by Denise » Tue Dec 09, 2014 7:21:26 am
Despite the foreboding end to my last confessional, at the top of day 19, Madhati was still going strong and I could not have been happier! I received a rude awakening when I got on today and had a metric fuckton of PMs to read and address, 20 minutes before the challenge. Way to stay on top of things, Denise. We mutually decided to vote out Ramona, which I think was a great choice since she's friendly, smart, and a good competitor, plus it breaks up Rai.
What was particularly interesting, though, was this group PM Ramona had started with Kirati in which she details how Jeff and Debb aren't actually solid with us, they just didn't want to vote out Tina, and Kimmi's with them and Ramona knows she fucked up but Rai will be great allies from here on out, cross her heart and hope to die! Cool, typical last plea shit. (Not to say that I didn't keep the Madhesi shit in the back of my mind, but have patience.) Anyway, all of that is to be expected. What was a bit odd was Chris' superlong, rather enthusiastic reply, saying that he'll think about it, as he knows he's on the bottom (assuming Kirati) due to his social skills (stop) and thus will consider any offer to better his position. No one else in Kirati had said anything, but I thought this was pretty strange conversation to make in front of your allies.
Everybody's conversations are, as usual, RUDELY INTERRUPTED as we head off to the IC. Angie grabbed an idol clue which she later shared with Madhati. God knows how quickly someone will snatch it up. The IC was basically the BB number estimation comp, which I was shocked to reach 3rd place in despite my atrocious guesses. Carter won, so that was awesome. He's really showing some challenge chops, which is both good and bad ofc. Tribal was fairly uneventful, with the hosts trying their damnedest to incite some arguments, but to no avail. Stacey's communication is only allowed through smilie, which might somehow be even more fucking grating than her usual '12 y.o. white girl on meth' speech. I had to roll my eyes a little when Hayden and Rich both voted Ramona too. Do you honestly think that's going to ingratiate you with us? Come on.
Somehow, the most exciting part of the night ended up being after all of this, just plotting with everyone. I had to start yet another conversation with Hayden that he'll probably drop asap, but I've gotta put forth some effort. He's just really confused and thinks that sex therapist=free massages; good thing he's pretty. Chris bemusedly revealed in that group PM that he truly thought it was a one-on-one with Ramona. AWKWARD. I would've kept my mouth shut if I were him, because I immediately ran off to insinuate to Carter and Angie that someone who talks like that cannot be trust for the long haul. I genuinely like Chris (everyone, actually, this is a great cast), but he intimidates me a bit for some reason and I've never felt that I could trust in him 100%.
The most interesting revelations came from talking to Rich. Soon after the merge, he asked me to align with him on the DL. For obvious reasons, I didn't wholly believe him, but thought there might be threads of truth there. When he still expressed interest after the Stacey vote, I believed him more (not a decoy play), but still wouldn't give him more than "we'll figure it out later, but you're safe tonight," which he hesitantly accepted. I suppose that gave him a reason to trust me a bit more, too, who knows. But with all of Ramona's talk about Madhesi switching things up, I was worried and getting paranoid, as the prime time for shit to hit the fan is within these next 2 votes. Figuring it wouldn't hurt anything, I told him what Ramona had implied about being distant from him and outright declared about the Madhesi shit--he corroborated both, convincingly. He said that Jeff and Debb want to reclaim Tina and Kimmi and bring in Hayden and Rich to blindside the rest of us, but that he wants no part of it. Convenient, but ya gotta roll with it. We talked about who we see as the biggest threats (mostly sincerely), where thankfully we have some overlap.
At this point, there are a million stories flying around about who wants who out, who's flipping, etc. Re: flipping, I'm somewhat worried about Chris, fairly worried about Kimmi, and all but convinced about Jeff. So I go snooping around him, making our typical ridiculous conversation and then tacking on a bit about how I hate it, but it's getting to the point where I keep seeing internal threats. He takes the bait, I feed him some bs. We'll see soon enough if that's gonna get an invitation out of him. Interestingly, I warn Kirati about this in case he spreads it, but then Chris immediately says that he heard Jeff wants him out! So, as much as I love him, things are not looking too good for Mr. Varner. My concern is that he'll pick up on it and stir everything up into an unrecognizable mess. But with TCs being so crammed together, maybe the time crunch will keep too much from happening too soon.
Really, this is what I want to happen in the next few days: status quo shakily maintained, Hayden goes out (-1 threat); Rich hooks up with Kirati, Jeff goes (-1 threat); status quo is a stretch here, but maybe, Chris goes (-1 threat); and there's no way things don't get jumbled to pieces by this point. Overall, my ideal would be to subsequently take out different threats from different subsects of the tribe before they realize or can do anything. However, everyone knows "the best laid plans yada yada yada," so it wouldn't surprise me if I don't even get this first vote the way I want it.
We're just going to have to gauge our "allies" later today and see how they're acting, see if we have to go ahead and change things up from this beautiful, mad little alliance. It always has to be an uphill battle...
