Well this challenge certainly was telling.

So let's consider that a swift kick in the butt to start playing the game and stop relaxing. I know I've been bad about my confessionals (even though I said I would write a lot) so I'm going to be better about it. It was a little harsh seeing a bunch of negative superlatives thrown my way, but I understand the reasoning behind it. I've noticed that people tend to... talk down to me sort of in conversations. I'm treated some naive little girl who needs to be coddled in order to understand the vote. Rory has been a big person doing this and it really irks me.

Anyways, onto the vote. I talked about how I had been getting close to Austin/Yve on the previous tribe, and I had my connection to Erik from earlier in the game. Those are people I definitely feel comfortable talking to and working with. Right after the immunities were handed out to Austin and Monica, Rory approached me about this TC. He kept being very awkward to me and saying things like, "we need to come to an agreement" and "well we can't vote Monica since she has immunity," well no shit Sherlock. I don't know if Rory is actually this air-headed or he thinks I am.

He then formed a group chat of the old Y'mra S'bor four of myself/him/Erik/Caryn. Caryn was offline at the time but came back this morning and seemed down. Rory wanted us four to stick together and vote for someone. Erik and I said we would like to vote someone like Stephen, but Rory wanted one of Sierra/Garrett out. It was painfully obvious he is just trying to use me for a round to give his alliance a majority. He even talked about how we need to "compromise" on the vote, but wouldn't budge when 2/3 of the people online disagreed with him. Rory also talked about how we can vote out Sierra now, but then go for Stephen afterwards... I don't think he thought that lie through enough because it mathematically doesn't make sense. How do the 4 Y'mra S'bor screw over Garrett/Austin/Yve one round, then next round screw over Monica/Sue. That would leave us Y'mra S'bor 4 as 4/9 and we've screwed over everyone else in the entire game who is left in the merge in the past two rounds.

I went out on a major limb and side-chatted Erik during this. It was a risk I was willing to take however. I told him how this conversation was making me super uncomfortable and I didn't trust Rory. If Erik didn't feel this way, he would have for sure gone to Rory and I would be fucked. (I mean maybe he did, IDK.) But Erik replied and he said he was getting weird vibes too. We both felt like we were being used and weren't okay with that. We both mentioned how we liked the alliance of 6 that was brought up before of Myself/Austin/Yve/Erik/Garrett/Sierra, and how that group is a better option for us in the future. I know Erik is super close with Sierra so it makes a lot of sense for him, but it also does for me. I have people in that group that I can actually talk to and can work with in the future. Sure some of these people might be closer to others than they are me, and sure I might not have someone in this group that considers me their #1, but I like my chances a lot better than with Stephen and Co. Stephen went after me hardcore last night on that challenge, and now Rory is telling me that none of them have a problem with any of us....

Probably would have been a good idea to tell your alliance to not single out and target a potential swing vote for their side.

So right now I am 100% on board with this new alliance and am playing it up to Rory/Caryn I am with them. Ideally I would want to target one of Rory/Caryn/Stephen, but I'm not sure who to go for first. I feel like Rory/Caryn have an idol which scares me a ton, so it might be best to go for Stephen. If we go for Stephen and it works, it would force one of them to play an idol next round if they felt vulnerable.