Thinking Of The Future/Confessionals

Day 4

“	I have a dossier on all the players in the game. In it, I've listed every personal detail they've told me. Survivor and Big Brother players don't get that advantage, an entire database of player information. Some people have charm, some people have wit, some people have really quick fingers--I have a journal.	”
–Jake

“	So Ally messages me all distraught because Joey keeps spamming her the letter L. 15 minutes later it's still going on but we decided Joey's booty has a mind of its own but you never know. If Joey's booty is as good of a player as I think, I'm making a blood oath with it.	”
–Jake

“	Right now I'm telling Ally whatever she needs to hear. She was on the outs of the vote last night but we don't need her getting scared or paranoid so anything to make her think she's not on the outs, I'll do.	”
–Joey

“	I'm in the majority alliance! Yaaaasss. Well, kinda. I mean, I already told you that I aligned with Brandon and Alex, so we easily connected the bridges, and we plan to include our partners in to form a six-person alliance. I did predict it, right? I didn't have to do anything, I laid low and the two of them came to me, so it's great. I'd rather not go to Tribal Council though, because I like all of my tribe and I'd rather have the numbers when a tribal swap is coming.	”
–Marie

“	So I learned I can be a lot faker then I thought I could be, which is cool but scary hehe. Apparently Aaron made this giant 8 person chat with everyone but me and Jennifer, with the target being Jennifer and I was REALLY okay with Jennifer going because it would've been so much better for my game, but like I suspected Aaron got caught playing everyone and got turned on fast. I talked a lot with Mackie before the vote and we were on the same page about having fun, so I figured I'd throw a vote at Claudia, just so Ally wasn't the clear next target and they would blame Jennifer and she could go next. But apparently no one really cares as far as I know? So I guess this is the universe basically forcing me to work with Jennifer, so whatever. Also according to everyone, while I wasn't in the chat my name wasn't ever on the table to go home, for the sole fact that I'm nicer and sweeter to them then Jennifer is? I was really playing up the nice and polite thing so I guess that's working for me! Also I'm really working hard on solidifying my spots with Ally and Mackie, just because I wanna keep as many new people in and close as possible. Claudia is another story because I don't know where she is lol.	”
–Sydney

“	Today's been a slow day. I decided to take a back seat and play the waiting game to see if anyone would bother to talk to me; only Alex did so. Either my paranoia is high and there's not as much social interaction as I think there is, or I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. On Aaron's elimination, I think that's a testament to how strategically driven this season may be, so I need to continue playing UTR, but not passively. There's a difference.	”
–Bronson

“	I did what I would consider to be pretty bad in the challenge, but tomorrow's the day where I'll have to take my social interaction up another notch. I'll talk to Rhone, Amanda and Shannon but at different times to prevent any suspicion as I want to continue to be UTR, and have conversations with Tymeka, Catherine and maybe Marie and Carson. I feel like socially, I'm playing a crap game right now and this is hindering my potential for subtle strategic gameplay.	”
–Bronson

“	i love being dragged along while i do nothing sjkskjs THANKS brandon!! we are now in an alliance with amanda + alex, and rhone + marie, and... LOVE IT! however, i do NOT love me getting the lowest score on the challenge. literally... i hated that challenge so much. let's just hope i dont go, that's enough for me.	”
–Carson

“	I made some real progress here today. Today was about damage control, tying up loose ends, thinking of the future. Ally and I mended bridges, she's team Mackie now. How genuine I don't know, but she has no leg to stand on otherwise, so her best bet is to go with the majority, who I am a part of. I spent a lot of time building a better relationship for a few reasons. 1: I want to put people that like me on the jury. It would be a testament to my social game to have an entire jury of folks who like me as a person. My entire tribe is that right now, beecause I put in work. So ideally I want a merge of my tribe majority so that I have a jury of my tribe majority. 2:I'm banking on a swap at 18 or 16. If it splits the vets and newbies i need all the newbies on my side so i can make a power play. So Jessy is locked down. Sydney supposedly is the hinky Claudia vot but idc. Alissa does understandably since that's her partner, but so long as Alissa distrusts Syd, she'll give off weird vibes. If I'm giving Syd all love and positivity she'll gravitate towards me. I need what I like to call play numbers eventually. A stack of numbers i can use to make any play I want. I have a feeling I've started to build my arsenal up well, socially I feel like I'm in the heart of the tribe, as well as strategically. At this point in the game, I'm completely safe. I'll obviously continue to do what I have been doing to ensure that stays the same, but I can spend a little more time worrying about the future. A swap could end my game instantly, so I've been grooming each member of my tribe to be an ally for any kind of swap thrown at me. I've prepared for if the vets and newbies are split, I've thought of three tribe scenarios, just a random 2 tribe swap, and some other twist that could follow. My main priority is finding that idol before I swap though. The way I'm set up, and idol isn't just a one round thing for me. It's an insurance policy in case my game starts to unravel itself. If I were to find one, I'd try and be somewhat creative with it. I really want to get into the meat of this game so i can make some power plays ugh. A few people might have an idea of how I'm playing, maybe think that ""they're onto me"". But I haven't revealed just how deadly my strategic side is yet. I like a good surprise	”
–Mackie

“	I'm so happy with how this went down and im really glad Aaron's ass was sent home because he was trying to play everyone and pin Jennifer and i against each other, that being said someone did vote Claudia and that makes me nervous, i have my suspicions that it might be Sydney but im not totally sure, for all i know i could be totally off. For now though i do not trust her, she sketches me out even though she seems really nice.	”
–Alissa

“	IM SO THRILLED WE WON THE IMMUNITY, I really feel good about the tribe but at the same time i felt good about Jenna last time around and i got voted out early, im trying to not make the same mistakes this time around and its easier to socialise when the tribe doesn't have to vote someone off. I'm praying a big player goes on the other team though!	”
–Alissa

“	Arg CF Ep 2	”
–Justin

Day 5

“	So normally I like to do video confessionals but I'm really sick so I can't :(. I've had kind of a quiet start to my game which is actually similar to how I opened Azores, only difference is we don't have to go to tribal first so i have more time to try to build some bonds. I'm good with Amanda bc we're close in TRE Tonga right now, Marie is obviously a delight and I'm glad she's my partner, there are people like Alex who I know from other ORGs, it's just a cool group of chill stoners basically and I love that we won over the Formosa tribe bc they are EXTRA AS HELL. That tribal was cracked lmfao I'm so glad I didn't have to participate in that. It's easy to be like ""oh everything's great"" when you have the tribal immunity idol though. If/when we lose shit is gonna get pretty crazy I think. I'm just gonna try to reinforce the connections I have on this tribe to make sure that when we lose or when we swap I have people on my side! And also do better in challenges bc me and Marie really choked on Free Rice haha	”
–Rhone

“	So it's my first Tribal Council, and saying I'm scared is an understatement. I'm starting to get paranoid and although I feel more comfortable than I did on Day 3, I'm still far from content.	”
–Bronson

“	I'm in some odd sort of way relieved that I'm going to Tribal Council because it's gotten my game really going. Catherine and I talked strategy and she seems like a very trustworthy person. Given that I'm her partner and she needs me, there's no reason for her to lie to me. Tymeka and I continue to have our small talk, but I have no idea what is on Shannon's agenda so Tymeka is somewhat still a question mark for me, despite the fact she's probably the person I've talked to the most. I finally interacted with Amanda and I regret not doing it before, because we actually seem to get along! We are in the same boat with being newbies and not having really interacted with people so I am delighted that we are on the same page, and that Amanda is now another potential ally going forward. Carson and I made a mutual pact to watch out for each other, so I'm also somewhat relieved about that, even though he could stir the pot and play with my paranoia.	”
–Bronson

“	I'm very worried for not only mine, but Catherine's position in the game at the moment. She was nowhere to be seen in the first two days and abstained from the challenge so that is enough of a reason for some people to target her. I can't let that happen because not only is Catherine my partner, but she's also my meat shield and most probably the person whose steps I will follow and play second fiddle to. If she is targeted, chances are I'm next.	”
–Bronson

“	Right now, I'm in the majority with the Stripes and Solids, and we need to decide who to vote out between the four that are not in our alliance, a.k.a Tymeka, Bronson, Shannon and Catherine. I really don't want to vote against Tymeka since she's really nice and is giving her 100% in the game. Between the other three, I'd like to vote Bronson out just because he's a boy tbh. I really want a girl to win because we have to even up the winners number, and ensuring that the first two boots are men is a good way to start.	”
–Marie

“	I've been wanting to talk about some of the key aspects of my strategy for some time. The first thing is one of the most important, and it's something called plausible deniability. I consider myself to be in the know more than, or at least equal to anyone else on my tribe. You've got Sydney, Ally, Joey, Claudia and Jennifer who are all strong in their own way, but in the dark to some extent, Justin knows a lot, but his lack of social connection to a few people I think is keeping him from being as connected as me. The only people I feel that have access to the same amount of knowledge are Jake and Alissa, more so Alissa. Anyways, i bring this up because to get ahead in this game, you want to have the most amount of information, with the least amount of people talking about the fact that you have it. You have to layer yourself in this shit, but every added layer is also an added risk. This ties into a different part of my strategy I'll talk about in a bit. But I have these layers formed, with all of the risks just hanging out there. How do you know if one of those layers is going to blow up in your face? You don't, and it can happen at any time. This is why it's of the utmost importance that you have believable things to subdue people with. For example, with Sydney, her thing is being scared of the vets, and not liking being ""told what to do"" I'm a new player, and talked out strategy with her instead of just telling her. This avoids her from wanting to throw me under the bus to anyone, because out of her options left I treat her with more respect game wise, and personally. When in reality I'm playing harder than anyone else and she should want me out. I've done the same with Ally, the same with Jennifer. On the flip side, I'm quite open with my allies (the vets pretty much) about how i see the game, and give them no reason to believe i see it otherwise. This with holding of certain knowledge, and picking and choosing when to leak, when to lie and when to deflect puts me on a pedestal, since nobody on this tribe is saying to themselves ""Mackie is not on my side, he needs to be dealt with"". Which ties into my next point, this game is all incentive driven. You almost can't play with your own mind, if that makes sense. You need to play with 19 other minds. Figure out how those minds work, what makes em tick, what they are warm/cold to. But on top of all of this, you need to ALSO use your mind to determine what the best outcome is for yourself. But you can't make it seem like that is what you are doing in any way. Every time you want anything to happen, you need to present it in a way to the person that you want to do it with incentive. If I want Alissa to pick Jennifer's brain about the next vote, I need Alissa to want to pick Jennifer's brain about the next vote. If I want Justin to be telling people that we need to cut someone loose, I need Justin to actually want that to happen. It's so complex and complicated, but this is truly how you manipulate decisions to create an outcome to favor you. Of course this is just one important technique, there are many nuances involved. The last aspect of my strategy that I'll reveal to you today is what people refer to as risk/reward, which also ties into probable cause. Every decision, from something as simple as who you message first when you come online, to who you play an idol on and shift the game, comes with a risk and reward. Very rarely (but not never) will a decision or action gift you with reward without a risk. This is why maybe statistically you can play a ""perfect"" game, but realistically you cannot. You are constantly taking risks, it's impossible to always be right. Generally, the winners are those whose reward most greatly outweighed the risk, but in certain cases you need to make decisions where the opposite is true, maybe for jury votes, maybe to stay alive, whatever it may be. Then, when thinking about other people's risk/reward, you need to look at their probable cause. Similar to incentive, you need to figure out what is within the realm of realism for this persons game right now, and what isn't. Then you factor in their incentives, factor in other things such as social connections, perspective, there's hundreds more. This is the decision making process. After all of this is said and done, congratulations, you've just made what the kids like to call a ""move"" in this game. so bitches now that i got that outta the way, prepare your ass holes for me to dick this game down to the finale. I'll explain more of my strategy as the season progresses, I have to keep you wanting more ;) Looking at the other tribe, I'd say Bronson is my biggest threat from the newbies, Alex from the vets. I'm willing to bet those 2 have some decent footing on their tribe. Would be a shame if someone pushed them off a metaphorical Survivor Cliff. and I'm not talking about basketball players.	”
–Mackie

“	Out of the blue, Catherine decides to make a returnee alliance, and while I'm not against the idea, it would mean that one of us have to turn against their partner and I already have another alliance. The problem is that Catherine and Shannon don't want Bronson gone, but we don't want them out of the loop and mad at us in case of a tribe swap, so we need to convince them one way or another to vote against him.	”
–Marie

“	A sudden wave of scramble came into this tribe. Now, strategies are being rediscussed, wigs are being snatched and everything is left hanging. I think I'm still gonna vote Bronson and hopefully he'll go and Cat won't be mad.	”
–Marie

“	So we lost the challenge today, which kind of sucks because being able to win those coinflip challenges early gives you good momentum, but I don't think it'll be the worst situation. I'm definitely not comfortable but I don't think I'm most in danger either. The situation is pretty interesting right now. There is an alliance called the stripes and solids which I sort of forged that includes Carson, Alex, Amanda, Marie, Rhone, and myself. If i could have my pick this is the main alliance I'd like to stick with moving forward. Catherine also created an alliance for the veterans, which is good because I had a gut feeling that the veterans needed to stay together. After some back and forth with Alex and Marie, along with the creation of the veterans alliance, we were able to subtley manipulate everyone into targetting newbies. Catherine wants to split the votes tonight between Bronson and Carson. In her mind it is Bronson, Shannon, Tymeka, Alex, Amanda, and herself voting for Carson. What I think is going to happen are that the stripes and solids will vote together against Bronson, because Alex has assured me he'd rather vote with us and I believe him because he told me that Catherine and Bronson want him on their side badly. I do have to be prepared incase Carson leaves, I'll be a single which could be an advantage but it also could hurt me if my current tribe wants me gone. Hoping that all of the effort I put into the social game the first five days will pay off...	”
–Brandon

“	Right now, it's Catherine/Bronson voting for Carson on one side, and all the others voting for Bronson. Cat and Bron are trying to get myself/Rhone, Alex/Amanda and Tymeka/Shannon on their side. But tbh, even though I don't have that much of a relationship with Carson, I can't get rid of the partner of one of my closest allies, so I have to get rid of Bron. I talked to Tymeka a lot and I think she'll vote Bron too. If she does, I could tell Catherine that Bron just didn't have the numbers.	”
–Marie

“	Well, we fucking lost and that sucked!! But it's also kind of a good thing bc it forced us to stop being the love tribe and get serious about the game. Basically it became pretty clear that there were six of us - Marie, Alex, Brandon, Amanda, Carson and me - who were more active and game-focused, with Shannon, Bronson, Tymeka and Catherine being less active, so we set up an alliance w the six of us. I'm pretty happy with this but also feel like based on what Marie told me that us newbies need to be wary of the vets working together, especially when we swap. Marie, Alex and Brandon were the ones who basically set up the alliance for us and in a way I feel like Amanda, Carson and I are tagging along as numbers. I don't like that at all. But I also don't want to talk to Amanda and Carson about it just yet, because whenever I try to take control or make moves I tend to fuck up my game. In the Azores I let the game come to me and obviously that strategy worked out pretty well. Big strategic threats like Tom, Gavin, Toby and Julia all fizzled out because they were just doing too much. So right now I'm gonna sit back while keeping in mind who I'll need to eventually take out, and wait for the right time to make that move. Bronson's going home tonight which is fine because I wanted to give Catherine and Tymeka a chance to talk a little bit more. They think Carson's the alternative boot which, again, tells me that this is really the alliance of Marie, Brandon & Alex with their three extra vote advantages coming along for the ride. This will work in the premerge but once we swap or merge, all bets are off.	”
–Rhone

“	Haven’t done one of these in a minute soooo here we go Day 4: Adam is gone for over playing and rip sucks to suck I guess but I’ve been there so I suck a bit too, but who am I kidding I suck as much as the next gay does LAWL!!! But at this point, I’ve managed to get closer to Marie and Brandon as my Top 2 allies along with Rhone and Amanda who I trust as well and Carson might as well be the tag along cause he’s just there and doesn’t really say much so yeah. Also let’s see, I think I might have a good position in the tribe given that I’m performed really well in the last challenge and on top of that I’m not a threat so hey keep this guy around! Also, I haven’t mentioned this but ERMEHGERD!!!!! I BEAT MY AZERBAIJAN PLACEMENT!!!! I feel like one of those guys who gets a stripper cake or Cupcakke, I don’t know who that is but I saw an album called Queen Elizabitch and that shit made me cackle and it made me think like she must be some down ass bitch if she goes by that name like that is so cool, but I digress. I beat my placement and I think that I’m set up pretty well in this tribe cause people want to work with me and I have an awesome partner who is the bees knees so everything is cumming up ass roses!!! Day 5: We get another challenge and my god, I did well again, that is shocking me that I’ve been as good as I have in these games but I mean I’m happy, it gets the target off of me and I have an alliance which is what I wanted I have myself, Amanda, Rhone, Marie, Brandon, and Carson and we’re the stripes and solids which is dope! Also Cat messaged me asking if I’d be down to make a returnee alliance and I mean I’m not gonna say no so she made it and like we’re trying to figure out which newbie should go and me and Amanda are SAFE AS FUCK so we ain’t going nowhere KNOW THAT!!! And it comes down to Bronson and Carson. It becomes the battle of the -Son’s and so I chose to keep Carson over Bronson just cause Carson is in the alliance but I will say Bronson fought to stay and I respect the FUCK out of that so I like the guy and if it is him to go, he shouldn’t feel discouraged, he played a good-ish game and he should be proud of himself, I mean he played longer than I did in my first game, but you know Hannah and Angie played longer than I did in my first game so meh <3 You Henna. As of now, I’m in a chill spot and I hope that a swap isn’t happening but I wouldn’t be shocked if it is coming so I have to make sure that I’m on the right side of the vote if it comes down to it over there, but I think that I could have some connections on the other side should it come down to a swap so YAY ME!! A-Mass OUT!	”
–Alex

“	My suspicions were right - not only was Carson saving his own ass, but he threw me under the bus. Now I'm clutching straws and have to play really aggressively and come across as desperate to avoid being voted out, something I wanted to avoid altogether.	”
–Bronson

“	After confronting Carson and him telling me he had no control over the vote and didn't want to be the one to go so he gunned for me, it gives me an opening to make one final chance at making a move to escape elimination assuming he's telling the truth. Do I believe Carson? Not really. But I will have to believe that he is in order to make it plausible that this plan could work.	”
–Bronson

“	The timing was all wrong. Now it's a lock I'm going home. Had Carson come on earlier and everyone not cast their votes because of how close the deadline was, I could have had a chance at saving myself. Fuck.	”
–Bronson