[Susie Smith]

 Hello lovely! Missed you last night, apparently, there was a lot going on! Tonight, Paul won the immunity challenge and James went out on a 7-2 vote. Let’s chat!

1.     Ahh sequences, the age-old memory game favorite. Tell me in three words how much you love that challenge.
2.     There was some last-minute scrambling after the immunity challenge, were you in on it? What did you make of it?
3.     James talked about some sort of horizontal totem pole tonight in tribal. Where are you on the totem pole? Extra points for drawing the totem pole.
4.     If you were a ravioli, what kind would you be?
5.     Be honest, did you ever buy the story that James and Morgan weren’t working together?
6.     Please rank (in text) the remaining houseguests below based on how much you trust working with them moving forward.

[Mike]

Alright - so James went home. I stand by the fact that I fucked up targeting him and Morgan as early as I did BUT people bought my gospel and it empowered us to not only unite under a common enemy, but it kickstarted the game a bit. So yeah I'll claim it, all the chaos...except for last vote...that was just top tier game playing by James to adapt to the situation and make some shit work. He played me hard...and I bit hard. It needs to be acknowledged and give him props for it because it was fucking AWESOME to watch and be a part of. He may have worked with me early on and been 100% loyal to me BUT from that Morgan boot I feel like I've pivoted decently. I've got a lot of options (or so it feels like). Steph seems to be working closely with me and could be my #1. Hali is my explicitly stated #1. If we get to the end stretch and I need to die so we get Queen Hali I'll go out on my shield in a heartbeat. Paul really seems close to me BUT I don't know, something just seems a little off there. We bond a lot over personal things and I love that about the guy but I do worry he may be holding back on me a bit. He gives me Will PTSD every time he tells me he has me 100% - which seems like a lot of the time. Voce is playing with everybody but he's a number for me if I keep him looped in. Rodney appears to be solid with me - says he likes Paul, Syd and I. Sydney offered me a f2 when she was drunk off wine after Morgan's blindside. I think that just leaves Michelle right? - she's underrated as fuck and Steph doesn't seem to fuck with her sooooo there's definitely something that can happen there. Michelle is allegedly loyal to the original Core members of Hali, Paul, and I but Michelle just usually gives me nothing in terms of information and it's hard to tell where she stands with me. I think she'd take Paul over me and if I can have Michelle get killed by someone else's hand it could leave me Paul. Just general thoughts I need to mull over. For as well connected as I sound here, I'd guess I'm maybe half as well connected as my information tells me, maybe even less.

On to questions.

3 words for the memory challenge - Love. That. Shit.

I was not part of the last minute scrambling which I believe was by James. James outright stopped talking game to me which tells me I shouldn't rely on him for a jury vote, which I'm comfortable with. But he shut down on me, I was still willing to work with him he just wouldn't give me anything, lied repeatedly about having advantages etc. Even though we eliminated Morgan to break up the duo that wasn't her and James, I'd like to believe she'd be a fair and impartial juror separate from James and his influence. James has gone on in the past about removing emotion from the moves (or something to that effect) and for me, while having Morgan isolated from James instead of the other way around would have been better for my game, isolating James and turning him into the villain of the season didn't torch my game because I'm still here and have maybe come out the better for it? I could have made a better move at TC #2 BUT again, it feels like uniting under a common enemy (and hiding the fact that I was the one who was villainizing James) did good for my bonds with people overall (I hope). Sorry, I got sidetracked here because honestly the scrambling was kinda irrelevant to me. I was confident James was gone even as Voce scrambled to try to split the votes and apparently Steph was worried she was dead too. I trusted in the information I had, saw Paul and Michelle as reliable in this instance, and we got it done. It wouldn't make sense for anyone to keep James here because it would help JAMES' game and turn them into a villain with him by association. It's a mostly straight up crew here right now.

Totem Pole! I'm ecstatic you asked this question because I wanted to bring it up myself. So I think what it showed to me was, James isn't nearly as good or perceptive of a player as I thought he was AND it reaffirmed that he was kinda playing similar to how I did last time AND that he was dogmatic like I thought. Now to be fair to him, it could have been a totem pole to cause maximum chaos but I think it was truly just less of a hierarchy and more of a "here's who I'm least to most salty towards running from left to right" which BY THE WAY - I'm mad James didn't clarify that it was bottom to top running left to right AND that he did it fucking horizontally instead of vertically. Mother fuck do you not know how totem poles work? Sorry, bit of the old Mike coming out there.

So, I'm not going to draw it because my skills as an artiste are piss poor (more on that in a minute) but what I'll do for you is put both of our Totem Poles (VERTICALLY!!!!!!!!!) side by side and breakdown the discrepancies between them in hopes of maybe highlighting the difference in the way James and I are approaching the game. I think he'd appreciate something like this and I'm bummed he's gone.

JAMES' TOTEM POLE       MIKE'S TOTEM POLE
Stephanie                          Paul       
Sydney                         Michelle
Mike                               Hali
Paul                               Mike
Hali                              Steph
Michelle                           Voce     
Rodney                           Rodney     
Voce                             Sydney

So as you can see there's some big discrepancies here. Keeping Steph and I near each other in both lists makes sense because we're very close together. But I don't believe Steph is as well connected as James thinks and he might be thinking that her social influence is higher than mine. Which I'm not sure if I totally agree with because of her (supposed) dislike of Michelle plus the overall impression I get from everyone that they don't LOVE Steph. If she had stronger bonds with Rodney, Michelle, Paul, and Sydney that I don't realize than yes she deserves the top spot. But she's my #1 that's really my back up #1 to Hali.  

He has MASSIVELY overvalued Sydney and I think this is honestly a mistake that may have cost him his game (beyond me, y'know, being a rumour whore). I think based off this ranking he still doesn't grasp that it was me setting up his blindside BUT it was his social play that gave me the ammunition to make the move when and how I did. I approached him about the next vote after Carolyn and he outright said Sydney to me, which I was onboard with. From there he went to our alliance and said "Mike and I decided on Sydney next!" (without really consulting with me about how he was gonna say it, just lobbed me in) (I'm paraphrasing that quote too by the way). In that moment I went "huh, I did this shit last season and it made me the second boot. I'm not here to be dictated to". Compiling that with previous little things in how he spoke to me, Michelle, Paul, and Hali I started to form the rifts between those relationships with James that needed to be there "hey just so you know, James said it was he and I who decided when really it was just HIM", "yeah he didn't even really talk to me about Morgan, he just said she'd be a shoe-in for the group". He made a few too many assumptions with players who, while he may have been loyal to them, didn't mind letting him catch a stray bullet because he made it really clear he wanted to be in charge. And hey, go off my friend, I did it last season and it was fun but that's why I was second boot. But I really REALLY need to underscore that I was setting the James blindside up and it came together easily because he was pushing Sydney while I was pushing my discomfort towards that vote. He got so focused on getting her that he didn't realize how he was speaking about trying to get her. Then he won immunity and essentially his dictator style of gameplay gave people the confidence to want to change the narrative of the game. Paul gets full credit for swaying me to vote Morgan and in my books he's the one who made the Morgan move, but I set the bones for a James blindside first and if he hadn't won immunity there it would've potentially happened. Anyways back to totem pole. I know I droned on here but I rank Michelle here because her game is super under the radar, she gives nothing up and is seemingly liked by everyone save Steph.

Mike at the third docket isn't far off I don't believe but I slate Hali before Mike because of Mike's blindness to Hali. Hali could legitimately be playing the best game and manipulating Mike so hard and he would go along with it like a dog on a leash. So in that regard, I can't rank Mike above Hali because Hali has more control over Mike's game than Mike does over Hali's. I am knowingly being blind to Hali and she could be setting up to kill me at the perfect time.

Paul is way too low because James is undervaluing Paul's relationship with Hali, Michelle, Mike AND Rodney right now. Where James has Paul I have myself because I've got seemingly decent social connections with everyone and while I think I'm at the top of the totem pole I've always gotta rank myself lower because I'm never where I think I am. So right in the middle at F8 feels right. I seemingly have options everywhere.

Hali is up next and, again, I feel like James has MASSIVELY underrated Hali's game due to how loyal Mike is to her, her new relationship with Steph (which is kinda a byproduct of Mike and Steph's relationship but Hali made the relationship stable all on her own merit after having played with Steph before, credit is due to Hali there for her social play with Steph) and her overall positioning in the game. NO ONE is looking at her and if they do they'd most likely look at Mike in front of her before her. Where James has Hali I have Steph because, from the conversations I have had about her, she isn't that well loved by anyone and people were basically willing to keep her around because she was a forever target of James who was blinded by his vengeance and missed that Steph genuinely was never actually gunning for him, I just made his paranoia kick into high gear and think Steph was out to get him. It was a surprising game insecurity that I didn't expect to be as fruitful as it was but AGAIN it's his fault for his social decisions. He went around telling people openly to not trust Steph and that he was keeping Steph close because he didn't trust her all while being a dictator in the game. What was Steph doing while James did this? Shit talking me until 1 in the morning and just kinda keeping her head down otherwise.

Next up Michelle vs Voce. This is the real story of the list here. Michelle bothers no one but Steph and there are so many bigger targets than her based on my information. Voce doesn't have a great social game during the first chunk but survives by being someone who seems unthreatening but is still rubbing people the wrong way. If Voce had shown up night one and spoken to people like Hali and Steph and Mike the way he is now, he'd be a front runner but it's almost like he decided to start playing on Day 6 due to a sense of getting left behind maybe? He's expendable to people like Paul it seems too whereas Michelle isn't expendable to anyone yet.

Rodney is close to the bottom because he has no real power due to how he plays. He's just everywhere, doesn't go that hard on communicating and just kinda shows up before rounds. Completely agree with James here.

Lastly, Voce vs Sydney - James is operating like Sydney has massive influence when it's his own play style that got his primary ally blindsided. Voce isn't on the bottom but he isn't far off on this read. He's got no true deep loyalties and has just started playing too late. Sydney is at the bottom because she has ZERO control in this game currently. She even confessed to me tonight she doesn't want to win, just see how far she goes. She has no fucking power or sway or influence so to have her all the way at the top is asinine to me. JAMES YOU GOT MORGAN BLINDSIDED. I've said it repeatedly because I really REALLY want to hammer it home. It was you, not a master move by Sydney. 

If I was a type of ravioli I'd be the type that looks like it's got a big juicy pocket of goodness but it's really just filled with lots of hot air and nothing.

In regards to James and Morgan not working together, I do kinda believe them. But the problem is that I blew the rumour into something so much bigger than the game that it doesn't matter what I think or not. They got booted because of a photo rumour I started so if they were or weren't working together is irrelevant because now they're going to work together to either tank my game in jury or pick the eventual winner.

Oh fuck - you want me to do another ranking? What the fuck Susie? I just gave you a poorly formatted VERTICAL fucking totem pole. Fuck, I gave you TWO totem poles because James was too lazy to set his totem pole up fucking properly. What the fuck do you want from me here? Do want the ranking horizontally or vertically. Y'know hosts, from now I want to know if you want a list done vertically, horizontally, or diagonally EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Because I'm fucking mad James made a stupid ass horizontal totem pole.

I'm sorry Susie - you're too kind and nice for me to be speaking that way here. I put Mike "The Otter" to rest last night but he just keeps poking his ugly fucking head back up. I can't shake him. I swear I want my Stranded Villain era to be over but sometimes it'll just come out. On to my rankings...

Hali - #1 girl
Steph - My #2, #1 girl
Rodney - Yeah who would've thought. This is kinda funny to me too but like the guy is fucking solid to me right now.
Sydney - Got no reason not to trust her and she's my #3, #1 girl - whoruntheworld.
Paul - Solid, smart player. I'd want to take my shot before he takes one. I think he's with me but he can very easily win the whole game right now. 2 immunity wins and no one other than my primaries are talking about him.
Voce - Same as Paul basically but Paul edges out Voce in trust ranking because Paul is stronger socially
Michelle - She's giving me NOTHING and taking EVERYTHING from me
To all you lurkers who don't read my novels (and Cochran who I hope is enjoying just my walls of text as a fellow novelist), I really sorry for this one. I'm sure I should do a video confessional at some point but I just love writing out all this shit. It's a sickness. Hope you're all enjoying the season though!

-Dylan

[Mike]

So I'd wanted to talk with Hali before typing this one out but I've gotta get it down otherwise I'm afraid I won't articulate it correctly at a later date or when I go over it with Hali.

We have quite the logistical problem. Or maybe not WE (referring to Hali and I) but I do. Hali needs to be brought up to speed on this problem before I approach Paul and Michelle about it. I need her brain to verify that what I'm saying is making sense before I start planting seeds with every other contestant to make what would be my final push to the finale work.

In eliminating another duo (or "not duo" as they claimed - which hey, doesn't matter to me if they were or were not together because if they weren't together it actually might validate the move even more and support what I'm about to lay down) in Morgan and James, we've essentially made it so that the four of us (being Hali, Michelle, Paul, and I) all NEED each other. We die without the other duo in the game as Hali X Mike (#Mili) and Michelle X Paul (Pachelle - I just made that up, it sucks but I love it) are seen as the prevailing duos here while I'm kind of a side duo with Steph (Stike may work because it's got an aggressive edge but Miphanie has my heart) while Hali and Steph are also maybe a duo (Steli works).

Here's what I'm getting at here - I played in a season of Beevivor (which I've mentioned previously) while Stranded 40 was going on. It was a Blood vs Water theme (+ Heroes Vs Villains but that isn't relevant here) being paired up with a partner (love you Cochran). You always had to strike a balance of working with other remaining pairs and never letting players who lost their parents (the "singles" as I'll refer to them from here on out) outnumber the pairs. The second that happens the singles see the powers that duos have in working together with other duos (2 duos creates a 4 stack for voting while you need 4 individuals to replicate that power as singles). That's the position we're in right now with Mili and Pachelle.

At F8 in this game, the four of us control 50% of the voting power. 2 pairs vs 4 individuals, just like the scenario in the above paragraph. If any one member of either duo leaves in this next round, it paints a massive target on the duo that remains intact to be targeted by the now 5 remaining singles. I don't know if Hali has put this together herself but it's my intent to best equip her in the event that I leave sooner than intended. If either Hali or myself leaves, we HAVE TO split up Michelle and Paul with the remaining singles as soon as possible otherwise the longer they survive the more likely the are to win the game. Likewise, this sentiment is echoed back for Pachelle as they'd be stupid to not strike at Mili in some way. Going into this next vote it is ESSENTIAL for us to send a single home.The way the numbers fall, to best set ourselves up for success, I *think* Hali and I can't strike against Pachelle until F5 and likewise for them otherwise our duos get split and it limits our options heading into the endgame. 

At F5 seems like it would be the optimal time to strike out against them as, the assumption would be that Hali and I have brought someone who's loyal to us to F5 and strengthen our side from being a pair into a trio, giving us 3-2 voting odds and the majority to split Pachelle. That third member in the trio, to me, has to be Steph right now. She's tight to both Hali and I and, if the information I think I have is correct, potentially gives me 2 people who would take me to a F2 if we're in a F2 scenario. But, even in the event that my information is wrong I'd want to believe that if anything happened to me Steph and Hali would take care of each other and support each other which is really important to me. On a quick aside - if the three of us hit F3 and it's actually a F2 scenario I have no fucking clue what I'm gonna do. But back to my point, in a F5 scenario with Mili, Steph, and Pachelle, if Michelle were to leave that could position me nicely to have Hali, Steph, or Paul potentially take me to the end. 

So how do we navigate to F5 from F8? Who needs to go when? This is the really, REALLY tricky part of all of this. To get that F5 (which, for the season's sake I think would be the most interesting and exciting personally) we'd need to lose Rodney, Voce, and Sydney in some order that keeps my game intact. Initially I had thought something like Rodney leaving next would benefit my game but Rodney and I are getting on surprisingly well for some reason it seems. I also know Rodney is Rodney so he's a wildcard but I didn't expect our relationship to be what it is (or him to be here at F8 honestly). Rodney likes myself, Paul, and Syd. Outside that I don't know if he'd care who goes where. Voce like Steph, Hali and Myself. So in a F6 scenario we could have Voce there to back up the trio against Pachelle BUT shooting at Pachelle at F6 creates a 2v4 deficit for duo vs singles for Hali and I. 

Paul wanted Rodney as the back up to James, which means maybe Paul wants Rodney gone next. He seems him as a wildcard. Voce apparently doesn't like Paul. Rodney likes both Paul and I. So here's where I've landed...Voce may need to go next and here's why. He's showing up late to the game and just starting to play now but the dude can play and has some tricks up his sleeve, I truly believe that. He's smart and just wants to get right into the game, no small talk. That can be dangerous. If we convince Voce to take the shot at Paul, give Paul the heads up about it and then take Voce out it strengthens the trust between Paul and I AND I may even convince Paul to think it was his move. By keeping Sydney here through that round I could push to Rodney that hey, I'm keeping her here because we both vibe with her. Sydney is open to working with Voce but if we can convince Syd that Voce is the best move it could keep her in line. The boot at F7 gets trickier and I need to think it through more. If we boot Syd, it could piss off Rodney but if it's both Paul and I's move we could do it equally. Which means then I'd have to rely on Hali and Steph to pick up the pieces with Rodney. It's doable. On the flip side, booting Rodney and keeping Syd may have the same effect and I need to rely on Steph and Hali to pick up the pieces again. It'd be easy for Hali and Steph to decide there to cut me and bring in Sydney, work with Pachelle and I'm toast but I don't think Steph and Hali beat Pachelle without me. Syd has been a non-factor in challenges, Steph hasn't really shown her skills yet but Hali and I have both been doing decently well and we'd need our best challengers for the upcoming comps if Paul is still here.

Anyways - late night musing but tl:dr - duos need to stick together here 'til f5. Ideal F5 right now is Pachelle + Mili + Steph. Desired boot order atm is Voce next, followed by Sydney, then Rodney. After that I'd want Paul, Michelle, and then it's either F3 or I'm put in maybe the most dramatic seat of the whole season where I figure out which one of my two #1s would I be better seated against at F2. What do I think? Right now, I have no fucking clue.

-Dylan

 

[Mike]

Very hopeful and excited to explain my Opinions for the In-Crowd challenge tonight if I'm still fortunate enough to be here at the end of the night.