So, I was told to make a confessional, and since I haven't yet made one I guess now is as good a time as any to start.
When I first started the game I had no idea who I liked and disliked so far as the players go. Some of the mentor (veteran) players talked to me, some didn't. Some of the student (newbie) players talked to me and others didn't. This seemed all very typical of the beginning dynamics in one of these games. I knew that those who were talking to me were most likely to vote in a bloc since they were socially active/aware and those who were not speaking to me would in all likelihood be whittled away.
The individuals that spoke to me most during these first few hours were Steven (my mentor), Foxx (the mentor for Lindsay), and Audrianna (one of the students). From these conversations I got that Steven liked me because we share an interest in education and that he would (if he could, or so he tells me) like for the two of us to make it to the final so that he can show student and mentor are capable of working together. I agreed, because, it made sense to me. Foxx had casual conversation with me asking about my day and various things like that. He was super nice and I definitely felt I could instill my trust in him. Audrianna was also super nice and I loved her personality. She was very inviting and for that reason I grew to feel comfortable with her.
After that first night I woke up the next morning when the vote was due unsure of which team was going to be the target of the first vote. I knew that only one of us would be making the vote and that, in all likelihood, it would be Steven since I was still testing the waters of the game. But, I still wanted to have knowledge of the plan and what our intentions were. So, I asked around, specifically talking to Steven and Foxx about who they thought would be the best person. Steven gave me mixed answers between two pairs. He said that it would be Ryan and Alex or Katie and Karen. Student that I am I had no good reasoning for either of the two and told him that I trust our group vote to him.
Foxx said specifically that Katie and Karen were the plan since he viewed Katie as a very dangerous player with a history of playing in multiple games and playing hard.
A "big alliance" bloc formed out of this vote for Karen and Katie. It consisted of Steven, Me, Foxx, Lindsay, Emma, Ricky, Andreas, Audrianna, Michelle, and Jimmy.
So, after the vote Katie and Karen were the first to go. It was kind of... anti-climactic in that I had no attachment to either Katie or Karen and had not actually spoken to either of them. It was at this point that I realized I needed to pick up my social game off the floor and dust it off. I mean, if someone got voted off and I haven't even spoken to them I'm not even giving them a chance.
After this vote we were told we were going into the tribal phase of the game. We were sorted into Rano Kau (blue) and Moto Nui (green) respectively and it appeared we were sorted by our duos as every team had a player who was in a duo. I felt comfortable with this choice on the host's part since the person I trusted most at this point was Steven and that was mostly because he's my acting mentor and I figure he'd look out for me in the long run.
Unfortunately, or maybe not, the tribes divided our "super alliance" with Steven, Me, Emma, and Ricky, Foxx, and Lindsay put on Rano Kau and Andreas, Audrianna, Jimmy, and Michelle put on Moto Nui.
Initially, Steven and I discussed how important it was to keep our alliance intact so that if we make merge we can just reunite and pick off those not previously associated with it. I figured this was a good plan moving forward since it meant we stayed in the majority both ways. So, once we hit this phase we started an alliance chat consisting of Steven, Me, Emma, Ricky, Foxx, and Lindsay.
A while later we decided that to ensure we had the numbers it would be best to recruit another duo to our group so we decided to add Kellan and Lauren. Then, moving forward, we'd be set.
Then of course we got this first immunity challenge. Which was gross. It was a colored egg game. Very fitting for the Easter Island game, but not so fun for the players or the hosts. Basically when playing the game our goal was to find more eggs of our assigned color than the other teams. And, to do this we would pick out of a pool of numbers and hope that we were lucky. There were lots of little goodies among the eggs (power-ups) like hammers to smash opponents eggs, paint sets, crazy birds, a hidden immunity idol. You know everything you'd want when taking a stroll through a nice grassy field and trying to be "better than" everyone else.
So the challenge took off like some sort of crazy race. We had to number all of our posts so the hosts could keep up and before we knew it we had been told that we needed to stop. Our posts had overwhemed the hosts who it did not appear had anticipated such an enormous outcry of participation. As our host Danny gave us results, one egg at a time (in turn, the poor dude) we found that our team, the green eggs were doing decently. We found plenty of our eggs, but a lot more pink than we'd care for.
From that point, I figured that pink had a very good shot at being the color to win the competition since we had literally found nearly all of them. We continued the game, getting none of the disadvantage. Which was great because they sounded rather nasty, and I don't like that sorta thing. We did not end up winning the competition, however, we got second place behind the team of Emma and Ricky. Boo! But hey, they were the pink team so my prediction was correct. That's fun.
Anyway, so we went to tribal knowing that we could vote for neither Emma nor Ricky, and given our alliance, it didn't look like they were a viable option anyway, so it didn't matter all that much that we couldn't. Our decision as a group fell onto one of two people who were in duos. We would either vote out Kurt or Jules.
This was crazy since we had finally gotten to voting out individuals and- oh my gosh! I don't know if I was ready for this. I have this crazy paranoia that people are talking about me, but at the same time I don't want to think that way since I know that if it's not true then I seem full of myself. At any rate, since our vote was between those two we decided that since it was still in the air who had won the idol that we would split the vote between them.
At tribal council the votes fell just how we had thought they would the only hiccup being that Kurt and Jules had found the hidden immunity idol and were able to play it. It looks, from the outset, that Jules gave it to Kurt to play in what looked to me like a chivalrous action to give him more of a chance to play the game since she's a returnee. This could be guesswork, since I don't know for sure, but it's the picture I like to paint.
Jules was the first person voted out of our tribe and the first ripple that needed to be sewn back down. Our alliance immediately moved to do "damage control" within the tribe drawing Kurt into our alliance and making him feel as comfortable as we could. We didn't want his vote swinging any which way and it was safer to have him sitting with us than against us.
Of course, at this point, the hosts decide to drop a bombshell on us. We will be receiving a new player to replace our vote out comrade. Katie and Karen were not really voted out of the game, in fact, they were only sent to exile to stew in the fact that they were not the most well-liked among a group of newbies/veterans. Karen joined our tribe over in Rano Kau and Katie joined Moto Nui. I took it upon myself from the get-go to befriend Karen. A good portion of the reason being that I felt guilty after having not talked to/given her a chance to talk to me before allowing her to be voted off.
During our reward challenge we were tasked with designing a tribe flag with the requirements being that it included all the members of the tribe and had the tribe colors. Being a try-hard I thought I'd try something with a picture of the Rano Kau volcano and download the survivor font. I, at this time, did not know what cruel act of nature had fallen upon the judges and did not realize that if I showed any semblance of trying that they would tear me down for making the effort. So yeah, the challenge was judged and the majority of participants were torn to ribbons.
What I remember most from the reward though was how great it was for getting our tribe to bond with one another. We would joke about what we would be putting on the flags and we would show examples of "flags" that we had made. We weren't taking the competition altogether that seriously and were making light of it. It was great.
At any rate, my good friend Karen went to exile and that was a sad time.
Our immunity challenge following was a game of "weeha", which at the time, I did not understand. People kept using this word and confusing me as a newbie. They even offered me an invite to the 'weeha chat' which I declined unsure of what it meant. The goal of the game was for everyone to leave a chat at the same time so that they would win.
So, of course, our tribe decided to strategize. We were going to only add back one or two of their members at a time because in the challenge, if no one was able to leave the whole chat all at once the total number of leaves was what counted. Our strategy ended up working since in the chat we were leaving we were getting added back like crazy.
Apparently in their tribe chat they were discussing strategy or something, because we were doing very well in comparison when suddenly one of their members (Audrianna) started to add their own people back to the chat they were trying to leave. This was a loophole that the hosts allowed thereby allowing the Moto Nuis to continually add themselves and then leave, racking up a high score. Disgusted at this flaw in the game, I left our "add them back" chat and waited until we inevitably lost the challenge. We did.
Then our tribe got interesting. Apparently, from our mentors at least, it appeared as if it was time to strike. A new alliance formed specifically excluding Foxx and Lauren with the intention of eliminating Foxx. I was surprised to say the least, since he was legitimately nothing but a good guy to me up at this point. It's important to note here that at this point I was still in that herd/hive mentality where if it's best for the group I would have done it without questioning. So of course, I voted Foxx out of the game along with the group and felt terrible for it.
After this vote against Foxx I decided that I'm finally going to try and influence the game. I was done standing back and letting the game be played around me. If there was someone lined up to be taken out that I felt could be saved, I was going to do my best to do just that.
The next immunity challenge was to make a music video as a tribe. I thought this would be easy just as soon as we found a song. So I spent the better part of a couple of hours trying to find something fitting. I sent many suggestions to the group to be met with a response from Kellan (our resident movie maker expert extraordinaire) saying that he had picked a song and he wanted "every day footage" to go along with the song.
I spent that morning filming myself doing very mundane activities like cracking an egg and petting my cat. I felt really foolish doing them, but if they were going to help us win I was all for it. After I got back home from work I found out that Kellan had decided our "video footage" didn't fit with his theme. So he only used footage of himself. It was altogether very confusing with him playing basketball to a song that had a bunch of unnecessary swearing.
I was really mad. To say the least. I knew for a fact that we were not going to be winning this competition. I didn't even need to wait for the judges. It was at this point that I started communicating to my mentor (Steven) that I wanted Kellan out of the game as soon as possible. If he's going to make me waste my time just to do something of his own that he cooks up at the last minute then I'm not here for it. We lost the competition.
So, heading into the next tribal council, two names were thrown around. One of the names was Karen and the other was Lindsay. Karen and I had already grown very close together and the core alliance could not make up their minds. So, rather than wait for someone to strike against Karen and vote her out, I told them that I had voted Lindsay. I then made sure to tell Karen that she was one of the two names on the chopping block and that if she had any pull with anyone she needed to flip every vote to Lindsay.
Karen was saved during the vote and I let out a hallelujah chorus in my head. This was the first time I felt I was actually maneuvering within the game and not blindly following my alliance like a puppy. I liked the feeling for sure.
The next challenge was finding a tag to be judged. Ugh! I suck at being in the popular opinion. I feel any sort of "majority rules" competition is always lost by me. Every. Single. Time. So I decided to pick some things that I felt pretty safe with. I almost immediately claimed pretty and bernie. I felt that most of the things that could be found under those categories were safe since they were almost completely subjective. No one could hate me in the challenge for not receiving mass votes.
Despite my horrible (though in my opinion quite fantastic) picks our team managed to win the immunity challenge and send Moto Nui to tribal. This was a fantastic turn of events because at that point I'd honestly grown weary of voting people out.
The next reward challenge was a strange and gross game where at the end you end up being pooped out of a large dragon thing. I was not bad at it and found myself with the choice of exile. Once again, I wanted to deflect any of my shortcomings to the tribe, so I exiled myself. This would insure that if we were to fail no fingers would be pointed at me.
On exile island (I sent Katie with me) I formed a bond with Katie. We talked about how I wanted very much to work with Karen and that I felt if we all made merge that Steven, Katie, Karen, and I would make a rather admirable final four. And that Katie and Karen would have a great story if they made final tribal council. Katie agreed.
Hooray! Moto Nui lost the immunity challenge and had to send someone packing. At tribal they brought the vote to a tie and had to do a revote. At the revote Katie was wiped from the game and my hopes of working with her were dashed. I hoped that, working with, Karen we could avenge her loss. Either that or she'd come back from redemption island with a fire in her eyes.
Of course after this we got a tribe swap! I stayed on Rano Kau because apparently blue looks good on me. I lost Steven and Karen. It was a critical blow, but I got to keep Emma. So that was nice. Also ended up gaining Audrianna who I had befriended earlier before we were sorted into tribes so that was a plus.
The game had flipped and one of the players from the former Moto Nui (Ryan) came to our group saying that he would vote with us because he hated the Moto Nui. He instantly began trashing those players saying things that to me did not seem necessary. He told me that they were groveling to him so that they would remain strong and not be voted out. I instantly knew that he was a bad egg and had to go. If someone could talk like that about someone he did not like (and lie, as one of the Moto Nuis showed me with screenshot evidence) I could only imagine how he would be talking about me when he decided he no longer liked me.
Our alliance discussed who would be first boot and couldn't come up with any good ideas. We didn't want to start picking each other off or making enemies any which way, so we just hoped that we wouldn't have to.
True that! We literally decided that we just weren't going to be going to tribal council. Yep! We decided we were just going to win whatever competition was thrown at us. And, of course, as if the hosts could read minds (and who's saying they can't) they hit us with a double tribal council. I was nearly drowning in my tears. But! On the plus side, the tribal council came with an individual immunity challenge that one person from each tribe could win guaranteeing their safety. I knew I had to win it. And I did. I won it.
When it came time for tribal council each person from either side of the game got to exile someone from the other. I tried to think strategically, tried to dislocate someone that would make a meaningful impact on the game and insure the safety of both Steven and Karen. Andreas very clearly looked to be working against my group so I chose him for exile while Steven chose Kellan for - who knows?
I, of course, felt bad about turning on Ryan since he had told me specifically that Katie had given him advice to come speak to me in the event of a shuffle. I knew that the betrayal of voting him out would sting, but he never even mentioned it to me and took it with grace. Perhaps I judged him too soon. Perhaps not?
Next we had a word search challenge that to me just seemed like a huge storm blowing through. Everyone seemed to be posting their word searches to compare with one another and I was clicking to see what I had missed in some of the searches, but I could not read what had been circled clearly and gave up, posting my list to the group chat and resigning to let those who were more technically skilled to figure it out. Not saying I would have made a difference (because I clearly wouldn't have) but we ended up losing that challenge.
Before the next tribal, I found out that the game was heating up. Kellan had begun dragging my name through the mud the moment he got back from exile. Audrianna told me and then quoted Kellan basically saying that since I had chosen to vote Ryan out that I was not to be trusted. He tried to move all of the Moto Nui tribe members (those that I had previously saved) to vote against me. They were not budging and had set their sights on Lauren as their next target (just in case Kellan had picked up an idol from exile island).
I did not want to vote out Lauren. I wanted to keep the original Rano Kau group strong and so I agreed with the voiced consensus of the alliance that Connor should be the next vote. I felt it would be best for everyone and that in making the vote I would win back Kellan's trust. I confronted Kellan and asked what the deal was with him deciding that it was necessary to vote for me. He told me straight up that he was not going to lie to me and that he was campaigning against me. I took this all in stride knowing that Lauren would be leaving even with his strong campaigning since I had flipped, but then he did something very interesting that changed my mind.
Kellan asked if I would be willing to vote for Connor and that, perhaps, the Rano Kaus could vote together to remove one of the Moto Nuis. He told me that he knew he didn't trust me and went to extreme lengths to prove to me that he had indeed changed his vote. I told him, in hopes of winning his trust back, that I would vote for Connor and that we four could lock up the vote. I submitted my vote for Connor and then some serious business started.
Connor got incredibly upset at me and began trashing me in the local tribe chat. He called out the game that I was playing saying that I flipped and flopped based on my needs and I only had chosen to vote Ryan out at the last tribal because I was scared of how close he was getting to the Rano Kaus. He even copied a message that I had sent about how I was only voting with the Rano Kaus to appease Kellan and make him think that I trust him and sent it to Kellan.
It was getting rough, but at the time of Connor's meltdown it was too late to change the votes and Connor's fate was sealed. It was annoying though, because the damage control that I had done was for no reason and I had to accept that the next on our tribe to go had to be Kellan.
Once again immunity came around and it was one I could justify sitting out of. I honestly don't know as much about Survivor as some of these die-hard fans and didn't want to spoil our tribe's chance at winning. Emma and Lauren put forth their best effort to take it home for us and unfortunately lost. Boo!
So yeah, we had to decide what we'd do as far as the vote goes. I had my mind set on Kellan, and then as if the heavens had heard my prayers, Emma added me to a chat that consisted of Lauren and herself. They told me that Kellan was once again working at removing me from the game and that they were trying to save me instead. The plan was to vote out Kellan because he had become a major liability.
I definitely was on board with this as I had been hoping to vote Kellan out at least two tribals sooner. I agreed with the plan and it went smooth with Kellan walking out the door to a unanimous vote. Sorry dude, but like, stop trying to kick me out.
The next reward was super adorable and really fun to play. There were these kissing giraffes and it was super fun trying to line up their heads for kisses. I felt like I was okay at it, but it turns out I'm a professional giraffe kisser or something because I won it and got to exile myself again. I exiled me and Karen to give Katie a chance to talk to Karen incase she didn't come back from redemption. Also, I missed talking to Karen. That helped.
Anyway, we reconvened about the goings-on in our respective tribes and I caught up with the goings-ons on redemption island. All the drama, something about Andreas using Michelle as a meat shield or something. I dunno. Lots of drama that us Rano Kaus were better about avoiding, to be honest.
At any rate, when we came back from exile I found out that Rano Kau had won the immunity challenge so we didn't have to make the difficult division of five into four. That was fantastic news as I feel the split in the tribe sort of fell around me and I didn't want the four of them turning around and deciding to vote out the linchpin.
Once Michelle was voted out of Moto Nui there was a cold, dead silence from the hosts. There had already been hints of a merge to come and everyone was abuzz with the excitement. I know I personally couldn't wait for it to happen so I could reunite with those I was more friendly towards. Also, I couldn't wait because if the tribe grew in size the target that's on my back would shrink all the more so. And hey! We did end up merging!
Cool! So everyone got into one big group and the Rano Kau collective formed an alliance. Yeah. Apparently we all hate Andreas? Cool.
Anyway, then I found out today thate Katie came back from Redemption Island because she's a real winner. Cool! Also, our final four is hopefully going to take off! That's good news, because I like final fours. And I like being in them especially.
