Taking in feedback from my cast reveal photo, I took a risk this week and attempted to bring a bold and eye catching image for yall! Hope yall enjoy 🙂 #DNTM3

Comment on this thread if you'd like to see yourself simulated in Season 14 of my simulation series! You are welcome to join the group and be added to the placement archive I have going on there: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Looking for 16 houseguests to enter the house this season! You are allowed to tag up to 3 people to be on the season as well if you'd like. Newbies will be prioritized over alumni, however, if we do not get all newbies then it will go by order of alumni, and their time since last appearance in the series in general. The longer it's been since the last season you played, the higher priority you have. If you are an alumni and happen to sadly miss this season, I'll add you on the list of signups for next season with high priority. Signups will close May 19th, 9:00 PM KVT. For contestants on Season 13, it will be released Sunday! Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713 Season 14 • Big Brother • Roman Empire Newbies: Luxray joeburrow shavedboosie Chase Veterans (seasons since last appearance): @Amandasings04 (4) #joshgillespie (2) dumblonde (1) @Mittens (1) @MrsChloeKayCecci (1) rainolds (1)

https://kovaze.com/blog/122404

https://kovaze.com/blog/119849

100 Players have fallen, however, 5 still remain for the finale! Thank you everyone who signed up or got signed up for this, it was a blast to simulate. Hope ya'll enjoy the finale and goodluck to everyone who made it past a hundred people to the finale. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: @Bagel camell22 CasinoCheese dumblonde JessieKowalski -------------------------------------------- Five people. One hundred and five walked through the doors on the first day. Five remain. The dormitory that once held all of them — the noise, the fear, the alliances forming in the dark, the thirty-four bodies left on the grass after Red Light Green Light, the twenty-seven tins of shattered honeycomb candy, the twenty-two people who fell from those platforms, the eleven marble games, the broken glass, the rope — all of it has compressed down to this. Five bunks, five faces, one room, and somewhere in the facility, one more game. Nobody sleeps. CasinoCheese sits on the edge of their bunk in the dark and doesn't pretend to try. They have been awake since the glass bridge — since the moment they stepped off platform 12 and onto the far ledge and understood, for the first time with real clarity, that winning this thing was genuinely possible. Before that, survival had been the framework. Now survival is achieved. What remains is something else entirely — something heavier, something that doesn't have a clean name. They look across the dormitory. dumblonde is awake too. They both know it. Neither of them speaks for a long time. Then dumblonde says quietly: "We're going to have to play each other eventually." CasinoCheese doesn't answer right away. The statement doesn't need a response — it's not a question, not a threat, just the shape of what's coming, spoken aloud so it exists in the room between them instead of only in their heads. "I know," CasinoCheese says finally. dumblonde nods. Neither of them says anything else. There is nothing else to say. The alliance they built over six games — quiet, durable, barely visible from the outside — has always had this moment waiting at the end of it. Two people who trusted each other completely, now sitting in a room five players from the finish line, understanding that trust and competition are not mutually exclusive. That you can mean everything you said and still have to do what you have to do. They sit in the dark on opposite bunks until the lights come on. They don't sleep. They don't need to. On the other side of the dormitory, @Bagel and camell22 are having a different conversation — louder, more tangled, more unresolved. They have been talking for over an hour. What started as a quiet debrief of the glass bridge has become something more honest and more uncomfortable. The closeness they've built across six games — the warmth of it, the ease of it — has run directly into the arithmetic of what's left. Five players. One winner. The math doesn't care about comfort. "It was always going to end up here," camell22 says. Not bitterly. Just factually, the way people state facts when they've spent an hour trying to find another way to frame them and failed. @Bagel looks at the ceiling. "I know. I just didn't want to think about it until I had to." "You have to now." "I know." They sit with it for a while. The bond between them is real — it accumulated over six games, through dormitory conversations and shared silences and the small acts of generosity that become significant when you're in a place like this. Neither of them wants to be the one who ends the other's run. Both of them understand that wanting doesn't change the game. "Whoever makes it through," @Bagel says eventually, "they earned it." camell22 looks at them for a moment. "Yeah," they say. "They did." It is the most honest thing either of them has said since they got here. It is also, without either of them saying it, a goodbye — the kind you give someone when you're not sure you'll get another chance. JessieKowalski is the only one in the dormitory who is actually trying to sleep, and the only one who can't manage it. They lie flat on their back in the bunk closest to the door — arms at their sides, eyes closed, breathing controlled — running through the mechanics of every game they've survived as if drilling for an exam. Red Light Green Light: stillness. Dalgona: patience. Tug of War: rhythm. Marbles: Hunter. Glass Bridge: information. Every game reducible to a principle. Every principle something they can hold onto. The final game is the only one they haven't solved yet. Spikedcurley would have had thoughts about this. JessieKowalski had run practices with them in the dormitory corridor — timing tiles, testing balance, sharpening nerve. Spikedcurley had fallen at glass panel 12, one step from the ledge, and JessieKowalski had crossed that same panel safe without them. The weight of that has been with them since. Not guilt exactly — this place isn't designed for guilt to survive in — but something adjacent. Something that sharpens into motivation when they let it. They open their eyes and stare at the ceiling. Five people. One game left. JessieKowalski is ready. -------------------------------------------- The morning of the final game, the five remaining players eat their last meal in the facility together — rice, water, nothing more. The table that once seated over a hundred people now holds five, clustered at one end, the rest of the chairs empty. Nobody mentions the empty chairs. camell22 eats in silence. @Bagel eats slowly, measuring every spoonful like it's a decision. CasinoCheese and dumblonde sit adjacent to each other, not speaking, but present in each other's space in the way that has defined their quiet alliance from the beginning. JessieKowalski eats quickly and efficiently and sits back and watches the other four with the careful attention they have brought to every room in this facility. The intercom crackles. A guard's voice, flat and precise: "Final game. All players to the arena in ten minutes." Five chairs scrape back from the table. -------------------------------------------- The Squid Game. The game that gives this entire competition its name — a Korean children's game played on a shape drawn in the ground: a square body at the base, a triangular neck rising from it, and a circular head at the top. In this version the shape has been scaled across the entire arena floor — the square body alone thirty feet across, the boundary lines thick and bright on the concrete. All five players enter at once. Any player pushed or driven beyond the boundary lines is eliminated. No rounds, no resets. Last player inside the boundary wins. -------------------------------------------- The five players walk into the arena and spread across the square body of the squid shape. JessieKowalski moves left. @Bagel and camell22 drift right, close to each other without making it obvious. dumblonde takes the center. CasinoCheese settles toward the back edge, watching. A tone sounds. JessieKowalski drives into the center immediately — hard and purposeful, refusing to wait. They collide with dumblonde in the center of the square and the two exchange drives while @Bagel and camell22 hold the right side, covering each other's backs. CasinoCheese repositions quietly from the back without committing. JessieKowalski cycles through all four opponents in rapid succession — burning energy, landing hits that move people but not enough. They end up between dumblonde on the right and CasinoCheese closing from the left, with camell22 cutting off the path back to center. dumblonde drives into JessieKowalski's right shoulder. camell22 adds pressure from the left simultaneously — not a hard hit, just enough to compound the redirect. JessieKowalski stumbles toward the left boundary, plants, holds for one second. dumblonde presses again. The left foot crosses the line. 5th — JessieKowalski. -------------------------------------------- Four players. The left side of the square opens up. @Bagel and camell22 stay paired on the right side, coordinating without speaking. dumblonde holds center. CasinoCheese moves fluidly between the back and left sections — always repositioning, never overcommitting. CasinoCheese drives at @Bagel from the left side — a sharp, angled push that sends @Bagel stumbling toward the right boundary. @Bagel absorbs it and plants at eight feet from the line. camell22 moves to help but dumblonde cuts across to intercept, keeping camell22 occupied in the center while CasinoCheese resets and drives at @Bagel again. Bagel is fighting alone now. camell22 is pinned by dumblonde in the center, trying to disengage, unable to close the distance. CasinoCheese drives @Bagel's right side a third time — the same angle, and @Bagel's footing gives slightly on the third hit. Three stumbling steps right. The boundary is two feet away. @Bagel braces. Holds at the line for a grinding four seconds. CasinoCheese drives once more and @Bagel's right foot crosses the line before they can stop it. 4th — @Bagel. -------------------------------------------- Three players. camell22 is alone now, the pair broken. camell22 understands what they're facing and commits to aggression immediately — no point in conserving energy with two opponents fresh and coordinated. They drive at dumblonde hard, going low beneath the center of gravity. The hit disrupts dumblonde's footing — two stumbling steps toward the left boundary. CasinoCheese moves in from camell22's right and drives their shoulder before they can press dumblonde further. camell22 pivots and fires back at CasinoCheese — a hard direct exchange that pushes CasinoCheese back three steps. For a moment camell22 has the upper hand, buying space, keeping both opponents from coordinating. Then dumblonde recovers and closes from behind. camell22 is now in the center with CasinoCheese in front and dumblonde behind. They drive at CasinoCheese trying to break through and create space. CasinoCheese holds. dumblonde drives into camell22's back simultaneously. camell22 overextends on the forward push and their momentum carries them forward into CasinoCheese's redirect, which swings them sideways toward the bottom boundary. camell22 tries to brake — three steps, two — but both feet go over the bottom line before they stop. 3rd — camell22. -------------------------------------------- Two players. CasinoCheese and dumblonde stand across the center of the square. Neither moves for a moment. The dormitory conversation made physical — both of them knew this was always where it ended. The alliance they built across six games, now reduced to one boundary and two people. dumblonde moves first. A direct drive into CasinoCheese's left shoulder that generates real stumble — two steps toward the left boundary. CasinoCheese recovers and answers with a hard right-side drive that pushes dumblonde toward the right edge. dumblonde holds at ten feet from the line. The fight settles into sustained exchanges — dumblonde more aggressive, CasinoCheese more efficient. Four minutes of drives and redirects, the boundary lines drifting in and out of danger for both of them. Neither gets close enough to be in real trouble. Then CasinoCheese creates a sequence. Three consecutive drives into dumblonde's right side — same angle each time — pulling a defensive response that gradually commits dumblonde's weight right. On the fourth drive CasinoCheese cuts left, catching dumblonde mid-adjustment. dumblonde stumbles left. Four steps — the left boundary is six feet away. dumblonde fires back hard, reversing the pressure, walking CasinoCheese toward the bottom boundary with a sustained forward drive. CasinoCheese braces at four feet from the line and holds. A deadlock — both players chest-to-chest, spending everything to hold position. dumblonde shifts weight to change the drive angle. Their left foot slides one inch — just bad footing, nothing more — and for a half-second the weight distribution is wrong. CasinoCheese feels it through the contact and responds instantly with a sharp lateral drive into the compromised side. dumblonde stumbles right. Three steps, then a fourth they couldn't stop. The right boundary line is right there. Their heel crosses it. The guard raises their flag. dumblonde looks down at their foot over the line. Looks up at CasinoCheese standing inside the boundary, breathing hard. Everything between them sits in that look — all six games, every conversation in the dark, the quiet alliance that carried them both to the last two standing. dumblonde nods once. CasinoCheese nods back. 2nd — dumblonde. The door at the far end of the arena opens. CasinoCheese stands alone in the squid. 🏆 1st — CasinoCheese. WINNER. -------------------------------------------- Thanks everyone for reading this and being apart of the season! The results were simulated before Episode 1 began so I knew the winner and everything so it was so funny to see ya'lls comments. Everyone leaving positive sometimes made my day. Below are some important links such as the group where every season is archived, the directory that has easy blog access to every season, and a spreadsheet has a lot of details for chart lovers! Episodes: https://kovaze.com/blog/120794 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713. Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO That just about concludes this season! Thank you everyone who has gotten this far, this was a ton of fun to run. If any of yall notice any mistakes please feel free to point out and I'll change it. Appreciate feedback as well I could use to improve simulations down the line as well! CONGRATS CasinoCheese!

Excited to bring ya'll more! #DNTM3

Super Happy to make it onto #DNTM3! Hope to serve a season of looks for yall I will not disappoint 🙂

100 Have Fallen, 5 Remain! Watch @Bagel, camell22, CasinoCheese, dumblonde, and JessieKowalski battle it out in a final game tonight! https://kovaze.com/blog/120794

105 has gone down to only 11! https://kovaze.com/blog/121392

94 Players have fallen, however, 11 still remain for the semi-final, hope yall enjoy! -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: YanderTron21 Cristi @Bagel heatherleigh Melodrama camell22 Spikedcurley dumblonde JessieKowalski CasinoCheese Gabbes -------------------------------------------- Eleven people. The dormitory that held one hundred and five now holds eleven, and the silence of the empty bunks is no longer just noticeable — it is overwhelming. Players have stopped spreading out. Everyone has pulled their beds into one tight cluster near the center of the room, as if proximity to each other might ward off whatever comes next. The social geometry has collapsed inward too. There are no factions anymore. There are no blocs, no tiers, no strategic subgroups running parallel conversations. Eleven people is too few for that. What remains is something more like a small community — fractured, exhausted, deeply aware of each other in the way that only comes from surviving the same things. Melodrama has been quieter since the marbles game. YanderTron21 stays close without making it a point, just present — close enough that Melodrama isn't alone in the silence, far enough to give them the space to exist in it. The rest of the group has noticed the shift in Melodrama's energy. Nobody addresses it directly. That's the unspoken code among the eleven now: witness without intrusion. Spikedcurley and JessieKowalski have been running practice drills in the dormitory corridor — timing each other walking a line of floor tiles, testing balance and nerve. Nobody is sure exactly what the next game will be, but the physical preparation feels like the right thing to do when the mind won't stop moving. Cristi joins them on the second evening, sitting against the wall and watching, and then eventually standing up and joining the line. camell22 and @Bagel have drifted closer to each other in the last few days — their careful strategy of warm neutrality now supplemented by something that feels more genuine. They sit at meals together. They share what little food is available with easy generosity. heatherleigh gravitates toward them as well, and for a night the three of them stay up talking — not about strategy, not about the game, just about the outside world. What they miss. What they want. What they'll do if they walk out of here. CasinoCheese and dumblonde operate the same way they always have — quietly, efficiently, without drawing attention to their connection. But there is something different in it now. At this stage, eleven players, five games deep — quiet is no longer neutrality. It is preparation. Both of them know it. Neither says it out loud. Gabbes finds YanderTron21 alone near the water station on the second night and asks simply: "Are you okay?" YanderTron21 thinks about it for a real moment before answering. "I don't know," they say. It's the most honest answer anyone has given in here in days. Tomorrow, the game is announced. Eleven players stand in the dormitory and hear it for the first time: Glass Bridge. The room absorbs it. -------------------------------------------- Glass Bridge. A bridge of twelve platforms stretches between two elevated ledges over a vast, dark drop below. Each platform consists of two side-by-side glass panels — one made of tempered glass, capable of supporting the weight of a person, and one made of regular glass, which will shatter instantly underfoot. Players must cross the bridge one at a time choosing left or right at each platform. A correct choice: they advance. A wrong choice: they fall. Every panel crossed safely or shattered is information — the longer the bridge is tested, the more the safe path reveals itself. Twelve platforms. Eleven players. No assigned order. Just the bridge and whoever is willing to step onto it. -------------------------------------------- The arena opens into a vast, cathedral-dark space. The bridge stretches ahead — twelve platforms suspended over a drop that disappears into black. Eleven players stand on the entry ledge and stare at it. Nobody speaks for almost a full minute. Then heatherleigh steps forward. No instruction given. No order called. heatherleigh simply moves to the edge of the ledge and steps onto the bridge. The other ten stay back — some gripping the railing, some watching without moving, some already studying the glass surface of the first two platforms for any visual difference between them. There is none. There never is. Platform 1. heatherleigh goes right. The glass holds. The ten on the ledge exhale. Platform 2. Left. Holds. heatherleigh pauses, looks back at the group, and moves forward. Platform 3. Right. The glass shatters. 11th — heatherleigh. -------------------------------------------- Platform 3's safe panel is now known: left. Ten players on the ledge. Three platforms mapped. The silence after heatherleigh's fall lasts about four seconds. Then the bridge becomes something different — not a waiting room but an active problem. People begin to move. Gabbes steps onto the bridge. Then YanderTron21, right behind them. Then Spikedcurley, then @Bagel and CasinoCheese in quick succession — five players stepping onto platforms 1 and 2, filing onto the known safe panels, the tempered glass holding all of them steady. Melodrama and Cristi move to platform 1. JessieKowalski and dumblonde step up to platform 2. camell22 stays on the entry ledge, watching. The bridge holds eight people clustered on the first two platforms. Twelve to go. Three panels known. Everyone waiting on someone to push forward. Gabbes goes. They cross platform 3 on the left — known safe from heatherleigh's fall — and reach platform 4. Unknown. Gabbes looks at both panels. Neither gives anything away. Left. The glass holds. YanderTron21 and Spikedcurley advance to platform 3. @Bagel stays on platform 2. Gabbes at platform 5. Unknown. Right. The glass shatters. 10th — Gabbes. -------------------------------------------- Five platforms now mapped. The cluster on the bridge absorbs it and moves. YanderTron21 advances to platforms 4 and 5 — both known now. Melodrama moves up to platform 3. Spikedcurley crosses to platform 4. CasinoCheese and JessieKowalski move up to platform 3. @Bagel advances to platform 3. dumblonde steps onto platform 2. The bridge is covered now — players spread across five known platforms, the group distributed from the entry ledge all the way to platform 5 where the glass still shows the break where Gabbes fell. Platform 6 is unknown. YanderTron21 is at the front. Platform 6. Left. Holds. Platform 7. Right. Holds. Spikedcurley and Melodrama advance to platform 5 and 6 behind YanderTron21. Cristi crosses to platform 4. CasinoCheese moves to platform 5. JessieKowalski advances to platform 4. @Bagel and dumblonde move forward on the known panels. YanderTron21 at platform 8. Unknown. Left. The glass shatters. 9th — YanderTron21. -------------------------------------------- Eight platforms mapped. The group spreads forward again immediately — filling the known safe panels, pushing toward the gap. Melodrama moves up to platform 7, stepping carefully through what YanderTron21 revealed. Spikedcurley crosses to platform 6. Cristi advances to platform 6 as well. JessieKowalski moves to platform 5. CasinoCheese stays at platform 5 and watches. @Bagel crosses to platform 4. dumblonde and camell22 advance through the lower platforms. Platform 8 is safe — YanderTron21 crossed it before dying. Platform 9 is unknown. Melodrama at the front of the group. Platform 8 — known safe. They cross. Platform 9. Unknown. Right. Holds. Spikedcurley advances to platform 7. Cristi moves to platform 8. JessieKowalski crosses to platform 6. CasinoCheese moves to platform 6. The group is spread across eight platforms. The far ledge is now visible — four platforms away. Melodrama at platform 10. Unknown. Left. The glass shatters. 8th — Melodrama. -------------------------------------------- Ten platforms mapped. Two remain unknown. The group advances again — silently, quickly, no one speaking, everyone moving through the known panels that the dead revealed. Cristi crosses to platform 9. Spikedcurley moves to platform 8. JessieKowalski advances to platform 8. CasinoCheese moves to platform 7. @Bagel crosses to platform 6. dumblonde advances to platform 7. camell22 moves up to platform 6. Cristi at the front. Platform 10 — the left panel is gone, the right is safe. They cross. Platform 11. Unknown. The far ledge is visible from here. Three panels across the drop. One wrong choice away. Cristi goes left. The glass shatters. 7th — Cristi. -------------------------------------------- Eleven platforms mapped. One remains. The group absorbs it and pushes forward — Spikedcurley crossing to platform 10, JessieKowalski moving to platform 9, CasinoCheese advancing to platform 8, @Bagel to platform 8, dumblonde to platform 9, camell22 to platform 8. The known path is crowded now — everyone within reach of the end, everything depending on one final unknown panel. Spikedcurley moves to platform 11 — known safe from Cristi's fall. Advances to platform 12. The last one. JessieKowalski is one platform behind. dumblonde is two platforms back. The far ledge is a single step away from platform 12. Spikedcurley looks at both panels. Left and right. The same impossible choice that has killed six people on this bridge today. They go right. The glass shatters. 6th — Spikedcurley. -------------------------------------------- The wrong panel at platform 12 is gone. The safe panel is exposed — the only glass remaining at that platform. All twelve platforms are mapped. The path across the entire bridge is complete. Five players are left on the bridge. @Bagel doesn't wait. They are already moving — crossing platforms 9, 10, 11 in quick succession, stepping onto platform 12's remaining panel without hesitation. Far ledge. Safe. CasinoCheese advances through platforms 9, 10, 11, 12. Far ledge. Safe. JessieKowalski crosses. Far ledge. dumblonde moves through the final stretch — deliberate, steady, not hurrying. Platform 12. Far ledge. Safe. camell22 is last on the bridge. They stand for a moment on platform 11 and look behind them — at the broken panels, at the empty space where six people fell today. Then they step onto platform 12. Far ledge. Five across. Six gone. The bridge lights cut out. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: @Bagel camell22 CasinoCheese dumblonde JessieKowalski -------------------------------------------- If you've gotten this far, I hope you enjoyed this blog. The FINALE will release Friday! Below are some important links such as the group where every season is archived, the directory that has easy blog access to every season, and a spreadsheet has a lot of details for chart lovers! Episodes: https://kovaze.com/blog/120794 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713. Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO That just about concludes this episode! Thank you everyone who has gotten this far, this was a ton of fun to run. If any of yall notice any mistakes please feel free to point out and I'll change it. Appreciate feedback as well I could use to improve simulations down the line as well

I kinda liked how it used to be when there was no restrictions on repeating comps. Every game kinda blends together and feels similar now 😭

With my Squid Game simulation going super well, does anyone have any suggestions for simulations with a lot of people (like 50 ) that I can do for the future. Would love to use one of yalls for my next multi-episode simulation event! 🙂

https://www.kovaze.com/blog/119849

Just been hearing about hantavirus, is this the new COVID or are people being dramatic?

https://kovaze.com/blog/121041

22 Kovazians continue on fighting in Squid Games, still only one will leave alive. Hope ya'll enjoy Episode 4! I've included a short section of dormitory updates before the game begins. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: hausofkimchi CarltonRS Luka Spikedcurley Melodrama Gabbes dumblonde CocoVanderbilt heatherleigh Dani Cristi CasinoCheese Kodua JessieKowalski camell22 Hunter Juulpod Cherry YanderTron21 katheryn @Bagel IceBeast -------------------------------------------- Twenty-two people. The dormitory that once held one hundred and five now feels almost quiet — the rows of bunks half-empty, the space too large for the people left in it. Survivors have pushed their beds together into clusters, filling the room differently now, mapping their allegiances in furniture. The alliances are no longer forming. They have formed. What exists now is maintenance — tending to them, testing them, deciding how much to trust them. Melodrama and YanderTron21 remain the most visible and the most committed bond in the room. They have stopped bothering to hide it. After three games, the pretense of independence feels pointless. They coordinate openly — meals, positioning, conversations with others. What began as a late-night whisper in the dark has become, by now, something close to a partnership of equals. Other players have started treating them as a unit, which is both powerful and dangerous. JessieKowalski and Spikedcurley have built something different — competitive rather than protective. They push each other, challenge each other, compare notes after every game. Their bond is less about emotional support and more about mutual sharpening. They are better when the other is watching. CocoVanderbilt, Hunter, and IceBeast operate as the most deliberate alliance remaining. They have been meeting in the corridor after lights-out since the merge of survivors after Dalgona, and by now their structure is tight — roles defined, read on every other player shared, next moves agreed upon. CocoVanderbilt does the thinking. Hunter does the remembering. IceBeast does the quiet work of making everyone around them feel safe. What they don't know — what none of them know — is that the game has its own plans. heatherleigh, Luka, Dani, and hausofkimchi have built the warmest corner of the dormitory. They share food. They look out for each other. Cherry and katheryn drift in and out of this cluster with easy regularity, and on quiet evenings the corner bunk area has the feel of something almost like home. Kodua and CarltonRS have also found their way into this gravitational field — less through strategy than through proximity and comfort. It is the kind of alliance built on genuine feeling rather than calculation. In this game, that is either the most powerful thing you can have — or the most devastating. camell22 and @Bagel have continued their strategy of warm neutrality — close enough to everyone to be trusted, specific enough to no one to be threatened. Cristi operates in a similar register, present in multiple conversations, committed to none. Gabbes and Juulpod have each built quiet individual reputations for reliability — the kind of players others want around without fully understanding why. And then there are two players who have found each other in the spaces between all the other alliances — CasinoCheese and dumblonde. Their connection is understated, barely visible from the outside. They don't sit together at meals. They don't draw attention to their conversations. But in the last few days, something quiet and durable has been established between them. Neither of them talks about it. Both of them feel it. Maris is gone. BRAT is gone. The bloc that had defined the political landscape of the first two games no longer exists. In the vacuum it left behind, Womanizer and the others who clustered around that alliance are simply gone — and what remains is a flatter social landscape with no obvious dominant force. Nobody has moved to fill that role. The question of who will is unspoken but present in every conversation, every glance across the dormitory. bim and muribolt — gone. joeburrow — gone. The departures from Tug of War removed the people who had been the loudest, the most present, the most immediately visible. What is left is quieter. Harder to read. The lights go out. Twenty-two people lie in bunks and try to sleep. Some of them will still be here tomorrow. Some of them won't. Nobody knows which group they are in yet. -------------------------------------------- Marbles. Each player is given ten marbles and paired with one other player. The rules of the match itself are up to the players — any marble game, agreed upon or imposed. The only rule that matters: one player must leave with all twenty marbles. The player who ends up with none is eliminated. There is no time limit. There is no mediation. The game ends when it ends. -------------------------------------------- The twenty-two survivors file into a courtyard — open sky above, flagstone ground below, lit by hanging lights that cast long shadows across the space. Eleven stations are set up across the yard, each marked with a painted square and a number. A guard announces that pairs will be assigned by lottery. Numbers are drawn. The pairs are read aloud. When the last name is called, the yard falls silent. -------------------------------------------- Match 1: Gabbes vs IceBeast Match 2: camell22 vs CocoVanderbilt Match 3: JessieKowalski vs Hunter Match 4: Cristi vs Juulpod Match 5: dumblonde vs Kodua Match 6: CasinoCheese vs CarltonRS Match 7: YanderTron21 vs Cherry Match 8: @Bagel vs katheryn Match 9: heatherleigh vs hausofkimchi Match 10: Spikedcurley vs Dani Match 11: Melodrama vs Luka -------------------------------------------- Some pairs stare at each other in silence. Some nod. A few exchange quiet words. heatherleigh and hausofkimchi find each other across the yard and something complicated passes between them — two people from the same corner of the dormitory, the same warm cluster, now standing on opposite sides of an outcome. Luka and Melodrama look at each other for a long moment without speaking. The matches are staggered — one at a time, in order. The rest of the players wait at the edge of the yard. Eleven stations. Eleven games. One winner each. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 1 — Gabbes vs IceBeast Game: Odd or Even The simplest game in the yard. One player hides a number of marbles in their closed fist. The other guesses — odd or even. Correct guess wins the marbles. Wrong guess loses one marble as payment. First to collect all twenty wins. IceBeast opens with confidence — they have been reading people all season, and they approach this as an extension of that. They study Gabbes's face for tells, looking for the microexpressions that reveal the count in the hand. But Gabbes gives nothing away. Their face is unreadable — not because of strategic training but because they are simply, genuinely calm. First guess: Gabbes calls even. They are right. Two marbles to Gabbes. IceBeast recalibrates. The next four rounds are split evenly — back and forth, neither player pulling away. Then Gabbes goes on a three-round run: three correct calls in a row, reading IceBeast's rhythm, catching the pattern in how they load their fist. The gap opens. IceBeast tries to break the pattern, going deliberately chaotic, but Gabbes adjusts mid-game and stays with them. By the fifteenth round, IceBeast has three marbles left. By the eighteenth, one. The final call is a formality. Gabbes wins. 22nd — IceBeast. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 2 — camell22 vs CocoVanderbilt Game: Toss to the Hole A small hole is dug in the flagstone dirt — roughly a hand's width across. Both players stand at a marked line, ten feet back. They take turns tossing one marble at a time. Closest marble to the hole at the end of all twenty tosses — or a marble landing in the hole — wins the round. Winner takes all marbles in that round. The overall marble count determines the winner. CocoVanderbilt is precise. They have a natural accuracy to their toss — the kind that comes from a deliberate, studied approach. Their first three tosses land within inches of the hole. camell22 watches and adjusts. Their tosses are slightly less accurate but more consistent — a tighter grouping, reliable, never spectacular. The rounds are close for the first half. CocoVanderbilt takes the early edge — seven marbles to three after five rounds. camell22 responds. Rounds six through nine go to camell22, who has found the distance now, landing marble after marble within centimeters. The gap closes. Tied at ten. The final round. CocoVanderbilt tosses first — lands two inches from the hole. An excellent toss. camell22 tosses. It hits the rim — and drops in. Hole in one. The round, and with it the match, goes to camell22. CocoVanderbilt closes their eyes for one second. Then they nod. 21st — CocoVanderbilt. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 3 — JessieKowalski vs Hunter Game: Marble Flicking — Ring Elimination A chalk circle is drawn on the ground — roughly a meter in diameter. Both players place five of their marbles inside it. They take turns flicking from outside the ring, trying to knock the opponent's marbles out. Any marble you knock out, you keep. Any of your own marbles knocked out by your opponent, you lose. First to collect all twenty wins. Hunter goes first and is immediately dangerous — their technique is powerful, low to the ground, generating real force. First flick clears two of JessieKowalski's marbles clean out of the ring. JessieKowalski fires back, knocking out one of Hunter's with a precise angled shot. Both players are good. Both players know it. The ring empties and refills as the rounds accumulate. Hunter stays aggressive, going for multiple-marble shots whenever possible. JessieKowalski is more surgical — targeting specific marbles, maximizing accuracy over force. For six rounds it is essentially even. Then JessieKowalski finds a line. Three consecutive shots that clear the center of the ring — a geometry that Hunter can't match. The marble count swings. Hunter has six left. Then four. Then two. The final shot is clean and direct. 20th — Hunter. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 4 — Cristi vs Juulpod Game: Closest to the Wall Both players stand ten feet from a flat stone wall and take turns bouncing marbles off it. The marble that comes to rest closest to the wall after the bounce wins the round. Winner takes the loser's marble. Ties — both marbles are returned. First to twenty wins. Juulpod has a natural feel for the bounce — their marble arcs softly off the wall and settles close with consistency. The first five rounds go to Juulpod: a three-marble lead that looks, for a while, like it might become decisive. Cristi adjusts. They start throwing with less force — shorter arc, gentler contact with the wall, slower final roll. The marble starts landing closer. The gap narrows. Rounds six through twelve alternate in Cristi's favor. At round fourteen, they are tied. What follows is one of the tightest sequences in the yard — six consecutive rounds within centimeters, decided by margins that require both players to crouch down and eyeball the distance to call a winner. Cristi takes four of those six rounds. The marble count climbs. Juulpod makes one final adjustment — a high arc, hitting the wall near the top to generate a steep drop. It works twice. Then Cristi mirrors it. The last marble Juulpod tosses rolls two inches from the wall. Cristi's settles one inch closer. 19th — Juulpod. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 5 — dumblonde vs Kodua Game: Odd or Even with Alternating Control A variation on the classic — both players take turns being the hider. The hider loads any number of marbles into their fist. The guesser calls odd or even. Correct: guesser wins the hidden marbles. Incorrect: guesser pays one marble to the hider. Then roles switch. The psychological wrinkle: knowing your own patterns as the hider makes it harder to disguise them. Kodua starts as hider and is immediately tricky — their counts are genuinely random, no discernible pattern, varying the size of their fist to make visual reads impossible. dumblonde takes three losses in the first five rounds. Down four marbles. But when the roles switch, dumblonde reveals something: they are an exceptional guesser. They read Kodua's fist — not just by visual cue but by watching how they breathe, how their jaw sets differently when they're holding an even count. dumblonde calls correctly on four of the next five rounds when guessing. The deficit closes. The match swings momentum three more times — Kodua surging ahead, dumblonde clawing back. With five marbles left in Kodua's total, they make a last desperate stand as hider — loading and reloading, changing their pattern, throwing off dumblonde's read. It works for two rounds. Then dumblonde adjusts one final time and calls correctly three rounds in a row. 18th — Kodua. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 6 — CasinoCheese vs CarltonRS Game: Marble Bocce A target marble — the jack — is placed at a random point in the playing area. Both players take turns tossing marbles toward the jack from a set line. The player whose marble lands closest to the jack wins the round and collects all marbles played in that round. First to twenty wins. CarltonRS has an arm for this. Their first toss lands so close to the jack that it nearly touches it. CasinoCheese examines the distance carefully and responds — not trying to beat the position, but to knock CarltonRS's marble away from the jack entirely. The knock shot works. CasinoCheese takes the first round. The match develops into a pattern: CarltonRS placing brilliantly, CasinoCheese disrupting. CarltonRS adjusts — starts using the disruption tactic themselves, knocking CasinoCheese's marble away before it can settle near the jack. For several rounds it becomes a game within the game — both players focused more on moving the other's marble than landing their own. The marble counts stay close. CasinoCheese edges ahead at the midpoint, loses the lead, then reclaims it. With six marbles total remaining between them, the jack is moved to a new position. CasinoCheese reads the new distance immediately — one smooth toss, landing inches from the jack. CarltonRS responds with a knock shot that nudges CasinoCheese's marble away — but not far enough. CasinoCheese's marble rocks back and settles closer. The final rounds go quickly. 17th — CarltonRS. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 7 — YanderTron21 vs Cherry Game: Hidden Count Bluff Both players hide any number of marbles in both fists — combined total from zero to all ten remaining marbles. They reveal simultaneously. The player who correctly guesses the other's exact total wins that round and takes the marbles. If neither guesses correctly, both add the marbles back and go again. If both guess correctly, the player who was closer to the true total wins. It is the most psychological game in the yard — less about skill, more about reading a person, predicting a mind, and disguising your own. Cherry is instinctively good at this. Their counts are genuinely unpredictable — going high when the intuition says low, going low when every signal says high. The first eight rounds produce six ties — both players wrong, both hands returned. The yard onlookers stare. When YanderTron21 finally breaks through — reading Cherry's breath pattern, the slightly longer pause before a high count — they call correctly and collect four marbles. Cherry recalibrates. Two more ties. Then Cherry gets one back. The match moves slowly, round after round of psychological maneuvering. YanderTron21 wins three rounds in a row near the end — finding Cherry's rhythm in the final sequences and staying with it, calling correctly as much through intuition as analysis. The last round, Cherry holds five marbles in one fist, zero in the other. YanderTron21 calls five. Correct. 16th — Cherry. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 8 — @Bagel vs katheryn Game: Closest to the Line A line is scratched into the dirt. Both players stand at a set distance and roll one marble at a time toward the line. The marble that stops closest to the line — without crossing it — wins the round. Crossing the line forfeits the marble. Most marbles won after twenty rounds decides the match. katheryn rolls with effortless precision early on — five of their first seven marbles land within a thumb's width of the line. @Bagel watches and decides on a different approach: rather than compete for the line directly, they aim to stop just far enough back that crossing isn't a risk, banking on consistency over perfection. The strategy holds until round twelve. @Bagel's conservative rolls keep them in range but never dominant. katheryn's precision gives them the lead. Then, in round thirteen, katheryn's marble crosses the line — a rare overshoot that forfeits the marble and shifts momentum. Three more forfeits from katheryn in the final eight rounds — the pressure of the lead creating small errors in judgment. @Bagel never forfeits once. The marble count overtakes katheryn's with two rounds remaining. 15th — katheryn. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 9 — heatherleigh vs hausofkimchi Game: Toss to the Pit A small depression in the flagstone ground — barely wider than a marble, barely deeper. Both players toss from a marked line, alternating throws. A marble that lands in the pit wins the round and takes all marbles in play. A marble landing closest to the pit without going in wins if neither lands inside. Twenty rounds total. Neither heatherleigh nor hausofkimchi speak before the match begins. There is a long look between them — a look that holds three games of shared warmth and the unbearable weight of right now. They both look away. They both take their positions. The match is quiet. Precise. hausofkimchi takes the first four rounds — their toss calibrated from the beginning, landing close again and again. heatherleigh falls behind. Then they find it. A slightly lower release, a flatter arc. Round five: pit. The crowd at the edge of the yard makes a sound. Round seven: pit again. heatherleigh is back in the marble count. The match is even at round fourteen. hausofkimchi starts pushing closer — nearly in the pit for three straight rounds but narrowly missing each time. heatherleigh takes those three rounds by default. Then hausofkimchi lands in the pit — splits the momentum again. Round nineteen. Tied on marble count. Final round. hausofkimchi tosses first. Two inches from the pit. A brilliant toss. heatherleigh takes a breath. Releases. The marble rolls. Drops in. heatherleigh wins the match. Neither of them celebrates. 14th — hausofkimchi. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 10 — Spikedcurley vs Dani Game: Target Strike A pyramid of five marbles is stacked at the center of the playing area. Both players take turns rolling from a set distance, trying to knock marbles off the stack. Each marble knocked off is won. The player with the most marbles after the stack is cleared restacks and the game continues. First to twenty wins. Dani gets the first shot and is immediately on target — knocking three marbles off the top of the pyramid in a single strike. Spikedcurley answers by demolishing the remaining two. First restacking. Both players have equal marbles. The match settles into a rhythm — both players are accurate, both are consistent, and neither is making errors. Spikedcurley rolls harder, aiming for maximum scatter. Dani rolls with more control, prioritizing single-marble precision over power shots. The marble counts stay within two of each other for the first six restackings. Then Spikedcurley strings together three consecutive total-pyramid demolitions — all five marbles each time — and the gap opens. Dani responds with a run of their own but the deficit is real now: seven marbles down. Dani claws five back. Then Spikedcurley finds the rhythm again and the final sequence goes almost entirely their way — clean, forceful shots that scatter the stack wide every time. 13th — Dani. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 11 — Melodrama vs Luka Game: Odd or Even — Final Showdown The last match of the night. The rest of the surviving players stand at the edge of the yard in silence. Melodrama and Luka face each other across the painted square. Ten marbles each. The game: Odd or Even, the purest version — hide, guess, pay, repeat. No variation. No modification. Just two people in a painted square reading each other until one of them runs out. What nobody in the yard anticipated is how long it would take. The first twenty-five rounds produce almost no movement — both players reading each other so accurately that the counts barely shift. Melodrama takes a marble. Luka takes it back. For nearly an hour, the square holds two people in perfect, awful equilibrium. Then Luka tries something new — they stop trying to disguise their count and start trying to manipulate Melodrama's guesses. They begin making the same call three times in a row, building a false pattern, then breaking it. It works for four rounds. Melodrama is down five marbles — the biggest gap of the match. Melodrama stops. Looks at Luka for a long moment. Then laughs — a short, exhausted laugh. "I see it," they say. They call correctly for the next seven rounds in a row. The gap closes. Overtakes. Luka has three marbles. Then two. Then one. The final hide. Melodrama calls odd. Luka opens their hand. One marble. Odd. 12th — Luka. Melodrama advances. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: YanderTron21 Cristi @Bagel heatherleigh Melodrama camell22 Spikedcurley dumblonde JessieKowalski CasinoCheese Gabbes -------------------------------------------- If you've gotten this far, I hope you enjoyed this blog! Episode 5 will release Thursday! Below are some important links such as the group where every season is archived, the directory that has easy blog access to every season, and a spreadsheet has a lot of details for chart lovers! Episodes: https://kovaze.com/blog/120794 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713. Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO That just about concludes this episode! Thank you everyone who has gotten this far, this was a ton of fun to run. If any of yall notice any mistakes please feel free to point out and I'll change it. Appreciate feedback as well I could use to improve simulations down the line as well!

105 contestants has become 22. Episode 4 of Squid Games will release later today! If you missed Episodes 1-3 you can catch up here! https://www.kovaze.com/blog/120794

However, one thing I strive to be is organized 😭

A directory for my simulation's special events! Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO Episode 1: https://kovaze.com/blog/119149 Episode 2: https://kovaze.com/blog/119776 Episode 3: https://kovaze.com/blog/120303 Episode 4: https://kovaze.com/blog/121041 Episode 5: https://kovaze.com/blog/121392 Episode 6: https://kovaze.com/blog/122404

44 Kovazians continue on fighting in Squid Games, still only one will leave alive. Hope ya'll enjoy Episode 3! I've included a short section of dormitory updates before the game begins. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: Kimmie hausofkimchi joeburrow holly heatherleigh theworldofjj muribolt Kodua CocoVanderbilt NaughtyNacho hwest14 JessieKowalski Melodrama CasinoCheese IceBeast Cherry Hunter Rachellllll DK @Bagel dumblonde CarltonRS Spikedcurley Womanizer Dimitra BRAT Jaded Maris Cristi Dani katheryn bim Juulpod YanderTron21 randomize Nora biancabae bubba Luka Christos camell22 BIGBRYY99 Gabbes Glacier -------------------------------------------- Forty-four people. Twenty-seven empty bunks. The dormitory feels cavernous now in a way it didn't after the first game — the space between survivors somehow wider, lonelier, more deliberate. Everyone who is still here has made a calculation, consciously or not, about who they want close to them. And with the numbers shrinking, those calculations are becoming urgent. The alliances that had been forming in shadow begin to take shape. Melodrama and YanderTron21 have stopped pretending their bond is casual. They sit together at meals. They take adjacent bunks. When either of them speaks to someone new, the other is watching. Some find it reassuring. Others find it threatening. Both interpretations are correct. biancabae and Jaded are similarly inseparable — but louder about it. They have adopted an almost defiant openness, speaking about their trust in each other in front of anyone who will listen. Whether this is strategy or simply genuine connection is hard to tell from the outside. Possibly both. CarltonRS and Kodua have formed a quieter pairing — less visible, more durable. They share a bunk cluster with Juulpod and operate as a unit of three without ever announcing it. Maris has been the most industrious architect of alliance in the dormitory. In the days since Dalgona, they have quietly gathered BRAT, Dimitra, and Womanizer into something that functions like a crew — a bloc of four who coordinate meals, sleeping positions, and conversation with a subtle efficiency that several other players have clocked but not challenged. Maris does most of the talking. The other three do most of the listening. NaughtyNacho, Rachellllll, Kimmie, and randomize have formed their own loose grouping — younger in energy if not always in age, bonded by humor and proximity and a shared refusal to spiral into paranoia. theworldofjj orbits this group without being fully part of it, occupying an in-between space that keeps their options open. IceBeast, Hunter, and CocoVanderbilt are the most deliberate alliance in the room. All three recognized each other early as strategic thinkers and have been meeting in the corridor after lights-out — speaking in short, low sentences about structure, about numbers, about who to stay close to and who to watch from a distance. CocoVanderbilt does most of the strategic framing. Hunter is the one who remembers everything. IceBeast is the one nobody suspects. On the other end of the dormitory, hausofkimchi, Dani, Luka, and heatherleigh have grown into something warmer — a social cluster built less on strategy and more on the simple human need to feel less alone in here. They share food. They tell stories. Cherry and katheryn have both drifted into this orbit as well, and on good days the corner bunk area feels almost like a refuge. Christos, bubba, and BIGBRYY99 are a unit of three built on shared bluntness — none of them are particularly interested in the social game, and they have found a mutual comfort in each other's directness. Glacier and hwest14 have latched onto this group more recently, and muribolt, DK, and bim make up the edges of a broader cluster that joeburrow also belongs to, though joeburrow has been noticeably quieter since the Dalgona game. Maris and CocoVanderbilt have been circling each other carefully for two days. Both are aware of the other's strategic acuity. Neither has made a move. The eye contact across the dormitory is its own kind of language. BRAT has grown visibly restless. They follow Maris's lead but increasingly ask questions about it — quiet questions, to themselves as much as anyone — about whether being part of someone else's plan is really a plan at all. Gabbes and Spikedcurley have connected in an unexpected way — bonded over a long conversation the night after Dalgona about what they would do with the prize money. Neither of them talk about alliances. Both of them are now, in effect, allied. camell22 and @Bagel have adopted a different strategy entirely: visibility without vulnerability. They are warm with everyone, close with no one, and have managed to avoid being named by anyone as a threat. It is an extremely difficult balance to maintain and they are, so far, maintaining it. The lights go out. The dormitory breathes. Tomorrow brings another game. Forty-four people lie in the dark and try to sleep. -------------------------------------------- Tug of War. Four teams of eleven. Two matches, fought on elevated platforms suspended high above the ground. Each team grips one end of a thick rope. The objective is simple — drag the other team off the edge. The losing team falls. There are no second chances, no safety nets, no way back up. The winning team advances. The losing team does not. The arena is vertical in a way none of the previous games were — a vast open structure of steel and cable, platforms suspended at staggering height with nothing but air beneath them. The forty-four survivors file in and crane their necks upward. The ropes are already in place, thick as a fist, hanging from overhead rigging between two narrow platforms. A guard at the front announces the rules. Then the process of team selection begins. Players are told they have five minutes to form four groups of eleven. No assignments. No guidance. Just forty-four people and five minutes and the knowledge that this choice could determine everything. The room moves quickly. People find each other the way they always do — by instinct, by prior arrangement, by fear. -------------------------------------------- TEAM 1 (Match 1) Melodrama YanderTron21 Gabbes heatherleigh camell22 @Bagel JessieKowalski Spikedcurley Cristi dumblonde CasinoCheese TEAM 2 (Match 1) Maris BRAT Dimitra Womanizer NaughtyNacho Rachellllll Kimmie randomize theworldofjj Nora holly TEAM 3 (Match 2) IceBeast Hunter CocoVanderbilt hausofkimchi Dani Luka Cherry katheryn CarltonRS Kodua Juulpod TEAM 4 (Match 2) biancabae Jaded joeburrow bim muribolt DK hwest14 Glacier bubba Christos BIGBRYY99 The draws are made. Match 1: Team 1 vs Team 2. Match 2: Team 3 vs Team 4. Teams 3 and 4 are escorted to a holding area. Teams 1 and 2 are taken to the platform. -------------------------------------------- The two platforms face each other across a gap, the rope connecting them like a bridge that neither team wants to cross. Eleven on each side. The platform is narrow — single-file width, barely enough room to plant two feet firmly and pull. Below: nothing. Just the whistling depth of the structure and the distant sound of machinery somewhere in the dark below. Team 1 organizes quickly. Spikedcurley takes the anchor position at the back — the largest and most physically grounded of the group. Melodrama and YanderTron21 plant themselves in the middle of the line. Cristi, @Bagel, JessieKowalski, and Gabbes fill the front half. camell22, heatherleigh, dumblonde, and CasinoCheese stack in behind. Team 2 mirrors them. Maris goes to the anchor position instinctively — a leadership move, a dominance claim. BRAT and Dimitra take positions near the back. Womanizer, NaughtyNacho, Rachellllll, and Kimmie fill the middle. randomize, theworldofjj, Nora, and holly take the front. The rope goes taut. A tone sounds. PULL. The first fifteen seconds are pure chaos — no rhythm, no coordination, just raw force. Both teams dig in hard. The rope barely moves. Team 2 has the early edge, the front of their line getting low and pulling with everything — Womanizer and NaughtyNacho in particular driving hard, teeth gritted, heels dug into the platform edge. Team 1 stumbles. The rope creeps toward Team 2's side. Three inches. Five inches. Spikedcurley at the anchor screams something — a command, a number, a word — and Team 1 snaps into a different rhythm. Unified pulls. Timed exhales. The rope stops moving. Then slowly, inch by inch, it begins to reverse. Team 2 adjusts. Maris barks orders from the anchor position. The line resets. Another deadlock. Both platforms creak under the strain. The rope has moved perhaps half a meter in either direction and nobody is falling yet. Forty seconds in. Then holly at the front of Team 2's line loses their footing — just slightly, just a half-step — and the rope surges toward Team 1 with a lurch that sends Nora and theworldofjj stumbling forward. The front of Team 2's line is suddenly off-balance, leaning into empty air. Maris screams. Team 2 tries to reset. They almost manage it. Team 1 pulls. The front four of Team 2 — holly, Nora, theworldofjj, and Kimmie — go over the edge in a cascade, one after the other, the rope jerking the rest of the line forward whether they want to go or not. 44th — holly. 43rd — Nora. 42nd — theworldofjj. 41st — Kimmie. The screaming from the remaining seven on Team 2 is immediate and desperate. They scramble backward but the momentum is irreversible. The rope tears forward. randomize goes next, then Rachellllll — both dragged to the edge by the weight of the four already gone. 40th — randomize. 39th — Rachellllll. Five down. Six remaining on Team 2's side of the rope. NaughtyNacho has somehow planted their heels and is pulling back alone with everything they have — buying seconds, just seconds. Team 1 leans back, heaves, and the rope surges again. 38th — NaughtyNacho. Maris, BRAT, and Dimitra are the last three holding — the anchor cluster, still pulling, screaming at each other to hold on. Womanizer has gone quiet — they know. They all know. Team 1 pulls one final time. Long, slow, coordinated. 37th — Maris. 36th — BRAT. 35th — Dimitra. 34th — Womanizer. The rope goes slack. Team 1 collapses backward onto the platform, gasping, gripping each other. Some of them are crying. Some of them are laughing. All of them are alive. TEAM 1 ADVANCES. -------------------------------------------- Team 3 and Team 4 file onto the platform. The rope is reset. A new taut silence fills the structure. IceBeast takes the anchor for Team 3 without discussion — the size and composure make it obvious. Hunter slots in just ahead of them. CocoVanderbilt positions themselves midline, calling out positioning adjustments while the teams are still setting up. Dani, Luka, Cherry, hausofkimchi, @kateryn, Kodua, Juulpod, and CarltonRS fill the rest of the line. Team 4 arranges with similar speed. BIGBRYY99 goes to the anchor — the biggest personality in the group, the biggest frame. Christos and bubba stack in behind. Glacier and hwest14 take mid-positions. DK, muribolt, bim, joeburrow, Jaded, and biancabae fill out the front. The tone sounds. PULL. Match 2 begins differently. Where Match 1 was immediate force, this is a chess match. Both teams hold steady, testing each other, probing for weakness. Neither gives ground in the first twenty seconds. The rope hangs perfectly level between the platforms. Then CocoVanderbilt does something unexpected — they tell Team 3 to stop pulling entirely. Just hold. Just resist. Don't expend energy pulling, just refuse to move. Team 4 pulls into the resistance and gets nothing. They strain. They burn. After thirty seconds of pulling against a wall, their form begins to break down — the line goes uneven, shoulders drop, feet shuffle. CocoVanderbilt calls it: "Now." Team 3 pulls. Hard. All at once. The rope lurches three feet toward Team 3's side in less than two seconds. Team 4's front line stumbles. biancabae grabs the rope harder and screams for everyone to hold. They almost do. joeburrow loses their grip first — not from the fall, not yet, but from the rope burning through their palms. They regrip a split second too late and the line shifts. 33rd — biancabae. First over the edge, dragged by the surge. 32nd — Jaded. Right behind them, rope pulling them forward faster than their legs can respond. joeburrow goes next — the regrip wasn't enough. 31st — joeburrow. bim and muribolt go together, clutching the rope as their feet leave the platform simultaneously. 30th — bim. 29th — muribolt. Five down. Six remain on Team 4's side — DK, hwest14, Glacier, bubba, Christos, BIGBRYY99 — and they are pulling with everything left in them. BIGBRYY99 at the anchor is planted like a wall, veins up their forearms, jaw set, hauling back with pure desperation. The rope slows. Team 3 strains. For a moment — a genuine moment — it feels like Team 4 might claw it back. Kodua and CarltonRS at the front of Team 3 dig their heels in and lean back at an impossible angle, taking the weight of the whole line through their bodies. IceBeast at the anchor drops low and drives through their legs. The rope moves again. Just slightly. Then more. 28th — DK. The line collapses inward. hwest14 and Glacier go in the same pull. 27th — hwest14. 26th — Glacier. Three left on Team 4. bubba, Christos, BIGBRYY99 — the anchor trio — still holding, still pulling. bubba screams something wordless at the top of their lungs and digs back. Christos has the rope wrapped around both forearms. BIGBRYY99 is the last thing standing between Team 4 and the fall and they know it and they are not going quietly. Team 3 times one final pull. CocoVanderbilt counts it out loud. Three. Two. One. 25th — bubba. 24th — Christos. BIGBRYY99 holds for three seconds alone — rope wrapped around both arms, feet at the very lip of the platform, body at forty-five degrees over the edge, defying physics through sheer will. Then the rope wins. 23rd — BIGBRYY99. The platform shudders. The rope drops. Team 3 collapses in a heap on their side, alive. TEAM 3 ADVANCES. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: hausofkimchi CarltonRS Luka Spikedcurley Melodrama Gabbes dumblonde CocoVanderbilt heatherleigh Dani Cristi CasinoCheese Kodua JessieKowalski camell22 Hunter Juulpod Cherry YanderTron21 katheryn @Bagel IceBeast -------------------------------------------- If you've gotten this far, I hope you enjoyed this blog! Episode 4 will release Wednesday! Below are some important links such as the group where every season is archived, the directory that has easy blog access to every season, and a spreadsheet has a lot of details for chart lovers! Episodes: https://kovaze.com/blog/120794 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713. Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO That just about concludes this episode! Thank you everyone who has gotten this far, this was a ton of fun to run. If any of yall notice any mistakes please feel free to point out and I'll change it. Appreciate feedback as well I could use to improve simulations down the line as well!