So after a relatively chill Round 8, things definitely got a little more ~challenging~ in Round 9, but I actually think that I managed the game pretty well? Let's take a look back at the last few days!

Stuffed with Bacon

The Pig Out challenge was, in a word, ROUGH. At first, it looked like Shęngli was actually going to do decently well, and we actually took the lead after the first few hours since we coordinated well and figured out our plan. We made sure that everyone was online five minutes in advance, and then communicated directly on AIM to make sure we'd post our proper images in time. I personally am not a fan of challenges that affect my ability to sleep well, so typically endurance/24 hour type of things make me really crabby. And believe me, I was NOT pleasant to be around in real life on Friday while attempting to post every hour. But I knew that staying consistent with this challenge was really important to make sure there was no reason to target me. Rachel/Hunter/myself were pretty solid throughout the challenge. Lillian had a few major blunders that cost us at times, such as not understanding the concept initially, then posting too early a few times (like at :58 instead of :00), and also checking in with us a few minutes before posting time, but then disappearing at the posting time, thus making me switch my image last second to try and salvage some points! Her head was definitely in the clouds a bit, and you need to stay focused in challenges like that. Honestly, we did pretty well and got all five points for a majority of the hours, but UNFORTUNATELY, our entire tribe seemed to fall asleep from about 6 AM to 10 AM, and we lost some really important opportunities for points when that happened. It looked like some of the other tribes actually had people post for every single hour, which I definitely give them props for. I intended to do it, and had this whole system with alarms on my phone to wake me up in time while I napped overnight, but my brain said NOPE you're going to sleep SORRY NOT SORRY. I actually got kind of fucked up from staying awake so late and having my mind focused on the challenge. I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time which was NOT FUN, and I'm not sure if that was a result of the irregular sleep pattern or what. But I'd prefer to not repeat the experience. Anyway, we lost the challenge by a pretty decent margin, and it was time to test Shengli's dynamics at tribal council for the first time.

Fun fact: Nick Jonas released a new song called "Bacon" during the challenge, and I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. I also self-imposed a boycott on pig-related foods during Friday.

Candid photo of me at approximately 5:30 AM on Friday


More to come after this dragon challenge!

Snuffing the Scoutmaster

Soooo going to tribal on Shęngli for the first time was definitely a bit nervewracking at first, but after talking to a few people initially, I was pretty convinced that I would be okay during this vote. The first main vote conversation that I had was with Lillian, and she told me that she had definitely connected with me and liked me a lot, and wanted to keep me around even though I might be seen as the ~easy~ vote. I directly asked her if she believe that original Mushu (Lil, Hunter, and Rachel) would stick together during this vote, and she answered that she really believed they would. So going off of this information, I figured that the best potential move to make to improve my position on the tribe would be to team up with Natalie and Rita, and ensuring we had the majority of three over the original Mushus. When Natalie came on later that day, she immediately jumped into the vote, and suggested Lillian as her target because she seemed less engaged socially and could be a liability should we remain in tribes. The two of us added Rita to a group chat in order to discuss things and compare notes. We had found out that Hunter and Rachel, contrary to Lillian's beliefs, were not that focused on remaining #MushuStrong, and were actually QUITE willing to get rid of her. It didn't take a lot of convincing, which surprised me a bit, because those two have to have assumed they were walking into a potential minority position on the tribe by booting Lillian, who was obviously going to be blindly loyal to her original tribe. That did make me wonder if Rachel/Hunter had some backup plan going on Shengli. Perhaps they had approached Rita for a deal? I don't think thy would have worked with Natalie, because she was complaining to me about them quite a bit.

Anyway, me/Rita/Natalie locked in as an alliance, and Rachel/Hunter were pretty easily swayed to boot Lil because she was hard to talk to, and they liked the rest of us more. Lillian started pushing for Natalie as the boot because she was also sporadic on AIM due to her time zone and work commitments, and because she hadn't really contributed much to the tribe by way of challenges. So the vote essentially came down to Lillian vs Nat, and it was really nice to just sneak behind the drama. I definitely did consider shaking things up a few hours before the voting deadline, because I actually did enjoy chatting with Lillian a lot. I debated about whether I should tell her that Rachel and Hunter sold her out, thus sealing her fate, and then convincing Lillian to join Natalie/Rita/myself in order to take out either Rachel or Hunter. My thought process there was that we could take out a potential power player, and then I would have Lillian in my pocket. On the OTHER hand, I realized that many of my discussions with Hunter/Rachel were focused on ensuring tribal unity and peace because we assumed a merge was coming up. We wanted the vote to be 5-1 and non-dramatic so that nobody would go out of their way to get revenge during the merge. I realized that this would give me long-term power if Rachel/Hunter flipped on the unanimous vote first, because then I would have validation for targeting them later, and I could also guilt them for betraying us. But on the other hand, if I had gone a bit wild and tried to flip things to save Lillian, I would be the one who could receive guilt and become public enemy #1 moving forward. Would it be worth it just to save Lillian? Absolutely not. I have plenty of other people who I can connect with and ride aLóng with moving forward. The vote ended up being pretty unanimous, Lillian took it like a champ, and I was in a majority alliance on my tribe. Life was pretty sweet at this juncture.