Episode 10

[Brenda Lowe]

I see the Refuge Tribe is off to a nice smooth start. Who's fault was that mess?

[Jolanda]

*deep breath* That tribal was too much for me. I don't know how many more of those I can handle.

Going into literally the last week after Chad got here, the plan to vote out Jane was in place. Until literally we lost the challenge, I thought that the vote was going to be on Jane, and so I messaged a few people to confirm that Jane was the person who would indeed be going. It was all set for about three minutes until Ken said in our group message that Katie and Chad were really pushing for Kristina to go for whatever reason, so I asked them about it straight up.

Chad said that he had indeed heard that the vote was going for Kristina, he didn't tell me anything more than that, which is alright but he said that the vote was against Kristina honestly. So he's good in my book for now.

Katie basically asked who was starting this shit, and eventually blamed it on Mia and Sarah. I know for a FACT that Mia didn't start anything, because Mia wanted Kristina desperatley as a fourth in our alliance. Had we had that number secured for this round, we would have been safe until the merge, straight up. So there is NO way that Mia would fuck her game over like that, at least I don't think so. Which brings me to Sarah, she didn't really say much other then yeah she's fucking voting Kristina, which great thanks Sarah for telling the truth.

So, I was getting angry and I didn't know what was going on, so I just dropped a little message to Sarah that Katie told me that her (Sarah) and Mia were starting this plan. Judging by Sarah's reaction, she did NOT know that this would fall on her. I believe Sarah much more than I believe Katie when it comes to this. From this message, now Sarah is "reeling" that Katie would do anything against her like that. Perfect, just what I wanted. If Sarah and Katie don't like each other, there is no way that they would be voting for me before the other one of them goes. So the plan this weekend is to drive those two apart.

Anyways, back to tonight's events. Going into tribal, I had originally planned on voting for Jane to force a tie, but of course I wanted to start a little drama behind everything. I called out Chad, Katie, Ken, and Mia. The goal of this was to show that I really don't have any connections to anybody on this tribe (mostly i wanted to show that i wasn't close to Ken and Mia like people might be thinking [correctly alol]) So, hopefully that will show people that I'm willing to work with them, which I do, all I want to do is be safe and make the merge at this point, but these tribals are so unpredictable I don't fucking know.

For the vote(S) all I want to do is survive, and I'll do anything to do that. Hopefully we just win both of the challenges and we are in the top 12 and probably the merge...

[Jolanda]

I'm literally getting three different stories on what the fuck happened last night and really none of them match up so I don't know who to believe.

From Mia:

Okay holy fuck. Gurls I am sorry that all of this happened, it sucked and I didn't anticipate any of it... at least not in that way.

So here's my experience with all of this. I worked on Sarah from all angles for a long time about Jane. She wouldn't budge, and it got awkward. It went from "not doing Jane. Let's talk about Kristina or Ken." That's when fight or flight mode kicked in because obviously I don't want either gone. I tried to be subtle about Chad and Katie, but I didn't want to bring up every fucking name on the tribe either. So I just did what I could to make sure Sarah was locked in on Kristina, and holy fuck she clung to that bad.

I was at work all day after this and couldn't really message until one brief time where I touched base with everyone, and then had a 2 hour commute home and went to the gym. By 8 I got home and didn't realize how much things had firmly taken root with Kristina. Not gonna lie, I expected Chad and Katie to follow along and vote for Jane, but basically I think Sarah got to them and let them know that I suggested Kristina. I mean I guess I sort of did, but I didn't expect it to take root, and then I'm hearing that it'll be us 5 voting for her, with Sarah hoping you two would be okay with it too. That's when I sounded the alarm and let you guys know, and I don't know WHAT went wrong with katie, but I guess I'm glad it happened because she apparently decided it was a bad idea but was still going to do it for some reason. I stopped hearing from her, and she tells you guys it was Sarah and I's plan. What did Chad say, again?

Mia is saying that Sarah clung to the idea of voting out Kristina, claiming that Sarah was the one to start everything, with a little prodding from mia. She also says that Katie is the person who was uneasy about it, but went along with it anyways.

My question here is why didn't Mia just say "yo everyone is voting out Jane" and just let that be the end of it? So what if Sarah is pissed because she was left out in the dark, if none of this happened we could have been in a much better spot. So I don't understand it. I also don't understand why Katie said that she didn't want to go with the plan, but did anyways. Which brings us to

Katie's side of things:

I'm actually super pissed at how that whole thing turned out. I'd just put all this time and effort into setting something up for Chad, me, you and Kristina and then I had a PM from Chad sitting there that said "so Sarah tells me she got Mia to agree to voting out Kristina, which I think is a good idea". So I'm like "hold up - Sarah spoke to Mia about voting out Kristina BEFORE she came to either one of us and you're just gonna buy that? Like, I haven't heard that from either of them and I think the whole thing is a bit of a set-up".

So I then spent the next hour and a half trying to hash out what was potentially going on here with Chad and Jane. All I knew is that I wanted Jane to stay for the time being but that finding a way to achieve that was going to be hard and was being made even harder with Sarah pushing so hard. She came to me eventually with her story and I immediately picked it apart because there were so many logic holes in it that didn't make sense to me - what is the motivation behind this vote? Is it a ruse to get us to divert votes in order to avoid a tie?

Eventually Sarah flipped out on me and sent a PM that was half all caps rage and this was my response VERBATIM:

Why are you getting so heated with me? I'm just trying to make sure we don't get played on this.. If you want my vote on Kristina so badly that it makes you this upset, fine, I'll vote Kristina.

I was in the proverbial spot between a rock and a hard place on this one. I'd given so much of my word to Jane that I would do what I could to guard her that first vote but I didn't see the Kristina thing coming until it was too late. I feel a bit like I sold my soul to the devil and I did it at the worst possible time for myself.

I would have come to you guys sooner - in fact I had a PM typed out for Kristina before the challenge but I bailed on it out of fear that it was all some kind of setup to expose me as a shit-stirrer. It wasn't until maybe 10 min before the challenge started that Mia PMed me with her reasons for wanting the vote to go that way and it seemed legit that Chad, Jane and I were all like "eh, we guess that's an actual thing then??"

I got super shitty at Tribal because of course it was fucking easy for Sarah to be so honest about the vote - she engineered it and didn't give a flying hoot about Kristina's feelings. I'm of the belief that the whole thing feels more like a game move if it comes out of nowhere and that once the initial shock wears off it is far easier to interpret your vote-off as a game move if the people who voted you off look like they actually put some effort into deceiving you. Maybe that's my misconception about the game but I don't like being dragged through messy Tribal Councils like the one we just had because that actually upset me too - I couldn't even stay around afterwards because it felt so personal by the end of it and Sarah was the one getting accolades for her honesty but wasn't saying "I DID THIS - THIS IS MY MOVE" - it was being thrown on to Chad and I like it was something he and I wanted.

Sarah's a miserable, sour bitch sometimes and I do not trust her. What I wanted to set up between the four of us was something genuine and it got torpedoed by flat-footed Chad going along with it in the first place and Sarah's aggressive pushing of a vote that made little to no sense to me. I went along with it because it protected Jane and I would have felt even more like garbage had she been given the toss at her first real taste of the game.

I'm really sorry I lied during the lead-up of the vote and said I was voting Jane but I did it because, to me, there wasn't going to be any long-term damage as a result of the vote. I was always going to approach you afterwards and apologise and see if there was a way to mend this fence rather than burn it to the ground but you have to know the legitimate reason that I, personally, made the decision today and the facts behind it from my point of view before you make up your mind about whether or not I am being genuine with you on this and whether you'd believe a word I said moving forward.

Katie claims that she is the fourth person to hear about this plan, starting with Mia/Sarah, going to Chad and then going to her. She also feels bad because she wanted to protect Jane, and voting out Kristina was the only thing she could do. Like, if protecting Jane over a potential ally that you wanted, Kristina, was your main priority, then how the hell can I even trust you at all? Also, she kept Jane because she didn't want to vote her out on her first tribal or whatever. This just doesn't make sense to me, she clearly has something going with Jane.

Also, the reason of why she lied to me isn't really that great either. She didn't think there was going to be any long term damage because of the vote, so she went and lied to me about it. You know that makes long term damage with me LYING i don't take that shit lightly here or in real life.

The things that do line up are the Mia/Sarah starting it though, which i appreciate. Also the fact that she got shat on because of Sarah's decisions makes me feel a little worse for her too. but I don't know, reading through this message again and I really don't think I can trust too much of what she says. It also leaves Chad a bit of a mystery, which brings me to:

Chad's story:

As for Katie and Sarah, I don't even know. Katie lost her damn mind last night. She was flipping out the entire time before the vote about I don't even know what. Katie and I are friends, but I literally have no idea what the hell she was doing last night and I understand why Sarah is pissed. I'll just leave it at this... Katie likes Jane and part of the reason the vote switched in the first place is because Katie did not want to vote Jane out. She may not have done the initial leg work, but that whole thing was in line with what Katie said she wanted. I was perfectly fine voting Jane out and I still am. She is nothing to me.

Obviously I'm not getting in the middle of that, but I think Katie is pissed off at me now too because I told you guys.

I have no idea why you and Ken would have to be in the dark about that vote and I didn't think you were going to be in the dark. Now I will say the whole thing was a whirlwind right at the end so the lateness of it was because it was a frigging circus. But I was unaware that you and Ken weren't supposed to know. Like I said you were going to find out in 20 minutes anyway. I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that you and Ken may have been close to Kristina or something. But we were still voting her out and I'd imagine you'd be more mad if you didn't know than if you found out ahead of time. I personally fly into a rage when I get blindsided, especially by people I think I am friends with.

So Katie didn't want to vote out Jane, cool, coulda just told me that any time that i said in the last couple of days that Jane was the target, and none of this would have happened.

Chad's story brings up another point. Why couldn't Ken and I know? Mia mentioned something about it, I haven't heard from Sarah, but Katie I really don't get. And now Katie is pissed at Chad for telling the truth to Ken and I? Uh, what does that mean about you, Katie? Should I just lie to you and tell you everything is OK? (That's probably what I'm gonna do actually)

So yeah, those are the stories of what happened last night. Overall, I'm really pissed that i wasn't included in too much of this, and why people decided to needlessly lie to me just doesn't make sense. From all of this I can say two things, I don't trust Katie, her story seems to have a lot of holes in it, or she's hiding something from me, and I don't trust Sarah. If she's willing to just throw someone random under the bus like that to save Jane, then why wouldn't she just do it for me?

I need to hear Sarah's story for all of this to make sense right now, because everything is tracing back to her and she's pissed that everyone is telling the truth?

Ugh, I never thought there would be so much drama over a pre merge boot like this. Also, I think my seeds of drama really helped, because I might've been the first person to tell Sarah what Katie did, so that might just be enough to keep me in this game for a little while longer.

The next round, if we lose both of them, I actually wouldn't mind seeing Katie AND Sarah both leave. They have both proven to be untrustworthy and irrational during this whole thing, and they are not people I would want to see in a merge situation.

This whole thing has also brought me closer to Chad, because I feel like he is the only one being really honest with me here, and I appreciate that. Maybe everyone is being honest and people are just seeing different things, who knows. What's reality in this game doesn't matter, it's what you get people to believe what does.

[Brenda Lowe]

Why would people keep you in the loop if this is not what you wanted?

[Jolanda]

I feel like I have tried to make it clear that all I really want to do is vote with the majority, and that i don't really have a preference on what happens as long as it isn't me, so I feel like they should have told me and at least have been honest with me rather than just lying straight up to my face about it. But, Katie did tell me about what happened last night, including why she lied to me, and it just throws everything into a new perspective:

OK - so I've been talking to Sarah over the weekend and it looks like we have figured out what happened. I was under the impression that the plan was Sarah and Mia's idea to target Kristina as this is what Chad originally told me.

It turns out that it was Sarah and Chad who came up with it originally - which ticks me off because Chad knew I was busy setting us up as a four-person alliance with you and Kristina. Basically, Sarah now understands why I reacted the way that I did, because I felt backed into a corner and forced down a path I wasn't committed to but I also wasn't on board with getting rid of Jane either.

There's the potential we could lose two more members on Sunday night and I think we need to put a bit more thought and planning in to how we plan to approach that possibility to avoid having a right meltdown like that last tribal. If it comes down to it, and we lost both challenges, I think Jane should be one of the votes of this time but the second one is a tricky one to decide. I don't feel a loyalty connection to any of those snaky bitches after last week so let me know what you're thinking and maybe we can make something happen our way instead of following along with their plans?

Okay, so that explains why I didn't get to know about it, which is understandable because I did really like Kristina, but I don't think I would have wasted my idol on her. However here it sounds like Mia or Chad might be lying to me, so that puts things into a whole new perspective, and now she might even want to get rid of one of those two or Sarah OVER Jane, which I'd be okay with as long as it's not Mia. However, I'd rather have Jane go first because she is the one person who I don't really think can hold her own in the merge compared to the rest of the tribe. I don't know I just never really connected with her because she's really not that great at communication.

Speaking of Mia, I'm beginning to have my doubts about her. I know that I've been in a three person alliance with her and Ken since day 1, but I just don't know if I can trust her as much as I want to anymore. Like Ken is great, I know I can trust him becuausee I totally think I know where he is coming from all the time. But Mia is more of a schemer, and she proved it by going behind the backs of Ken and I to even bring up voting out Kristina, and then telling us to vote Jane all along only to say she's not voting Jane literally two minutes before the deadline? I don't understand that logic if she is being 100% loyal to us, so I feel like she has other people she's really close with and that's certainly something I need to watch out for going into the merge (hoping I get there, of course)

[Jolanda]

I feel like Stacey is online more than half of the people who are still in the game lol

[Jolanda]

Katie is such a two faced bitch I can't stand it

Message to me: Let's get rid of Mia, Chad, or Sarah tonight along with jane!

To Mia: Lets get rid of Ken and then Jo!

To Ken: Let's make an alliance between me you Jo and Mia <3

The fuck.

[Jolanda]

Katie messaged me: "Sarah's at it again, she's targeting everyone on the tribe except for Jane and Jo and pinning it on me!"

What the fuck either you have an idol or you are TRYING to get booted i can't trust her

[Jolanda]

THANKS FOR THE HELP, JANE AND KATIE.

[Jolanda]

Katie had an idol no wonder why she was playing so irrationally alol