Ok, wow. I'm still here. Yesterday was kind of crazy and after tribal ended, I just had to a few hours or so break from the game to recollect myself. So I'm just going to breakdown the events that led up to tribal and then late last night developments, and today's limited doings.
Yesterday I woke up feeling incredibly nervous. I knew that the only person I wanted to talk to was Elise, but that I had to talk with everybody to make sure they wanted to keep me and really schmooze them with my social game. I was texting with Jeff back and forth most of the day, not all strategy, but it was important that he knew I liked him. Jeff's social game is fire, if I got Jeff to want to keep me, I felt as though the rest would want to as well. So through Jeff I got him to work him through dropping Elise's name as my best option for staying. And that sucked, because I wanted to pull Elise in as an ally, and I felt like she was feeling that too, but it wasn't something we were gonna be able to work out together based on our situation.
I messaged Michael back and forth for a while too, and said that Jeff hinted at Elise being the vote, and he was down with that as well. I think that my strength here was that although I was on the bottom, I was able to present myself as a better option for them to work with down the line than Elise because she had been busy after she returned from Exile.
I talked to Elise for about a half-hour, while I really wanted to work something out with her where we would've been able to pull 4 people together during the vote, I quickly realized that she hadn't heard anything either, meaning that our chance as a pair went down in flames faster than Ben's game. So, I spent the rest of our conversation making it seem as though I knew I was fucked for tribal and that I was going home. This was important because while I believed that she didn't have an idol, I knew that if she did, and she played it, I was toast. We ended the call and promised to check in with each other later.
Next up was Holli. Holli had a hectic day yesterday, so it was only about a 10 minute call, but I got a piece of information that she too had been talking to Jeff today about the vote. Naturally, this raises flags because it shows how well connected Jeff is on this tribe. But, Jeff had also told her Elise, and she said that she hadn't talked to Elise so she was down with that. While I believed she was sincere about that, I think she also added more "fluff" to over talk to make me feel better with her going forward even though it doesn't seem she wants to play with me. Which sucks, because I really wanted to play with her, but I haven't getting that reciprocation thus far.
After that I talk to Jermaine. Talking with him is huge because not only do I feel like he has some form of control over Michael, but I think that the connection we have together is a real one - whether he wants to play this game with me for the long term is a different story. But we talk, and I get the sense that he wants to try and pull something and get me and Elise as two votes and pull some crazy shit, but after I tell him who was already down with the Elise plan, he backs off. So at this point, not counting Elise, I've talked to everyone except Austin, and they've all said they were down with the Elise vote and hadn't heard differently. Ironically, they all seem to have no fucking understanding of what the Prisoner's Dilemma is, and what decision Elise faced on exile, which I totally sniff out as bullshit because there's no chance in hell these people haven't considered an idol play from Elise.
I get confirmation for this via Austin about 40 minutes before Tribal. He's the last person I talk to on call before Tribal. He wants to "build trust" so he spills all the fucking tea. He tells me that there is a plan to split the votes on me an Elise 4-3. This raises flags because I've made it very clear to everybody that if it's me, there is nothing I could do save myself via idol, but everyone has told me they we voting Elise. The other thing this tells me is that this group of 5 is more connected than I believed (I go back and forth on this thought multiple times a day) because you don't split a vote unless you can check in with everybody who is splitting it, because it's so risky. In this case, theoretically, only 1 person could've flipped to vote with me an Elise and made it a 3-2-2, so there is no way I believe this hadn't required 1-on-1 calls between the 5, or even a 5 person group call. Either way, sketchy as hell that nobody else had mentioned the possibility of their being a vote split. Austin tells me he wanted to make it so that he was a vote for me, so he could flip his vote to Elise just to ensure she would be going home. His caveat to this is that I have to get him close to Jenn.
Obviously Jenn and I are very close. I would be shocked if there was a tighter pair in the whole game. Frankly, I don't think there is a chance in hell that they would've kept me if they had known how close we were. Like, it's going to end up being at least one of their downfalls, and it's such as massive oversight on their part by not taking me out while Jenn was on exile.
But, I'll be damned if Austin (or anyone) knows how close we are, so I told Austin that we weren't that close and it was kind of just a matter of circumstance but that I would do all I could to get him close with her if he did that for me. We make a plan for me to tell Elise that he just told me to my face that he was voting me (which he would later confirm to her) so that she wouldn't play her idol should she have had one. I felt terrible trying to blindside Elise because I knew she didn't have an idol, but the others were wary, and I had to play my part to make sure I stayed safe.
So we finally get to tribal, and my ass and Holli keep getting sent to some random ass call and it's kind of funny, because we literally had only talked for 10 minutes 1-on-1 all game so far, but the two of us can still vibe with each other. It would've been awkward as shit though if I was going home.
We finally get to tribal; I fucking hate tribal. Like aside from the fact that your heart is racing and adrenaline is pumping and it sucks all around, it's so fake. It's all a theater, hit your marks, say your lines, don't give too much away until the climax, blah blah blah. Like I'd rather just jump to climax right away. Let's just blow our load right away and spend the rest of the time cleaning up, why do we gotta do all this extra shit? And now disregarding all of what I just said, I'll be accepting the Oscar for "Best Tribal Performance". It's my 2nd Oscar, following my win as part of the Carex Tribe for "Most Awkward Moment" for our performance in the staring contest following Ben's blindside.
John starts tribal by giving Austin a softball and Austin talks his way around the question as if the whole tribe doesn't know what the fuck happened following last tribal. I jump on that shit to help further my lie of "I'm going home and I know it" by telling John that my ass is fucked because only two people are left that didn't vote out Ben, and one of them is chillin at exile.
Tribal goes smoothly, pretty much people talking around their questions, Jeff thinking the whole other tribe hates him (please spare me, they don't), and me being a debbie downer. The only part of tribal that shocked me was when I remembered my damn french fries were gonna burn down my apartment complex.
The vote comes in at 5-2, so it seems as though Austin was telling me the truth, or maybe I'm just being paranoid, but 5-2 could've been their plan all along and he did nothing. Just something for me to keep in mind. But, should he be telling the truth, I am hoping that somebody will come to me and say they were a vote for me. I'm not even mad, like it's completely valid strategy so that if Elise had played an idol, she wouldn't be able to pick off whoever she wanted, but, if they do come to me, hopefully I'll be able to find out if Austin was a liar or a truther.
So tribal ends, I take a 2 hour break from the game, and then call with Jenn who I've been dying to talk to, and I know she's been wanting to the same.
and,
and,
We both are shocked that they let me stay in, and again, it
has to be because they don't know we talk for like 4 hours every night because if they knew that there isn't a chance in hell.
She tells me all the exile tea, I'll let you go read up on that stuff from her confessionals, but the big things are that she got an idol, and that she strongly thinks I'll be sent next, via Don. She also said that we should send "one of the ladies" and that Don may have a strong core 5 (no names were given, but we assume all 3 girls are). So today we talked with Austin while studying for the challenge, and we are fairly confident that Lizzie will be the girl who is sent. If Lizzie isn't sent, or at least Carley or Tierra, then I won't trust austin because i'll think that he snitched to keep a girl from going. Jenn also thinks that we could jump ship to Don's alliance should the opportunity present itself. I like that idea, but it doesn't sit 100% with me, so we'll have to consider that further down the line.
I guess Don & Yurbaco think we'll swap at 15, but that doesn't make sense to me, since this twist requires two tribes, and I cant imagine it will end this early in the game. So I stand by a 14 person swap into two tribes of 7, but maybe their will be something crazy in which we swap at 15 and 1 person goes to exile by themselves. Unlikely though...
Today was low-key, I texted a little bit with Jeff, snapchatted with Holli about the same amount, had a good non-strategic conversation with jermaine though PM, and practiced the challenge with Austin, and then later with Austin and Jenn. (Austin won his real game vesus Don!) And, per usual, Jenn and I have been texting a lot today, and have had a conversation going since midnight. Both strategy and not, she told Jeff about the idol to test if he's trustworthy or not, as she's playing it should we lose this next challenge. Hopefully I do go to exile. We are pretending we didn't talk today other than when we practiced the comp with Austin, to try and dispel the idea that we are a strong pair.
Damn that's a lot of writing, but if you read all that you basically know everything that went down with me in this game in the past 48 hours, so congrats, I guess?
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*gif also works as Jenn and I at the current moment.
