Confessionals of That Girl

[alexis]

~ Rounds One/Two: Honesty is the Best Policy (for other people) ~ 

So, I'm a horrible lazy butt and didn't write a confessional last round. I'm so ashamed! I did answer my confessional questions in a confessionally way, but it's not the same thing. 

I gotta say, I'm a little out of practice in the confessional-writing department. I always forget to mention things like who I'm aligned with, and who I'm targeting, how I feel about winning/losing challenges, and what my endgame strategy's going to be, which makes for a confessional which is either really boring or consists entirely of me being honest about people. And that's bad. 

Now, let me explain that statement with the reminder that "honest" does not mean "nice." If someone's done something to irritate me, I'm going to have an honest angry reaction. That's how I feel, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. If I'm honestly annoyed with someone, I'll mock them, because it's more socially acceptable than starting a fight with them. I won't be unfair, I won't be cruel, but I'll point out stupidity where I see it. 

But I've recently been forced to stop mocking people, since it makes me despair for the future of the human race. Here's why: people see Alexis making fun of someone else for legitimate reasons of their own causing and go, "Oh, Alexis said this mean thing. It's bad to say mean things. I'll punish Alexis by saying extra mean things about her." I mock someone for the things that they do, and in return I get insults about the person that I am. Those aren't the same thing, and it's pretty disproportionate retribution. If your stance is that saying mean things is wrong, why are you doing it back to me? Aren't you now just as guilty as I am? To which they reply, "Yes, but you deserve to have mean things said about you." But so did the people I was saying mean things about. I don't say mean things about people unless they've gone out of their way to earn it. To which the people then respond, "Yes, but the people who are saying mean things about you are more likable than you, so they can get away with it." I kid you not, that's the actual reasoning I was given. So the entire basis for shaming me is that popular people everybody likes should be going around insulting the people nobody likes. That's the only socially acceptable context for insults, popular people laying the smack down on unpopular people. Regina George was right all along, who knew? 

So, all of that's a really long-winded way of saying that I'm not going to be honest in this game. Instead, I'm going to be nice. Paradoxically, I think rampant dishonesty and fake cheerfulness will actually make me more heroic. 

Geeze, I feel like I dumped a whole lot of emotional baggage there. Just goes to show that even That Girl has her issues to sort out. Nobody's perfect, ladies! Not even me! 

Coming up tomorrowishly: Recap of episode one, dishonesty in action, and where we go from here. 

[alexis]

~ Round Three/Four: Livin' On a Prayer ~ 

I'm more of a horrible lazy butt than I was last time I confessed, because I never got around to confessing. So, quick recap of round one. I decided to just have fun in the group chats, being moderately offensive and making jokes about how "Vahine" sounds like "vagina", and making embarrassed little coughing noises when their tribe mentioned that their beach had crabs on it, and how they constantly needed to get wood, and things like that. Basically, I went into it being a really annoying sidekick sitcom character, and to my surprise, that actually made me rather popular. I'm not sure why that is, I think it's because people see someone making offhand references to fetishism in kind of a, "Hey, that's just who I am" type of way, they appreciate the realness. Which is weird, because I'm totally faking that. I'm not like that in real life at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm personable and charismatic in a class clown sort of way, but I'm not nearly this open and raw with people I know in real life and will have to make eye contact with later. 

Anyway, the point is, my fake realness made people want to work with me. Chase wanted an alliance, because I was his favorite person on the tribe. Sierra and Pete wanted a threesome deal. Max, Misty, and Katie wanted a final four deal. Ordinarily, I'd hedge my bets with this sort of thing. I don't like to go around making a ton of alliances (last time I played that way, literally every person in the final fourteen of the game had made a final two deal with me, and it was incredibly awkward every time I went to TC), but I figure if I'm just really nice about it it'll be okay.

Naturally, this presented something of a problem when it came time to actually do the voting. Luckily for me, I got taken out early in the challenge, because there's no way I would have been able to go long enough to make an actual impact there. But nobody was particularly inactive, or played particularly awfully, and there really wasn't much criteria to base a vote on. Chase wasn't terribly social, and he happened to be male, which was really good for my plans of phallicide. So far nobody female has left the game, and I'm quite happy about that. Every man must perish if the That Girl regime will ever be able to take its rightful place at the head of a new matriarchal age! 

Had we lost again, I think I would have pushed for Bobby Jon to go. There were a few reasons for that. Despite him being one of the most socially active members of our tribe, he's socially active with the other tribe, and that's not something I'm particularly fond of. He was the first one to get the second idol clue from Danielle (and we have no idea if that thing's legit), which means he's got some kind of working relationship with them. He's also the only person who doesn't have an alliance with me, but he's got to be with someone, and that could mean just about anything. My money's on Max, Katie, and Misty two-timing me with him. I suggested a foursome to Katie early on, and I suggested the four girls, but she said Max and Misty were tight, and we should just get with the two of them. That sort of thing reeks of a threesome that's looking to add a fourth for majority, and I think I'd get cut out of the picture when the time came. Definitely something I'll be keeping an eye out for.

But now we've got this merge. I went from a position where I was basically ruling the roost, pulling all the strings behind the scenes, and now I'm in a much more dangerous position. I've never talked to most of the other side, because that's just not how I roll, so Bobby Jon suddenly is in a much better position, and it wouldn't surprise me if he flips. We need him and Sierra both to stick with the program. We've got the numbers, let's use them! 

I'm also seriously paranoid that I could get targeted here, and here's why: despite the judges saying that the art style I used for our comic has been done before, it's actually fairly unique. I've used it in two or three games, because it's simplistic and easy to make comics with, especially when you've got characters like Misty who barely got photographed at all in their original season. It's not something you'd immediately connect, but if you're actually out looking for it, it's possible you'd get that connection. I also more or less led singlehandedly led our team to that last victory, and before that I did the hard jigsaw puzzle and did better than Matty by an hour. It's not going to take Vahine long to figure out who's a big challenge threat up in here, and it could very well be the factor that makes someone like Sierra or Bobby Jon want to turn the tables on me. I think it's way too early for a move like that, so what I'm stressing to our group is that there's no way this merge will last a long time. We'll almost certainly be put back into tribes at one point, and that's why it's so critical to maintain our numbers advantage right now. Realistically, I'm not too worried. Fact is, I'm okay if Tane gets broken up, because that gives me more room to maneuver. But, of course, if I wind up being the sacrificial victim, it's not really going to matter. 

So, I'm praying hard that I'll either get immunity this round, or I'll be safe, or we'll just have majority. Hopefully one of those three things will come true, and everything will be okay.

[alexis]

So... that happened.

[alexis]

I gotta say... That felt like crap.

Darrah was really nice, and I really enjoyed talking to her. If we'd been on the same tribe I think we would have been great friends, but I couldn't flip this early and piss off everyone in the tribe. I wanted to, really badly, but I just couldn't take that risk.

That's the hardest part of being nice, is having to disappoint people. That's why I generally don't do it, because I know that niceness doesn't make it hurt any less for the people getting taken out. I don't tell people my friendship means more than the win unless it does, and if it does, screw the game. I'm helping my friend. But if it doesn't mean more than the game, it's gross to pretend that it does. I hate that kind of niceness, because it's basically asking people to forgive you for being selfish.

Guess that's the price I pay for heroism.

[alexis]

This round is painful. Getting hard to remain chipper, not gonna lie. Our Tane people all wanted to lose but it never occurred to them to actively throw the challenge, instead they figured that just doing nothing would work. Challenge throwing never works that way. Ever. If I had a nickel for every time I've watched a tribe fail to throw that way, I'd have at least a dollar.

Matty is... Interesting. Since we've met, he's done nothing but complain about how he didn't feel safe on Vahine and how he's sure he was going to be voted off, but now suddenly they're the people he trusts most in the entire world. He's talking about how his buddies have never thrown his name out there, when they spent this entire round doing just that. I wouldn't mind it ordinarily, he's new and obviously hasn't learned some crucial lessons about how Survivor works. However, he's contriving to suggest he knows the game better than any of us, and the only possible reason we'd disagree is that we just don't get the game the way he does.

Well, that's technically true, I guess. I don't get Survivor the same way Matty does. I don't get astrophysics the same way a chimp does, either. I think Matty's one of those excitable kids whose train of thought runs so speedily that it keeps contradicting itself. In the same conversation he told me that it's stupid not to think that the other Tanes have a final four without me, then told me that flipping guarantees me final three. So I'm screwed if I go into merge with massive Tane numbers, but if I ensure that it's just me and the final four alliance left standing at final five, I'm practically guaranteed final three. Okay...

I tried pointing out to him that he already knows he can't trust Vahine, so if he wants any shot at jumping to Tane he'd be better off not burning bridges. He responded that he doesn't care about whether he burns any bridges with me, Max, and Katie. Why? Because we're only three people and our opinions don't matter, he can still jump to the other four if he needs to. Evidently he doesn't realize that cross-tribe communication is a thing, or he wouldn't have said that. Tane are going to know what kind of player he is and none of them will trust him.

I think my favorite part was him repeatedly congratulating me on seventh place if Tane gets control and saying "Unless you're the leader of a massive alliance there's no way you can get control at merge." Wellllllllll, funny you should mention it...

I mean, seventh place is supposed to threaten me? Y'all are trying to give me twelfth, after I told Sarah I wanted to flip. If you're going to immediately betray the people who try to help you, how do you expect to lure anybody to your side? I'm not going to be more afraid of what my alliance might do if I know what your alliance will do.

I think what irks me is the unabashed arrogance. He's right, and the only possible reason you might disagree with him is that you're an idiot. I'm an academic by nature, and in academia you never take that kind of stance, ever. Matty's a beginner. How can you possibly presume to start telling other people anything about a subject you barely know? I took two years of introductory Spanish, you're not gonna see me going down to Mexico correcting people's grammar.

Oh well. It's frustrating to deal with, but hopefully we'll go to rocks tonight and get majority. I'd hate to go home this early, since I know I could do so well at the merge...

[alexis]

~ Round 6: Awkwardsauce ~ 

So... uh... hrm. I don't even know how to feel right now. It's like if I got a phone call saying someone kidnapped my wife, and I raced home to pay the ransom, only to find out it's actually a surprise birthday party for me. Like... yay cake! I love cake! I hope I got nice presents! But at the same time... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, guys. 

Seriously. I feel like I got emotionally mugged this round. I thought they threw me under the bus and betrayed me and were voting me out, but it turns out Max was a traitor and they were protecting me, and now they all wanna work with me long term. 

I just... like... how do you even recover from that? I'm used to getting blindsided by people being more awful than I thought they were, but this is honestly the first time I've ever been blindsided by niceness and loyalty. The best possible analogy I can make for is it it's like getting punched in the face with a boob. It's awesome, because boobs, but you're still getting punched in the face, but you don't want to be angry about it, because boobs. 

...I recognize that that analogy doesn't work as well for people who aren't heterosexual, and again, I apologize. I didn't really think the "horrible, but nice" analogy would work if I said it was like getting punched in the face with an ass. 

[alexis]

~ Rounds Six/Seven: Stockholm Syndrome ~ 

So, the Vahines spared me and Katie and Max are gone. I had to promise my undying loyalty to them if I survived, and that's a bit of sticky situation to find myself in, now that we're merged and I'm surrounded by my old tribemates once again.