Okay that was well done, A+.
1-If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends. Where does the power on this tribe reside? Do you plan on working within that power structure or rebelling against it?
The power, as I understand it, resides in the Jeff, Cochran, Penner, Cassandra alliance. Naturally, I plan on continuing to work within that power structure.
2-Make it last forever, friendship never ends! Who are you closest to on the tribe?
I think it's about time I bust out the Parenthesis of Trust™
Jeff ))))) Penner )) Cochran ))) Cassandra )) Kim ) Aubry + Yve ))) Alex )) Tammy
In my last season I used to close the brackets on the opposite side but we don't have time for that anymore.
3-Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is... How active have you been in the strategy around camp? are you actively working to make things happen? Or are you letting others lead the charge so you can strike later?
I think I'm among the most active people on the tribe - or at least that is my perception on what I am hearing back. I think that I did a good job this episode of finding my voice in the alliance, and finding out that I do have a voice in the alliance. So while I am being an easy alliance-mate to deal with, I am also trying to be an active player both in the game and in the alliance.
-page break-
Nightly recap time.
So today started with Cochran telling me that we have a problem and that problem is Aubry's activity level and being unable to excuse it moving forward. I was like 'aw shizz, I may need to lose Aubry here' because I can't play for her. While I feel like she likes me and will be an active player in my corner moving forward, but if she's not making the connections she needs to make, I have to let her go. So I voiced that I was okay with letting her go which probably got me some good will from the alliance in my willingess to go with the flow, and it probably did a good job of distancing Aubry from me in the mind of others. I still view her as a valuable ally to me but I also need her to step up and be an active player with me or she may find herself out of the game.
Penner and I were talking and we discussed the pros and cons of just taking a shot at THE TRIO here. We all agree, everyone in our alliance, that Kim is great and that she is not going anywhere. Ziggy is someone I talked to the least. I mean, I talked to him a lot and tried to keep up with him, but I felt like I was forcing conversation with him. He is also the person who suggested Aubry to me boot one when Penny was inactive and it seemed like everyone was already locked and loaded on Penny to go. Penner seemed to want Tammy to go here but I preferred Ziggy. I later talked to Cochran and Cass who both agreed on Ziggy and that became the boot for us to work on.
It seems like our alliance has Alex, Yve, and Aubry just waiting for us to do something at this juncture of the game. I can't imagine that three winners are content to just let other people do the bidding for them and have no agency in the game, but at current glance that seems to be what they are okay with doing. And to be honest, knowing the three of them are in that role is kind of making it easier for me to play like I'm not so in the loop, because they are also visibly not in the loop.
The three of them jumped on board and operation ZigZag was in full effect. The only issue became how to handle broaching it with Kim and Tammy. Penner wanted to blindside them and then apologize later. One of my favorite Survivor quotes is "Tomorrow we make our apologies, tonight we make our move." from Tom Westman. Cochran on the other hand wanted to toss it on them at literally the last minute and give them no time to do anything about it. I personally think both of them chose the wrong idea but I made both of them think their idea was better! They both seemed to be annoyed with each other. I am a little bit bugged that Cochran wanted to be the one to break it to THE TRIO because that allows him to control the narrative and if he's controlling the narrative, he can spin it however he wants. I didn't like that so I jumped the gun and told Kim first.
Kim was like "uh what? no what? wow what?" which was kind of funny but also not because I like Kim and I didn't like seeing her flounder like that. She was very quick to be like "IT'S CASS/PENNER/COCHRAN CONTROLLING THE VOTES!" and I kind of just like... let her vent.
Tribal was totally unevenful and Ziggy went home unanimously, 2/2 on the unanimous votes. The unanimous votes are kinda funny because clearly they are not in everyone's best interest but you can't stick out or you may make yourself a target in a following round. That's much more a Big Brother thing but people seem to be abiding by it here, or they just want to be taken along for the ride.
Kim messaged me afterwards and told me that she has my back 100% and that we need to work with each other moving forward. I trust her and think she's being honest with me. The problem is that she probably trusts me and thinks I am being honest with her - and for the record, I am being honest with her - but it is just that I am doing so while cushioned within an alliance safely guarded behind a visible trio. So it's like I'm being honest but also omitting the truth - a truth that would make me look like some sort of cartoon villain.
I don't know why Penner, Cochran and Cassandra are doing me the favor of not revealing my role in this because if they did, none of the others would trust me and it'd put me in much more of a hot seat than any of them. But as it stands, I am sitting pretty comfortably here (fast forward to tomorrow night when I am voted out).
I think that I need to preemptively do a little damage control anticipating that I could be named Miss Congeniality in tomorrow's challenge and masking the fact that I am well-liked by telling people outside of the alliance that I want to make as many friends as I can so that I have options in a swap situation - and that's true! But I also voted myself last so maybe I tanked my value and made all of these comments make me look big-headed and self-important.
As it currently stands, I'm in the alliance with Cochran, Penner, and Cassandra. I have a "thing" with Aubry where we're looking out for each other, and I believe I have one with Yve as will. Kim 100% has my back. I think I'm forming some sort of a connection with Alex where we're looking out for each other but he is a hard one to really get a gauge on. I would be shocked if my name came up, unless people wisen up to realizing "Jeff is actually in a really good position here" and then following that up with "we should get rid of him" instead of "that's awesome! he can help me from that position!"
Imagine I am actually not in a good spot and I wrote all of this. The egg on my face. I hope that these are useful and worthwhile reads. I don't think they're tooooooo long.
Lets keep this party going shall we?
