So...this swap. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't terrible. It's safe. If I go with the flow on this tribe, I'll be safe. But you can't win this game by going with the flow.

Weirdly enough, I feel like I already know the tribe dynamics of Marehenew better than I ever did at Y'mra S'bor after only a couple hours. Here's the way things look right now.

We have:
Y'mra S'bor

Marehemu

Sangoma


Kim and I are aligned. All that I know about Vytas and Sue is that they are close. So even if they weren't aligned on Sangoma, you can pretty much assume that they will be working together here. You would think that leaves Monica in the middle, but that's not really the case. Monica and I are pretty close and she thinks we're working together. In her mind, she is in the middle and she's siding with me and Kim. But this is where things get interesting. Kim is close with Vytas. And she has pretty directly said to me that she wants to work with him over Monica. Right now our tribe is like a chain: Monica-Erik-Kim-Vytas-Sue. If we go to tribal, one end of the chain is getting chopped off.

And who's actually in the middle? Take a look. It's good old Kimberly. Kim Jong Un, the dictator of her alliance who wants me to send her masks when I find them, wants me to break alliances with people because she has her alliances. Wants me to hand her my game on a silver platter, because that's what alliances do. Unfortunately, being in an alliance with Kim is like being the Vice President. It's nice at first. It pays well. Playing second fiddle to her could potentially get me deep into the game. But eventually...you get tired of just being the cheerleader without actually having any sort of say in decisions.

Why would Kim want to side with Vytas and Sue? Why be half of a four person alliance when you can be the top 2 of a 3 person alliance? Funny you should ask. The answer is...me. If we decide to join Monica, who has all the power? Me. I'm the one that's close with Monica. So it's past the tipping point now where it's just becoming too frustrating working with Kim. I don't want her making the merge. Someone who's come so close to winning twice will do anything to get to the end. I can't trust her and her need for control is very annoying. The second she decides I'm a threat she will chop my head off and not think twice about it. So I need to strike first. The question is how.

I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself, but it's really refreshing being able to strategize and actually try to plot because I never really got to on Y'mra S'bor. There are just so many directions I could see myself going and as much as I want to try to make some moves, the uncertainty I have surrounding this tribe makes me want to just keep winning. But if we do lose, I have a couple options.

1. I can be safe and side with Monica and Kim. I guess Kim realized that it makes more sense to go with her, or maybe she didn't want to make me feel completely powerless, but as of now she is telling me that she wants us three to work together. But I feel pretty confident that Kim has some tricks up her sleeve. Her and Vytas are close, and she wants to keep him around instead of Sue, probably to work with him in the future. I know she's been giving Vytas masks for days now. She does not know I am aware of this. They are both very close to getting idols. Which leads me to...

2. Going against Monica and Kim. This could be one way of getting rid of Kim. I'm thinking that Kim and Vytas can't both get idols now that they are on the same tribe, so I could approach Vytas, tell him that I'm 100% working with him which he could confirm with Sierra and Garrett and I could tell him that Kim is very close to getting an idol and I don't trust her. It could be the best time to blindside her. This is seeming more and more likely because Monica has been a little shady recently. Supposedly she tried to make a final 2 alliance with Vytas a few days ago and it was completely out of the blue.

3. Some mixture of the two that would require flipping on people. But I only feel even remotely comfortable doing that if I have one person that I always vote with and who I can fully trust. Which as of right now I don't.

All I really know is that I'm just gonna have to always stay alert on this tribe. And hopefully I can make the right decisions.

So I was just beginning to move the pieces into place...I was thinking through every possible outcome, every scenario in which this could backfire on me. This was the plan: I was going to approach Vytas tonight and talk to him about wanting to work together with him until the end. And at some point, I was going to bring up Kim. Vytas really trusts Kim right now. She's sent him a few masks that has put him in the position of being, as far as I know, one mask away from an idol. I think he feels somewhat indebted to her because of this. I was going to let him know that everything wasn't quite as it seemed. On the first day that we got our new tribes, Kim let me know that she wanted to vote out Sue first because Vytas was close with Sue. If Sue was gone, Kim thought that Vytas would leave his masks to her if he was voted out. Which would theoretically give Kim an idol. Of course, now we know that that wouldn't be possible. But the fact that Kim said that would I think be enough to get Vytas on board to blindside her. I was going to tell him that I didn't trust her and that she would be extremely dangerous with an idol and that we might not get this opportunity again, blah, blah, blah.

And then along came crazy. Yep, Monica has managed to go from one of my closest and most trusted allies to the single person I trust the least and want out more than anyone else...in a matter of two days. In fact she's so crazy that at this point I would have more satisfaction blindsiding her than I would Kim. And that's saying something, just look at my past confessionals. She's SO crazy that her insanity has actually led me to really bond with Kim and build up a lot more mutual trust. The difference between Monica now and Monica a few days ago is the fact that we are now on the same tribe. I like Monica as a person outside this game and I think she's really nice. But in this game, much like real Monica often was, she is waaaaay too paranoid. And yet she's also extremely cocky at the same time. It just doesn't make sense. She goes from talking at 100 miles an hour about how to split the votes, who she thinks has an idol, who's going to give masks to who...at 1:30 in the morning for me and Kim. To interrogating me about how I got information about the vaguest things ("I think Sue has less ties than Vytas"...I was making an observation about her not being online much). And then when my anwer wasn't satisfactory, she decided to interrogate Kim about how I knew that. To apparently begging Kim to send her a blue mask that she had no idea whether or not she had even found. To, my personal favorite, saying after we found out that we lost the challenge, but wouldn't officially know until the next day: "I can't wait to lose <3"

Ugh. We'll see what happens. For all I know it could be me going.

Ok, so now this twist has opened the door back up for Kim to go. This round has been ridiculous. Absolutely crazy. Last night, me and Kim were working hard lying to Monica about being with her. At the same time, I was lying to Kim about being with her, since the entire time I was planning to blindside both of them. So I had multiple chats going, some of which I was telling lies within lies. It was like Inception-level madness. But no matter what happens in this tribal, it's going to be a blindside. Everyone is scrambling.

This is madness. This the most chaotic thing I have ever seen. EVERYONE is panicking.

As far as I know, this is the vote right now: Me, Sierra, Garrett, Stephen vote for Kim. Kim, Vytas, Sue, and Rory vote for Monica. Monica and Yve vote for Garrett. The Kim group thinks the plan is for everyone besides Yve to vote out Monica. That would be 4-4-2. So we need one more person. I think I am going to have to tell Monica that Kim is planning on voting her out. I think that would work. She's emotional, I think it'll make her hate Kim, and that will make her do anything to get her out.