Post by Joaquin on Oct 9, 2015 3:20:51 GMT
Alright a lot finally happened in a round. Let’s start with the challenge. I knew I wasn’t winning or even coming close. I had done this challenge last season and lost miserably. Sierra is extremely skilled at these types of challenges so at least I knew an ally was going to win it. Going into this round, I was pretty worried. We were still debating whether or not Steph intentionally self-voted but, even if it was an accident, we were still outnumbered 6-5. Sierra having immunity is great for her but the rest of us are still pretty much in trouble. I wasn’t really worried about myself or Matty because he has relationships with everybody on the other side and I have enough relationships (Fabio, Alec, Ian ideally) to not be a target until later. That leaves Sierra Dawn and Steph. My guess was that Steph would be the target and I didn’t care as much as I should’ve. Sure, she’s a number but we weren’t sure if she was even loyal and, even if she was, if this game is going to change, we need to get to a point where people see few enough numbers that they’re willing to flip. The round was bleak but not as awful as it could’ve been.
Sierra does end up winning the challenge and I’m thrilled for her. AND she gets to go to Treasure Trove and pick two people to go with her. Now Matty going seemed obvious but I was nervous she was going to take Sierra Dawn with them which pissed me off a bit because I get the whole “keeping people loyal through rewards” thing but tbf that doesn’t mean my allies can just neglect me and see me as loyal no matter what. So I really wanted to go and I end up going! Call it selfish but hey, my gameplay, I decide how I play. We get to Treasure trove and we see a series of numbers. Seemed stupid. I spend a few minutes thinking about season, placement, day number, challenge wins and nothing popped out so I put it aside for the night.
Now, this brought us to Wednesday. Wednesday is my busy day as far as classes go so I have a LOT of time to think because doing work is for people who aren’t dedicating their life to an online game lol. I finally figure out the best possible way to push Sierra, Matty, and I forward with the connections that we currently have. Clearly Fabio and Alec are running that side. They’re the only ones over there with any sort of brains whatsoever. They also happen to be the two that Matty and I are closest to and the reason why we haven’t really been targeted other than during a bullshit random round. They see Brandon as the third man to their trio because he is the least mindless of the other side and is literally their servant. Matty is also close to Brandon. If those are the three in charge on each side (me, Matty, and Sierra and Fabio, Alec, and Brandon) and we all seem to have relationships within, why not team up? Sierra, Matty, and I show that we’re loyal by voting for Steph with them. We gain their trust and tell them that we need to see some trust by them by sacrificing a number after Steph goes. They would still outnumber us 5-4 so they really wouldn’t be giving up much. The goal would by this point to have gained enough trust to get them to take the leap and cannibalize one more. This would be the breaking point but we would hopefully earn their loyalty and if not we could always threaten them with jury votes. Then once it is 4-4, we could flip back and have some power to their biggest fear. It seemed a bit unrealistic especially at F9 but it was the best I could come up with. So I was ready to roll with that. I talked to Matty about it and he seemed to get where I was coming from and though it was good except for that F9 plan which was of course the problem. I figured to take it one vote at a time and bring this up to Fabio. It could at least work for two rounds.
I bring up to Fabio the idea of he, Alec, and Brandon working with Sierra, Matty, and I. He seems on board with it at first. He likes the idea a lot because he is tired of the two warring sides too. He likes Matty and I a lot but I felt like he began to see how it could be a bit unrealistic because he tried to make some excuses but I tried to dismiss them. He was nervous Sierra would be against it and try to vote him out but I said how that would be stupid and he should know Matty and I wouldn’t be on board with that even if she tried it. I reassured him that we would even vote with him this round as a sign on trust. He seemed good with a lot of it but says that he isn’t sure about Alec and Brandon and how they would react. I suggest we talk to them when they come online and he agrees. It could be an issue but I hope that at least Alec would be good with it and then they could try to coerce Brandon. So that seems likely.
As Fabio is talking to me, Sierra Dawn comes to talk to me. Now, I love Sierra Dawn. She’s awesome but it can be tough sometimes because neither of us are super social and personable so conversation isn’t always carried well. It pretty much just jumps into “How are you?” and then “Good” and then right into game talk. Which is fine and I prefer it that way tbh but then becomes the issue of being a gamebot and not talking on a personal level when the FTC rolls around. Idk I just wish she elaborated more on answers. So she tells me that Fabio agreed to vote Coach and to check (because she knew I was talking to him) if he was good with it. He had already told me he wasn’t voting that way because he initially thought that I was going to try to push for that which I obviously wasn’t. So I just played it up to Sierra Dawn as if I had tried but he seemed hesitant. Then later she thinks that she flipped Na’Onka. Now I wasn’t sure because Na’Onka was supposedly voting with us last round and didn’t. I think she is firmly on that side. But, hey, I don’t think Fabio is going to make us vote with him to prove loyalty so why not throw my vote at Coach and hope for the best. So once again it’s Matty, Sierra, Sierra Dawn, Steph (who I had told about the vote), and I hoping that Na’Onka who hates Coach flips on him, Ian, Alec, Brandon, and Fabio. Except this time I had my backup plan with Fabio for later and so I felt content.
With the vote decided, I decide to try my hand at Treasure Trove again. Matty had told me that he spent two hours on the Survivor Wiki the night before looking up everything possible that could have to do with 23, 23, 26 and combinations of the individual numbers to no avail. I decide not to go nuts with it so I look at it and I use regular Wikipedia sometimes to look at Survivor stuff and I know they list ages there so I figure why not. I look up Parvati and she was 23 on Cook Islands but like 25 I think on Micronesia so I look at Amanda and she was 23 in China but then 24 in Micronesia and 25 in HvV. I’m disappointed but I know I have to be close. I look at a few others and no one comes close. So I tell Matty and he thinks it has to be Amanda. He looks at the Survivor Wiki and the numbers match up better. So we figure it has to be that. So I figured out something in 5 minutes that Matty couldn’t find out in 2 hours on the Survivor Wiki. Comical. Anyway, we decide that he should guess for it because I’m more likely to be targeted than him. He guesses and we decide to tell Sierra when she isn’t busy with work (preferably after we have it). I ended up submitting two other guesses just in case. But Matty gets it! Very exciting. More on that in a bit.
I submit a vote for Coach because at this point Matty did not have his item and had no idea how it worked. Na’Onka ended up talking to me and, after some small talk and my condolences for the loss of her grandmother (stuff like that is always really sad and I hope for the best for her and her family), we talked about the vote. She said that she likes me and began to entertain the idea of flipping (obviously faked) but wanted to take out more of a threat. I tried to be persuasive, saying that we could take out a threat next round, but after I persisted she made it clear that she would be voting in a different direction.
So now came time for the big move. Matty told me that he found the Life Saver, that it would work like an idol, and that he would need to play it before the vote. Shit. We were nervous about not knowing their target and if we misplayed this it was game over. BUT he had until 11:20 to decide whether or not he wanted to play it which was after the deadline of 11:00. So I come up with a plan. We need to vote a bigger target than Coach if we’re playing an idol. Matty says it should be Alec though I preferred Brandon (less threatening but still in that Core 3 and just an awful individual) but Alec it is. So we tell Sierra and we all switch our votes to Alec. Sierra Dawn is asleep and Steph isn’t around (though I knew she was going to be pissed) so 3-2 it is. We just had the problem of figuring out who they were voting and I had an idea. It’s after the deadline so Matty should ask Fabio. They’re good friends and knowing he can’t do anything about it, he’ll probably tell Matty the target. But it turns out that Fabio had already told Matty. He didn’t want to say anything because he promised Fabio he wouldn’t and he felt bad about betraying him but he also recognized we can’t keep getting picked off like animals. So we make the move and it works! I like Alec and I felt bad but this is what they get for controlling the game tbh. So bye.
