Can't Feel Too Comfortable/Confessionals

I will give more details of everything that has happened later because I need a night of me time for my mental and emotional well being. I'm watching Maury in a beautiful airbnb in the snowy mountains with my bestie and it's amazing. But I will say that I'm working on smoothing things over and hopefully I will be able to move forward ideally with Wes and Grace. I'm not giving up.

Update on the trust rankings! Swap shook things up. Right now, Courtney is my #1. Why? This would be dumb when we consider what happened last season :joy:. But I've been speaking to Courtney, and she spilled all the beans on her tribe's dynamics immediately, and really wants to work with me. She just wants to have her friends win. She wants me, Brandon, Mylo, or Wes to win. That's it. Although she wants to be on the jury to help :joy: She wants to help us get as far as we possibly can so we can win. She's convinced she won't be able to win, and just wants to have people she cares about winning this game. Could just be all lies, but she's not much of a liar and based on her character, I know she means it. She'll play this game FOR me, and unfortunately Wes, Mylo and Brandon as well :joy: But she has to be my #1 by far because she's the only person actually playing for me. Tommy has been demoted to #2. Still trust the guy quite a bit, but it's mainly because of Courtney above him. I feel like our relationship has faltered a tiny bit, but it's really not a concern of mine. Tommy and I could be in it for the long haul. Grace is next in 3rd place. She absolutely deserves to be higher. But this isn't a normal org. She's proven to be incredibly good at ORGs, and while I've gotten along with her VERY well, it's hard to completely trust her. She's on the opposite "side", whatever that means. And while I really want to work with her and play with her more, taking her out might be decent for my game. Next up is Wes, and he doesn't deserve to be at #4 either. I actually do trust Wes quite a bit. But Grace, Tommy, and Courtney are STIFF competition. Plus, he's an incredible player that I'll have to keep my eye on. This is a stacked tribe, I really do trust Wes, just not more than the others. Greg kinda just stands last by default. In a normal tribe, he'd probably be in the middle somewhere, but I just can't place him higher than anybody else.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775443752775974963/780626730145939496/Trust\_Rankings\_Ep\_4.PNG

I PROMISE guys, I really don't want to keep putting myself in first :joy: I feel like a delusional asshole :joy: But here's the thing, I'm in a good spot. Tommy is very close to me, Grace is very close to me, Courtney is very close to me, Wes is very close to me, and Greg is close to Tommy who is close to me. I have the Kilimanjaro connection and alliance of Wes, myself, and Courtney. I could join Tommy, Grace, and Courtney (who all love me) to join the winners alliance. I could form an alliance with Wes and Greg to form a "Davids" alliance against the winners (which Wes was interested in). Wes, Tommy, and I have created an alliance as well. I have some very close friendships, and I could crush this game, I think!
Tommy is very close to Greg by his own admission, and obviously Wes as well, to the point where they're close enough for an alliance at least. So Tommy might be closer to Greg and Wes than I am, so he gets second place. I have Courtney and Grace over him, and I think Wes likes me more than the two ladies like Tommy. That's why I'm above Tommy. If that makes any sesne. But I feel like I'm their third guy in Disco alliance. Tommy also has the winners connection, and he's close to me to where I can bring him in to an alliance that he's not included in. But Tommy is also definitely safe right now.
Grace is next. She has a lot of potential majority connections. Winners, old Phecda. And she's a very good player. If she's on the chopping block, I'm confident she'll be making moves to change it up. But honestly, I have a gut feeling that she'll be the one to go if we lose. Which sucks. I really do like Grace. There are pros and cons for her sticking around for my game, she's a shield, she trusts me, but she's got a lot of Phecda friends and she's crazy good at the game. So maybe Grace shouldn't be this high, but if she plays everything right, she could be the one with all the power.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775443752775974963/780638536864104448/Power\_Rankings\_Ep\_4.PNG
Courtney is next. Definitely not a huge power player right now, but I know Wes and I are very loyal to her. I can imagine Grace wants her around right now as well.
The only person that I think wants Wes around is myself, Tommy, and Courtney. Maybe he should be above Courtney, but eh. So I guess just Grace and Greg might want him out. But they could link up as old Phecda... Wes SHOULD be #4! But I've already taken the screenshot. Whatever. But he's in a slightly precarious spot still. Not as cushy as me and Tommy.
Greg doesn't really have any power in the tribe. No influence over people, in my opinion. He's got some options, but he'll probably be bossed around regardless where he goes. Still a good player tho, this is just a stacked tribe in a stacked season.

I think I am I have a short term problem but if I can make it through I may be set up long term. Obviously if we lose this challenge I think I am the obvious target. With Sly going all the phecdas are intact and it sorta just makes sense for the group to target me (from my perspective). I mean of course there are other relationships at play so I am hoping I can stay safe. If I make it long term I think I have a really good relationship with Mylo and Alicia. Combining with my sepereate relationshipd with phecda, and Tim/Courntey I think I am in a decent position to play the middle once merge hits. I think we have another swap coming up but that is my initial thinking. If we do lose I hope either Chi or Vincent go. Preferably Chi but if the group is telling me vincent I am okay with it. I feel like I am being sorta gamebotty but also I am having great convos with everyone so I hope I am still a joy to talk to

OK. What a day. I had to make the move to vote out Sly. I couldn’t risk rocks so early in the game. I know Sly was mad, and look, I don’t blame him. But it’s not like we were super close, we were thrown together, not bonded. Ben understands, now we need to win and keep that together at least. I do think that I’ve built enough goodwill with the Phecda homies to keep me safe if we lose though. Lochlan has said a few times that he just wants to get to the merge so he can start playing. I think he’s got the right idea to a certain extent. You make these little moves to just get you to the stage where you can make the right big moves. Voting Sly out wasn’t that big of a move, but it laid a few markers for a later move I may need to make. When I flipped on Mick in KR, the only person that I voted with that I actually knew was Shelby. This time I at least have a little bond with Lochlan and Sophia. If I get to the merge I feel good. Fingers crossed that I get there.

IT IS WORKING!!!!! Courtney and Grace are starting to come together! Tommy came to me with the idea of starting an alliance with Tim. His reasoning was that no one would see it coming because Tommy isn’t connected to us and Tim and I are the most unlikely people to work together. I don’t hate where Tommy’s head is at on this move for his game... but he pulled the trigger on it at the wroooooong time. I needed something like this so bad and he just offered it to me on a silver platter. Before, I was driving myself insane trying to figure out a way to get Grace, Courtney, and Myself together. Now I don’t have to because Tommy and Tim did it for me!

I might've grossly underplaced Wes in my trust rankings. He has a very similar philosophy to Courtney coming into this game. He has similar goals. Both of them, Wes and Courtney, seem to want to help me get as a far as possible at the detriment of their own games. Which is crazy, and I honestly don't know how to feel about it. Both of them are sort of playing this game FOR me. Courtney has said her goals for me much more explicitly, Wes was a bit more vague, but I had no idea this is how he felt. He did betray me the hardest, by like far, but I don't really take offense to it. Some parts of it were probably unnecessary, but like, he kinda did what he had to in order to get to the end. But he feels terrible about it. And now he wants to change his game. Courtney and Wes just want to do great true friendships and use this game to redeem themselves from last time. And I'll benefit from it. Which is great on a more human level, and a game level, but I also don't really know how to feel about it all? It doesn't feel deserved, and I feel bad for Courtney and Wes on many levels. They shouldn't be tanking their games for me. My friendships with them is genuine but it'll stay that way regardless of what happens. Although, not gonna lie, if they used all these personal talks to eventually blindside me, I'd be SO mad. But I know they won't. And so I want to tell them they don't have to play FOR me, but I also want to go far in this game. And they could help me accomplish my ultimate goal of orgs. Just to be an amazing winner in one of these. I've gotten a lot of accolades, Fan Favorite, Robbed Pre-Juror, Hero of the Game, etc. All I need is the win (and ideally POTS as well :joy:). And so I feel so incredibly bad for having Wes and Courtney playing for my success, but I guess this is what I have to accept, because it's what they want and it'll end up putting me on the path of winning this game.

The challenge finishes in an hour and even though we have done so much I really don't think it's going to be enough to avoid tribal. The challenge itself has been mental fun so honestly idk if I'm that bothered but the fact it might all end up being for nothing is so grim.

I am genuinely worried now that Brandon could end up going home. If Vincent is able to curry more favour with the OG Alioths, he's gone. Brandon had a pretty strong social game on Phecda 1, so hopefully he made ties, and is able to utilise his tie with Mylo to keep himself safe this TC.

I do think though that after this TC we might end up with a swap, and it depends on how the star summit was handled. I think it will either be two tribes of 8 at F16, or 3 tribes of 5 at F15. Maybe two of 7 at F14 but that would be a pretty late swap considering merge is usually around F12.

And I honestly wouldn't mind a swap rn, assuming my boy Brandon survives (which he better) and we swap at 16, we'd be going into that with every og Phecda castaway still in the game, and that is nearly full majority. Obviously you cannot play exclusively from tribal lines, that's just never going to work, but the ties we have could be incredibly helpful. I might actually... make it to merge :flushed: imagine

Okay I guess it is time to test out my new and improved social game. I just finished VCs with both Alicia and Mylo and both individually mentioned they wanted to work with me. They could have been DMing each other during but I doubt it. Vincent is making an alliance between me him and alicia which is fake, but will do a good job convincing alicia to target Chi. This works well for me as I would prefer chi go over vincent. When talking with Mylo he also mentioned he did not really have a preference. My goal right now is just to lay low and let others do the talking. It is risky but it makes no sense for my name to be the one being used as the guy targeting chi. Just gonna lay around and get drunk instead

Vincent, Vincent, Vincent. I liked you and wanted to work with you but I found out you're coming for me. Bad move and now I can justify voting you out. Sorry dude, I liked you heaps but I can't let that slide :stuck\_out\_tongue:

https://youtu.be/E\_F6JitwTjk

filmed PRIOR to us losing the challenge https://youtu.be/v6rhaYAzxgs

thank god we won! Not winning would have been bad news bears. I don't want Tim, Tommy, Grace, or Wes gone. Tim won't want Tommy or Wes gone. Grace won't want Tommy or Wes gone. Wes won't want me or Grace or Tim gone. Tommy won't want me or Tim or Grace gone. I realize this sounds easy right? There is a CLEAR odd man out...but guess what? GREG HAS A FREAKING IDOL. So yeah we NEEDED this win 100%

so apparently my name has been around as some people told me (both mylo and alicia), i'm trying my best to fight that back and survive for another round if possible. don't know who could it have been but it would be nice to have some explanations as possible as of gathering information from other contestants as of the moment.

Wait is Barrett going against us now too? Hold up what

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775441927377911848/781019046551486524/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775441927377911848/781019093804253205/ORG\_Rankings.PNG
Thoughts:
-I feel probably too good about Mylo and Alicia
-I have to assume Mylo, Alicia and Barrett are a trio but it is really hard to see that
-If I have my way then Chi will go
-This will keep vincent in my pocket for the time being
-I am doing very well over VC, I dont think they are VCing with each other so I def have an advantage in this regard.
-I am out here trying my best
-I am 100% playing harder than I would like but if it is this or go home I choose this.

Alright so we got another important challenge win today. I still really don’t want to lose any of these people, and if we were to win out until the next swap/merge, I would trust them all to want to work with me. However, in the past few days, things have changed with who I feel I need to work with most. Originally, I was planning on probably targeting Courtney or Grace had we lost, because I felt closer to Wes and Greg and felt like they would be more loyal to me down the line than either of Courtney or Grace. However, when Sly went home, everything changed. For one, it was awful for my game, not only losing a winner, but also a member of my original tribe who I think would have been willing to work with me in the future, since we were in AOTS together. However, when he went home, I could see the panic Grace and Courtney were feeling at seeing a winner go home, so at that moment I realized that maybe they really are going to be loyal to me long term, and maybe their main plan in the game truly is to work with winners. So then, my eyes turned to Greg. The only reason I really would target Greg now is that he’s the only 1 of the 5 other people on this tribe who has no clear reason to want to work with me long term. The winners obviously now really want to stick with me, Tim has been my number 1 since Day 1, and Wes has blatantly expressed to me that he was on the bottom of his original tribe and has made it clear to me that he would not target Tim any time soon to make up for taking him out in Kilimanjaro, meaning that if he’s not gonna target Tim, he’s not gonna target Tim’s closest ally. Also we have the disc golf bond that I discussed before, and I really feel like he and I just vibe on a deep level. He’s told me a lot about the OG Phecda tribe, and has voiced his concerns that Brandon was controlling the game and had told him to his face that he wouldn’t fight for Wes to stay if he was going home.
For these reasons, it makes perfect sense for Wes to stick with Tim and I for a long time. So, because of that, Greg is in a weird spot, where he has no great reason to stick with me, which gives me the slight doubt that he wouldn’t. I still think he would, but he’s the only person who in my opinion might not. So, if we had lost, and I had gotten my way, Greg would have been robbed on such a high level. Hopefully, we can just keep winning and that doesn’t have to happen. I love all these people too much. As for the other tribes, I really hope that Ben and Kevin didn’t flip on Sly, and that it was some sort of idol or advantage play that sent him home. It’s too early for us Meraks to be cannibalizing, especially when we were so close as a tribe. As for Alioth, from what I’ve been told by Courtney, Barrett, Mylo, and Alicia are working together (with Courtney pre-swap), and Chi is on the bottom of that tribe. So, unless something drastic happens, it should be one of Chi, Vincent, or Brandon going home. God I hope it’s Brandon. Now that I know that Chi basically has no allies, I really think she would hop on board with me, and Vincent and I had a good relationship back on Merak, so I want him to survive. Brandon meanwhile is apparently against 2 of my allies, Wes, as I said earlier, and Courtney, from what she’s told me about what people have said to her about him, so it would be so perfect if he went home. Like so perfect. Please let it happen.

I’m gonna work my way backwards through this. If I hadn’t made the decision to come clean to Courtney and give her idol back, then I know 100% that no matter how far I would get in this game, even if I won in a unanimous vote and was hailed as the greatest Phoenix player ever, I would forever have an asterisk on this game in my head. I took advantage of Courtney’s trust and overplayed when I made Grace her target. It was unnecessary. I could have continued to play Courtney without deliberately turning her against Grace and ruining any potential friendship outside of the game they could have had. I also would never have been able to live with the fact that Courtney passed that idol to me because I had hurt her deeply and she was ready to leave the game simply because she felt that being here was holding me back.
This changes everything about our plans, but for the better. Tomorrow I am going to do a big video con explaining what is going on because it’s a lot and I haven’t had time to keep you updated. For now, I’ll say that this move has opened BOTH Courtney and Grace’s options up immensely in this game, and they have BOTH realized it on their own.
The MAJOR thing that has changed is that now it is Courtney who knows my full game instead of Grace. As much as it sucks, we can’t let Grace know what has happened. I hate that, but it is in her best interest at this stage in the game to continue believing that she is more in control. Because I know Courtney and Grace both so well on a personal level, I know that both of them are so used to being in control of a tribe and their alliances that they freak out if it starts to feel like they aren’t.
If I’m being completely honest, what I feel like I have accomplished (somewhat accidentally through my bad plays) is a situation where all 3 of us feel like we are in control. Grace feels good about playing with Courtney because she still thinks that she has the full picture.
Courtney feels like she is in control because she has my complete game now, and I apologetically gave her the idol back as the ultimate show of trust. I feel in control because I am the go between who also has Greg’s idol knowledge and a direct line to Tim and Tommy. I feel so great about how this is going.
Greg is now in the worst spot here, if we lose he is gonna have to go home with his idol in his pocket, unless I can get it from him first..... cracks knuckles

https://youtu.be/a9fPOxvMmXE

https://youtu.be/E\_F6JitwTjk

after last tribal i feel like this tribe is kind of at a dead point if that makes sense? like it's an obvious 3-2 majority and i also feel quite comfortable in my 3. the person i was most worried about flipping (nate) lochlan and i kind of saved last tribal and i've definitely done my best to make him comfortable. i think if we go to tribal ben will go but who knows?? can't get too comfortable in the game of survivor :zany\_face:

Confessional: Day 15 - Life is Looking Up
So after last time a lot has changed in the past 48 hours. I don’t know how I keep ending up in these situations I genuinely felt like I was in such a low place last time I checked in here in the game because I was just genuinely getting nothing from nobody, but the tides have turned once again and I don’t even know exactly what to believe is the truth anymore.
So Tommy solidified the alliance with Wes and Tim, and immediately I was like “Wes, tell Courtney about it.” He wasn’t against the idea but I knew immediately that if Wes told Courtney, Courtney would know this information wasn’t good for her and begin to form the connection to me, aka the other winner Tommy was going behind to accomplish this.
Courtney approaches me with this information and makes it beyond obvious that Wes told her but didn’t trust me enough to admit it was Wes. Like, come on Courtney!! Even if I didn’t know, I would’ve known, Tim and Tommy were on the same OG tribe. What incentive would Tim have had to rat out Tommy? That’s not me being smart, that’s me stating the obvious. So Courtney comes clean about being close to Wes and I’m like alright cool, I really feel alone here. Maybe Tommy pulled in Tim and Wes because you said you didn’t want to work with Kilimanjaro so he’s pulling the other Kilimanjaros?? That was originally a lie I just came up with in my tiny brain to try and cover me knowing about the situation… but there could be some strings of truth embedded in that.
Wes has been psychoanalyzing every little thing trying to come up with a massive play that could be the reason for all of this but I personally think that he is overthinking it. I 100% can see Tommy just trying to cover all of his bases and think that he’s not gonna get caught doing so. I also see Tommy thinking that’s the best way to protect Tim. I don’t see Tommy and Tim tricking Wes trying to get him to admit some info to create some giant 4D chess plays to kill Wes like Wes thinks is going on. I really don’t see it being that deep, but maybe Wes is just trying to come up with excuses to have to stick with Courtney in his head and putting on the rose colored glasses.
Courtney also supposedly wants to let me in on her having the idol, which would put me in such a better spot too. I’ve started to realize the benefits of Courtney actually trusting me, and one of them is giving me an in with Barrett. Barrett scary, Courtney scary, Grace scary. I DO NOT need to be on the receiving end of knives thrown by the Courtney and Barrett duo. I would love to squeeze myself into that spot, especially if I swap into a tricky situation on the 2nd swap. This all seems to be coming together for me as a way for me to have people to hide behind.
If we compare survivor to the hunger games, I want to be Foxface ALWAYS. I want to sneak around and leave traps and watch people die and people not even know what to think of me until it's too late. You know, minus the accidentally eating suicide berries. I really don’t want that part to happen, but the other parts of Foxface are who I would love to be as a character. I’m trying to work towards that and I don’t think that’s an impossible goal.
Brandon might be the one going on Alioth and Wes thinks that’s a good thing. Brandon is Wes and I’s one tie to each other and a loose end. I recognize this possibility don’t get me wrong, but I put so much work into having an f2 with both Wes AND Brandon and being that middle person. It would be a shame if Brandon ended up dying in the game before I could remotely capitalize on that positioning I gave myself. Also, Brandon is a friend. Brandon is easy for me to read, and I really think that Brandon and I could’ve done some damage as a duo. If he survives, I’ll be a lot happier than Wes will be, but I obviously can’t let Wes in on that. I want to be slowly laying the foundations down for my future gameplay, and Brandon leaving feels like a setback in the long term, but I could be wrong and he’s already decided he’s against me from being swapped away. Who knows.
Greg is scaring Wes a lot, but I also still feel like Greg trusts me to an extent. Greg wanted to get close to Tommy so we could have 3 against the Kilimanjaro 3 just in case. This lines up with my theory of Tommy just trying to have a working relationship with everyone and ride the middle. Wes really feels like some conspiracy theory involving Greg is going on and if it actually is then wow, I’ve been bamboozled. I am more inclined to think that Greg just feels comfortable and like he doesn’t really need to play right now, just based off of what I know about Greg.
Finally, we talk about Tim. Tim is such a hard one for me to read and it’s getting to me personally. I can’t tell how Tim truly feels about me and I don’t want to be naive in trusting him. On a personal level, I’ve LOVED Tim. I can’t let myself be blinded by him though, and I think he’s definitely afraid of me in some aspects which I’ve been trying to change. I would love to work with Tim if possible, but I don’t know if I can ever truly shake the feeling that he’s just trying to play my ass like a fiddle. We’ve had a lot of personal conversations which is hard to just go back on for me. He says he trusts me on a personal and game level and I really really do want to believe him. Time will tell there if that’s a mistake on my part.
Overall, Wes and I are doing amazing I believe with the cards we have. Wes is my ride or die and will be unless I have a reason for him not to be. I think that I can outplay him in the long run and even if I don’t, he’s one of the only people crazy enough to want to even take the challenge of going against me in the end. I need him, and I hope that he needs me. We VC almost every night and never run out of things to talk about. He’s truly the best despite having crazy ideas sometimes, I still love that about him. Hopefully we can run this as far as possible without people knowing how close we are. Can you imagine if I actually played a similar game to how I did in Cayman and it worked again? That’s wishful thinking but a girl can dream, right?
Trust Rankings for round 5:
1). Wes
2). Courtney
3). Tim
4). Greg
5). Tommy

At the moment, Alicia and I are still working towards our plan of eliminating Brandon. It hurts honestly, last night I was having doubts because I love Brandon and he's a cool dude. I don't want to betray him or his wife and I empathise too much with him. It's unfair he's getting the target despite Vincent and Barrett being the ones who are actually betraying us. However, I then realised an important lesson: I need to play more with my head than my heart haha. So often I play with my heart, but if I want to actually win here I have to make tough decisions and do what's best for my game, even if it hurts people that I trust. Brandon is a smart vote, I'm just not sure if it's smarter than Barrett or Vincent. Right now it's still undecided but Brandon is the current plan - I expect some last minute shenanagins though