Sierra's Diary

[Sierra]

Dear diary, 

I'M READY FOR THE SWAP

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

OMG I'M SO SORRY FOR LEAVING YOU FOR SO LONG. My first exam is in 2 days and I'm buried under mountains of study (don't neglect lectures for like the whole semester y'all. I say this after like 4 years of never having taken my own advice, but omg just don't do it). I'll be finished up and on midyear break in 2 weeks' time, but whether I'll still be in the game by that point is a huge question mark since I've been so lacklustre in like every way thus far...


SO we swapped and I was initially kinda worried because the only other original Penedo member over here was Tom, who we left out of the Shane vote. However, I promptly realized that since the remainder of the tribe is split 3 - 3 between the other two original tribes, we'd probably end up being valuable swing votes if nothing else. We already have a smaller group than everyone else to potentially link back up with at the merge (even more so now that Osten is gone), so getting rid of us wouldn't really make sense. I started writing a massive paragraph about what I think of everyone here, but I'll do it in a cast assessment type format instead so that this doesn't turn into an ugly essay-length block of word vomit:




Matty & I have a bunch of similar interests which is always a good starting point. Our conversations flow really well and he's one of the only people in this game I actually feel like I've ~*connected*~ with on more than a boring surface level. I suspect I know who he is, and if I'm right, then it's no surprise to me that we get along so well (considering he's easily one of my favourite people in the ORGverse by a substantial margin). 



ugh I'm in love with John for so many reasons (one being the fact that he picked John Cody as his rep because <3 bae) but he's even more inactive socially than I am at this point and plans are being made without him. I'm making a conscious effort to keep him in the loop and I think Matty is doing the same so hopefully we'll be able to keep him around over someone like



AMBER, who is exceptionally difficult to talk to and distressingly vapid to boot. She takes 300 years to reply to messages and when she does she never has anything of interest to say. Considering the fact that she posted the Tahiti ad I'm pretty certain I know who she is but I'm trying to ignore it (not that there's much to ignore... lol...). Everyone else I've talked to about her seems to feel the same way - that she's very hard to engage with and doesn't really seem interested in participating in anything. The fact that she seems so out of the loop makes me concerned that she has at least a few alliances going on that are completely under wraps, but it's possible that she really is just not playing the game at this point.



OK I feel mean even THINKING about what I'm gonna type here. Kimmi is a really sweet kid but holy shit she talks a LOT and it's never about anything even vaguely game related. I'm totally chill with OOG talk - that's what I'm best at - but getting rambly paragraphs about creepypasta and high school exams out of nowhere isn't really my jam at this point. I definitely do enjoy her but I'm wary of working with her because I know she talks just as much to everyone else and it's extremely hard to tell where her head is at with respect to the game itself.



I recently had the pleasure of first playing with Cirie and then hosting her in back to back games and she is fucking hilarious. However, she's also notorious as far as flipping on her allies goes and I know she's a very strong player who has won States at least once. As much as I enjoy our banter I feel like I need to keep my distance without making it obvious that I'm doing so. I don't want to bear the wrath of Alicia Calaway </3



Jamie is cute too! We've had pretty good chats so far about a bunch of different stuff and I'd like to think that he enjoys talking to me as much as I do to him. I'm really fucking slow with replying in this game though so I wouldn't be surprised if he (and everyone else) kinda resents me for being a shitty tribemate.



Like I said, at first I was kinda sketched out about being over here with Tom as opposed to say, Chelsea or Varner, but he seems to have taken the Shane vote in stride and makes an effort to talk to me every day and update me on everything that is happening, which is super helpful considering my activity level recently. He seems to regard me as his #1 ally over here, which is comforting (to say the least).

On a more macro scale, Tom bonded with Matty just like I did and we successfully forged a three-way alliance which Jamie was then added to (Matty's call, but I'm down with it). We're called "Orange is the New Barra" (<3) and it's pretty chill. Obviously we need one more person to get a definitive majority, but I don't think that's gonna be too difficult. I think Matty & I can use our relationships with John to pull him in, leaving Cirie, Amber and Kimmi in the minority, which I'm OK with because apparently Cirie tried to form an alliance with Kimmi, Jamie and John despite her telling me without prompting that she wouldn't vote for me at TC when we go and essentially implying that she wanted to work together. I then heard through Tom that Kimmi wanted to form an alliance of six incorporating me, her, Tom, Matty, Cirie and Jamie, which obviously isn't chill with me because John isn't involved and forming a shaky alliance of six in a tribe of eight seems a little silly to me. The lull between challenges/TCs is probably gonna start some crazy shit stirring because people will get cabin fever due to not being able to.... express themselves.... so I hope things pick up soon and that we keep winning so that who's voting with who isn't such a worry (and also so that I don't get booted for being useless socially lol). 

I was gonna post the Orange is the New Barra icon here but I can't find the full res version. I'm sure it's in Matty's confessionals so just check it out there

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

HAHA what a delicious tribal council. Amber the FUCKING HYPOCRITE who spent at least 50% of our last game together throwing a tantrum because she was convinced I voted her out because I had a vendetta against her is now trying to blindside me for "revenge". This after she droned onnnn and onnn in Pure about how "pathetic" I was for carrying over grudges from another game (which I didn't? She's just a shitty person and NOBODY liked her? It was nothing to do with me). CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE.

Anyyyyyyyyway we learned about Amber's idol a few days ago from Matty and so Matty/Tom/Jamie decided we should target Cirie because Amber would likely play the idol on herself. Matty made a huge error in judgement and told Amber who we were targeting, and then Amber went straight to Cirie and started trying to orchestrate a plan to idol me out (thanks Goddess John Cody for this information). It turns out Matty (in another MASSIVE GOOF) brought Amber in as part of Orange is the New Barra, which I knew nothing about, and she then went to Kimmi and they "compared notes" and decided they were both being played by us and that they were both voting me along with Cirie. I don't know about the rest of my alliance, but I actually intended on working with Kimmi. I had no such intention with Amber (like I said, I cannot engage with her. It's impossible). Now I think we have to get rid of Kimmi to "fix" things because Cirie is apparently getting idoled by Amber, so Kimmi is the safest option (there's no way Amber will idol Kimmi unless they somehow catch on to the fact that we're suspicious of her). UNFORTUNATELY Tom does not want to vote against Kimmi despite everything so I don't know what's gonna happen. I think the best we can do without Tom voting Kimmi (he seems convinced she'll vote Amber with him lolno) is force a 3 - 3 - 1 - 1 since Jamie is already locked on Cirie and then have majority on the revote. Idk though whatever this is shady and I DON'T WANNA BE PREJURY AND IDHTT RIGHT NOW TO SCRAMBLE

[Sierra]

I'M LAUGHING SO HARD THOSE VOTES ARE SO SMUG HAHAHAHAHA

[Sierra]

actually feel bad about Kimmi. she was never my first choice to go and it's really unfortunate that it turned out this way. I love Matty, but I honestly think it was his catastrophic goof (pulling Amber in without discussing it with us properly and also telling her the vote target) that forced our hand this round. he needs to be a lot more careful. Amber claims she never wants to log on to her AIM account for this game again and also told Matty she never wants to talk to him again after this so that's lolz. like, I'm not sure what she expected?? she was super fucking cocky, got thoroughly outplayed and she apparently can't handle it at all. #bless #pray4thisbitch

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

OMG THE SALT POURING OUT OF AMBER RIGHT NOW. She was literally bitching to someone OUTSIDE OF THIS GAME who is ALSO MY FRIEND about me and how much I suck (along w/ the series I host, which ftr she has never played?). She also whinged about me having pre-games in Pure (nope, and even the people I ended up IDing in the game weren't my friends outside of it) as well as here (again, nope). This person, whoever they may be in reality, seems to have serious issues with projecting their insecurities onto others. God bless. The funniest thing is that (s)he has not talked about anything even vaguely game related to me ever. In fact, (s)he hasn't spoken to me at all in like a week. Seems to be harbouring an awful lot of unjustifiable resentment considering our absolute lack of interaction??

This vote probably won't be as easy as it should be. Amber is not someone I can ever work with (clearly) and she also burned bridges with Matty who is arguably my closest ally right now, and there is no gain in keeping someone who is ostensibly heavily against me. On the other hand, Cirie is an extremely chaotic player and while I get along with her and have a bunch of fun with her, there's no way I can trust her in the context of the game. Amber plays a fucking tragic social game and her chances of rallying an army against me at merge seem low, but the threat is still there. As far as the idol goes, I'm almost certain that Cirie has it this round, and I feel like she's smart enough to vote against Amber to ensure her safety and nullify the need for her to play the idol on herself (in the event that the 5 of us (me/Jamie/Tom/John/Matty) split our votes, which would be the safest option). Tom & I talked and concluded that we would rather not have Cirie get through the round without playing her idol, which probably means taking her out over Amber unless we can do some tricky manoeuvring, but I'll elaborate on that later. I just wanted to give a short update during my study break :*

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

I feel like I'd be more OK with Amber's shade if there was even an OUNCE of truth to it. She assumed that because Aras flipped to me in Pure we were a pregame (lol we'd never even had a conversation before Pure, we just happened to click), and now she assumes that because myself and Matty are close that we're a pregame. It's so cringeworthy how she just cannot admit to her own shortcomings and constantly blames other people/any number of external factors that she just pulls out of her ass. She's so annoying and I wish we could get rid of her rn but more people want Cirie out this round. I'm half expecting to get blindsided because fuck knows what Cirie/Amber have been telling people but honestly it's hard to care about whether I stay or not when I have to deal with this nutjob. She's literally such a toxic force that it's painful to endure games with her in them. 8 -)

In more positive news I just finished my biochemistry exam and I think I did well so I just bought like $15 of sushi to celebrate and it's delicious

[Sierra]

k she pushed me too far lol sorry guys I couldn't help it

[Sierra]

thanks jeff you're a babe <3

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

HAS THIS SWAP SEALED MY FATE?? AM I TOAST JUST IN TIME FOR THE CONCLUSION OF MY EXAMS?? IS STEPH PLAYING ME?? WILL CRYSTAL AND CIRIE FORM AN AFRICAN AMERICAN COALITION AND IDOL ME OUT?? WILL I SURVIVE IN PREJURY WITH THE TOXIC WASTE THAT IS AMBER BRKICH?? ALL THIS AND MORE IN THE ROUND 8 EDITION OF MY JOURNAL


OK so yeah I'm DONE WITH FINALS and I'm SO HAPPY. On the flipside, this tribe swap has sadly put me in an ostensibly undesirable spot. There's me and The Bae John, and then there's Cirie who acts nice to my face but I'm sure wants me out, and Joaquin, Steph and Crystal who I had never had an opportunity to interact with before now. Of course I've been trying my best to talk with the latter 3 in order to try and secure myself a spot on the jury/merged tribe, and I've had... mixed results?

First of all, the other day I was complaining about how recently I've had trouble finding my Jaclyn/Katie/Garrett/Erik in games and it was making playing ORGs a lot more stale for me because I wasn't really connecting with anyone on a level that meant anything, making maintaining my social game kind of a drag.

I'm pleased to report that Steph may well have broken the dry spell.

Matty told me she was super chill so I guess I went in with expectations of greatness and she exceeded them. I feel like we vibe super well and she has the kind of energy that I really like. She could be playing me for whatever reason because she's kind of in a precarious spot over here too, but it doesn't feel that way. We kind of made an alliance and promised we'd be safe with each other so that's a promising thing and idk I adore her already, what a cool human. Joaquin and I pretty much de-aliased ourselves by accident in a plug.dj for another game so we had that as a starting point to chat about. Honestly, it's been super nice to talk to him 1 on 1 because I've never had the opportunity to play with him before despite having hosted him twice (OK we were in T2 together but he got like 19th and I had no association with any of the prejurors lol). I was never a fan of his as a host because our playstyles seem to be so at odds but I think he might actually be a chill dude. He offered me his vote against Cirie without me even asking which was awesome. Everything sounds great so far, right..?

..WELL here comes the part that makes it a mixed bag. Crystal openly expressed to John that she was sketched out about me & him because of Ambergate (FUCK YOU), and said that she would try to do what she could to save him, making me the target. Obviously with John, Steph and Joaq I should have an easy majority, ONLY I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE FUCKING IDOL IS. Joaq seems to think he has significant pull with Crystal and can convince her to vote against Cirie, but I honestly don't think that Crystal is gonna let Cirie go over me this round when they supposedly had a bond on original Barra and Crystal has expressed skepticism about me. I don't have the idol, John doesn't have the idol, Joaq says he doesn't have the idol and I feel like Steph might have said something by now if she had it since she kinda knows I'm paranoid about it, which leaves only Crystal (who already has immunity). I'm worried that Crystal will idol Cirie in order to get rid of me, which would send me straight to prejury to deal with fucking Amber (and Kimmi), which I don't think I'd be able to handle (and which I don't deserve at all). If Crystal hadn't won immunity, I'd suggest to Joaq/Steph/John that we split between her and Cirie, but that's not an option and now I'm kinda freaking out. I'm not about to split on Steph or Joaq when they've both been so good to me thus far and while John keeps saying he'll fall on his sword for me I really don't want him to have to do that. I feel like even if I made up some elaborate scheme that involved lying about the vote target to Cirie and Crystal they'd still figure it out or play the idol anyway out of paranoia. This swap was so fucking poorly timed for me what with that nutjob blowing me up all over the boards and if that's what ultimately gets me booted I'm gonna be kinda infuriated. Ugh whatever. I'll update again once TC discussions start tonight/tomorrow.

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

Just got word from Joaq that Steph wants John out this round. She hasn't mentioned this to me at all (which is understandable given Ambergate and the pregame bullshit), and honestly, while it'd be a huge shame, if voting John out is the only way to save myself I'm gonna go along with it. I'm not usually the type of player who is willing to sacrifice my allies for my own sake in games but I don't want to be prejury in this game for a plethora of different reasons. Obviously I'm still going to try and push the vote another way if I can but I don't want to dig my own grave. If John going is the only thing that'll keep me in through F10, I'm just gonna lay down and take it (with a broken heart). It is what it is.

[Sierra]

Dear diary,


Figured I'd better update since quite a lot has happened.


This morning I tried to engineer a plan to get rid of Cirie instead of John. John was convinced that Cirie was on his side and wouldn't vote against him, so I figured that John and I could rope someone in and Cirie would go 3 - 2 - 1 if she was being real with John. Joaquin seemed super receptive to the idea, but JOHN DECIDED THAT VOTING AGAINST CIRIE WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR HIM AND PRETTY MUCH THREW IN THE TOWEL. I spent like 3 hours convincing John that Joaq would definitely be with us and that it was the best option for all of us and he finally conceded and said "ok if you can get confirmation from Joaq that he'll do it I will too" so I was like YAS and went to Joaq and he had CHANGED HIS MIND BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT TO UPSET STEPH BY "BETRAYING HER"


OH
MY
GOD


so then I had to awkwardly go to John and be like "umm he changed his mind you're fucked" and it was really sad and dumb. Now I need to decide whether to throw my vote at someone random and risk pissing them off (Joaquin said I could vote for him and it would be OK but that would look weird since John is voting Steph) or just vote for John, but that's a decision to be made in 12 minutes (i.e. 1 minute before deadline).


In other news, I realized today that the groups "people I trust implicitly" and "people I can make it to the end with" are mutually exclusive. Matty is the only member of the former group and after Ambergate there is no way both of us are making it past early merge. In light of this, I decided to approach Joaquin for a legitimate F2 deal because making endgame deals early on seems to work a lot of the time, especially if they're with people you're not publicly perceived as being close with. He said that me, Matty and Varner are the only people he doesn't hate in this cast (lol) and accepted so that's something I guess?

Steph came online a bit ago (she was at work all day and wasn't involved in any of the vote chat, except for her telling me this morning that she was voting John) and I told her what had happened and she referred to Joaq as her puppy dog which was kind of awkward (lol and I told him because it seemed like a good idea and I feel like it made him trust me more or something). Steph then proceeded to tell me how much she likes me as a person and all this other stuff and it's like slaying me because YES while I complained about not finding my Person in games lately I actually feel like I do not want to make a bond with someone that involves heavy emotional investment because that is what screws me literally every time in ORGs. The problem with Steph is that I 100% feel the same way about her but she's clearly very personable and I have no doubt that pretty much everyone loves her which on its own makes her a massive threat that probably needs to go sooner rather than later. If we start working together and continue developing a relationship that's bigger than the game I'm gonna get tripped up by my emotions like I always do and I won't be able to vote against her which I just caaaan't have. Ugh whatever I need to make it through this vote before I start thinking about that shit. Let's gooooo


ETA: LOL I forgot to add that Steph ended up telling me she had the idol by saying she would "seriously play the idol on me if she thought I was going" sooooo 

[Sierra]

GREAT

[Sierra]

wow cirie really sucks. that shit is so unnecessary and rude especially when john was totally down for her and 100% trusted her

[Sierra]

Dear diary,

okay I am pretty sure if I make it to like F8 I'll have a whole bunch of control maybe especially if Matty is still here. Matty thinks he has Jamie no matter what and I think I have Joaq now so if we get rid of Cirie/Crystal at F8 we can choose who we want to go forward with. This is killin me:

like ugh plz stop ur so cute and nice and how am I ever supposed to boot someone who is cute and nice