[Sarah Jones]

Another girl bites the dust and we're one round closer to the merge. Congratulations and good luck!

1. Crystal went home on Taraku, were you shocked? Or was it just another day in the office?
2. What did you make of the answers at today's challenge? Do you think any of the sins given to your tribe mates were inaccurate?
3. As the numbers get smaller, the merge becomes focused on people's minds. Do you believe the merge dynamics will be defined by the original men vs women tribes, the swap tribes, or something else entirely?
4. Who do you think is the person you can trust the most on this tribe? Is that person also who you trust the most in the entire game? Do you see yourself in the end with this person?

[Lauren]

Crystal going home was actually pretty shocking for me. We'd heard from Matty that Aurora was on the chopping block and that was who I felt would have been on the bottom anyways given that whole scenario. I'm not sure how Crystal went home. Reem seems to think someone played an idol. I was running through scenarios and while that could be true I also think it's possible that if Aurora knew a girl was going to go home she played up the alliance with me, Michelle and Matty to solidify her spot by saying there'll be a group ready at the merge. I was kind of hoping they'd cut her rather than me have to do it sometime later but we shall see.

For the challenge I feel like the sins were made based on the looks of everyone's character rather than their actual personality. Besides the inclusion of Marcus as anger and whoever was sloth, I don't even remember. I think merge dynamics are going to lean more between the relationships made on the swapped tribes. Everyone has their connections on the other side still and it's likely going to be a battle of who's relationships are strong enough to get a majority. The men need the women to help further their game against each other or I would think it could be a pagonging.

I suppose the person I trust most on this tribe is Michelle just because I haven't found evidence that she's lied to me yet. Everyone else there's been plans I haven't been included on and talks I haven't been clued in on but from what I know she tells me most of the things she knows. She's actually really helpful in getting a hold of where everyone's at because she's a lot more aggressive in terms of game-play than I am. So she gets all the information that I don't, while I key her in on some of the information I get that she doesn't, meanwhile she's always to primary target as she's the one who seems to be doing most of the scheming. With Crystal gone too I think Reem's options are becoming limited, she doesn't have too many allies left so I feel like she'll try and stick with us at least until a merge when she can branch out and try to make more. As far as I know no one really trusts Gillian and wants her out but it's too easy of a vote so everyone just kind of glosses over it.

Also I went to log into the group-chat we made of just the Taraku girls last night and the password field popped up at the top of my chat screen but apparently my cursor stayed on the tribe chat so I just randomly typed the password into the chat. It was just the old tribe password so I played it off like I just jumped the gun on reporting who got voted out and had Reem back me up and pretend that it's just a thing that we refer to Atlasova as ATLASova. So that was embarrassing and awkward and that's what I get for going around and saying I thought the guys might think I'm dumb. Obviously I'm giving them food for that fire.

[Lauren]

Like no one's been on today so not much has happened until like right now. I guess Ron was trying to get the guys to vote Gillian for tribal because there's an automatic vote on her already which I guess I really wouldn't object to IF they had actually bothered to discuss it with me! Matty supposedly told Reem so I told Michelle to cause chaos and make sure they're not all too trusting of each other. Someone decided to leak the info to Gillian though so now she's trying to strategize but she doesn't know how to be subtle which is aggravating. So basically everyone is going to know people are voting for Ron and it just takes one person to leak it back to him to get a potential idol play or him trying some hail mary move. So I am a tad frustrated. I still feel like Marcus is the better vote right now but she's already talking to Matty who wants Ron out now and I don't trust her not to tell Marcus if we were going for him. And we'd really need her vote. Sooo whatever happens is going to happen, I just might jump ship if I think it's better for me.

[Lauren]

Gillian is so aggressively going for Ron right now I'm getting really pissed. First there's no tribal tonight. Second, we should focus more on what helps in the long run rather than vote out people who just piss us off. If that were the case I'd have Gillian long gone. Matty wants to vote Ron too but he still hasn't explicitly told me that Ron was going for Gillian so now I feel like I have to talk to Ron and straight up ask him because so far the only one that's admitted to hearing it explicitly is Reem. From Matty. So idk, I just find it weird that no one thought to mention it to either me nor Michelle when they mentioned it to Reem when it should be obvious those are the two different pairs. I will do some sleuthing because either way something funky is going on here and I don't like not knowing what's going on. Obviously, I need to work on male sources too because I'm not about to just get the info on them coming from Reem.

[Lauren]

I have no patience left. I'm done, over it, about to absolutely lose it. I was on basically all day today right? It's pretty much just me, Michelle and Reem. Ok that's fine. I leave FOR ONE FREAKING HOUR and I come back to absolute fucking chaos. Michelle was in a panic saying Marcus was targeting her with all the guys? And she's freaking out so I ask Reem about what was going on and she was like "oh it's fine Marcus is back on Ron". I have literally no clue what happened but suddenly everyone was scrambling and apparently someone told Marcus he was on the chopping block which was why he was scrambling and THIS IS WHY WE KEEP OUR PLANS QUIET!!! I'm just so over everything right now, I can't with these people.

And now everyone's throwing out names again. We don't even know the next time we're going to tribal. Marcus had the actual stupidest defense for trying to throw immunity and then, and then he asks me "do you think Michelle's mad at me?". Like yeah I think Michelle's mad at you? She literally got copies of the chat where you were trying to gun for her? And now Matty is messaging me like he's mad at Marcus and according to him he never agreed on a Michelle plan but he's laying it on thick about wanting to work with the girls so I'm kind of over him too. I'm just done with everyone. This day was too stressful to deal with this. I feel like I needed to be here babysitting everyone.

And I was about to post when lo and behold even more drama. Michelle asks for a group chat with Matty and I, I go in and she's saying Marcus is threatening her. I read the things and he's literally just saying the same "Just wanted Ron out and you guys threw a challenge without telling me". That is not a threat. A threat would be like "you vote Ron or I get you voted out". And Matty feeding into it and letting her make emotional decisions. And then Marcus is over in our chat like "Of course Michelle's mad" and I'm just like can everyone just calm down!? (But with lots more swearing because I am so stressed out and tired and they're killing me). I feel like their mother. And don't even get me started about where Charlie even is right now. Ok, that's my rant. Hopefully no one does anything to drive me up a freaking wall again tonight. I'll probably be back for more tomorrow anyways

[Lauren]

I think I made Marcus angry with me. Whoops. I can't find it in me to care at this point. All he had to do was not lie and then I wouldn't have needed to call him out on it. But because I told him he did throw Michelle's name out he's mad at Ron (who didn't even tell me) and also me. Because Michelle threw his name out. Except it was actually me who was campaigning for that so idk where he gets his information but that's not my problem. Maybe he's still lying and he knows it was me and just doesn't want to call me out even though I called him out. Who knows. Men are weird.