes, he got online to do it at 1 in the fucking morning. Honestly it's so funny that I don't even care that he missed, it's totally worth it. He cited my post on when I was working (1:30 to 7:30 EST) as why he came online when he did, but he clearly didn't read or register it correctly. I said I could do it before or after, and people on the tribe decided after would've been better (I didn't actually see the deadline for the challenge, I think that was technically after it ended), but Hagrid missed that bit. The European thing is a hunch that comes from two things. 1. Who the FUCK wakes up at 1 AM to do a challenge? and 2. If you're from a place that uses 24 hours, 1 is 1 AM while 13 is 1 PM. I'm sure most of you know this, given that you're either smart or Canadian or both, but there has to be one idiot in there that needs the lecture (Zach or Jenna probs <3). I could also just look at his local timezone on Slack but that's too much work and I'm lazy.

Lastly, the vote. It's Albus, everyone. That's it. That's all I got.