Episode 08

Welcome to the merger!

You made it!

Tell me how you're feeling, nervous? excited? a bit of both?

Also, now that the game is shifting from tribes to individual, are you focusing now more than ever on how to win the game, or is it merely how to advance as far as you can?

How do you plan on making an impressive enough showing in the merge to warrant a vote from the potential jurors that you are playing with now?

Where do your loyalties lie? With the original tribe? Your newly swapped tribe? or your original fans/favorites split? Who do you trust the most/least going into the merge?

Finally, I can breathe - I didn't get voted off pre-merge and I'm assuming I made the jury phase, which is always my goal to start in ORGs, of course you want to win and get far but I'm so tired of going so early in games sometimes, and just not having time to adjust, so I'm glad to have made it here, but 12th/20 isn't very good, so I'm not going to stop playing now. I want to get AT LEAST Final 8 now, and then I'll set another milestone there, it's how I play. If I set a goal, I can reach it, and if I don't reach it, I had another goal that I clearly achieved. I'm happy that I was on a strong tribe though because I honestly suck at challenges - if you haven't noticed I only really competed in two challenges, I think, the coordinate one and the first puzzle IC? I don't remember competing in any more, I usually sat out or wasn't here to show up, but we were so up in numbers that it didn't matter, lol.

But my general mindset is EXCITED - I'm happy to talk to people, happy to try to form and reform alliances and see where everybody stands, and I'm glad to finally meet some people I've never talked to. I was sad Marty went, we were expecting him to side with us at the merge and entertained the idea of throwing a challenge to get rid of HoHo to prevent her from changing sides to keep along Marty who we knew was on the outs according to Jake, Wendy's partner. And I have yet to talk to him but he seems to be close with Wendy and if they both want those pendants, he will work with her and we will try to isolate the rest of the pairs. I need to double check but the only partners left I know as of now are Ken/Tyrone (who aren't working together) Chase/Yve (who probably are), and Jake/WendyJo (who are close and I'm expecting WJ to flip Jake over to us now.) This puts another duo as a target right now, because we don't want those pendants coming into play very late in the game at all, or it can totally change things. Final 6 - 2 people play pendants, 1 person immune, 3 people up for votes? Lol.

But the shift moreso allows me to do both, yes I'd love to win and set up a winning alliance right away, but these games CONSTANTLY change and I have to keep a mindset and adapt. Most of these games I make an alliance at the start and feverishly try to stick to them despite them not wanting to which leads to me ending up on the wrong side of things but at the end of the day in Patagonia, I'm playing for me and only me. But I'm trying to maintain being levelheaded and a critical thinker and appearing that to the others so I'm in heavy contention for a jury vote, rather than everybody hating me or anything, but I am far from an ass kisser and I won't ass kiss for votes or be nice to people on their way out either, haha, that's just not me. But this merge brings out everybody's side: from the start you can see who is PMing you right away (Yve), and who is waiting to be PMed (Chase for example, or Ken). Ken I don't like - he ignored me over on nuPalena despite me sending him some PMs, and I shot him some and he continued to be offstandish, but whatever, I'll try my best. But loyalties are interesting with so many swapped tribes. I got a good draw because the 2nd tribe swap, the nunu tribes, I got most of my alliance on it from the 2nd tribes, and then my entire alliance from the original tribe, so that point I was aligned with everybody BUT Ken - which is 7 people, a solid majority in a tribe of 12, so I'm hoping my loyalty with both groups allows us to go strong, but of course things will change. I want to target Chase first and foremost: he seems to be a strong player, he has a good chance at the pendants, he's tougher than Yve and I know he's not with me, haha. So this will be a fun merge :)

I forgot Jill/Ted are partners.

Are you actively pushing Chase as the target then? Who is willing to vote with you on this?

I see you are hoping Jake will 'flip to you', and I see some doubts about your connectedness to Ken. Is the plan all of NuNuPalena & Jake to vote Chase? Do you expect all of those to want that and follow through? You say he and Yve are partners, is she willing to let him go too?

What happens if Murphy's Law kicks in and he wins immunity?

My inactivity stirred some shit - I don't even know anymore, I'm voting with the win. Strategic Dan is taking a break.

What does voting with the win mean? I've never heard that before Eh, I'm gonna presume "voting with the win" means going with what the majority wants rather than pushing your own agenda.. so tell me, what does the majority want?

So not exactly a stellar effort in the challenge, despite three immunities up for grabs - are you just that confident you aren't a target this round? Or at least, not a target of enough people?

Also, you mentioned excitement in getting to meet new people at the merge, how did that go? Anyone make such a good or goatey impression they are fitting into future plans? Or even such a bad one / threatening one you want them out stat? Maybe with the merge it's a good time for some sort of rankdown of the cast - either by trust with you or closeness to you, or maybe based on what power you think they have?

idk, gimme a cast rankdown based on whatever you think is most relevant right now.

Oops, yeah I meant voting with the majority and right now its before my PMs, so it can change as soon as I click on Messages but as of right now I've heard and solidified Ted as my vote tonight, oops.

Aaaaaand I just couldn't be fucked given it was super Bowl Sunday and I was half hosting a party, or my aunt/uncle were but I was forced to like, lay out snacks and whatnot and it was not fun. So yeah, it was pretty much that, I honestly could've tried a bit more but I didn't need to, I felt. But I think my UTR-ness in the merge is good in keeping me off as a target and I haven't been as guns blazing recently as I was before, so people hopefully don't see me threatening, I mean that's it.

As for the new people - the only ones I haven't talked to were I think Jake, who appears to be a bore and is very boring, but I got to talk with Yve again and we exchanged 2 PMs before she started to annoy me, the whore. And ugh, here is on how much I trust people.

1. Tyrone - he's loyal and I feel like he's for the tribe
2. Russell
3. Wendy
4. Jolanda
5. Jill
-- (below this line is like ppl idc about)
6. Ted
7. Yve
8. Jake
9. Holly
10. Chase
11. Ken

Remind me - have you told anyone about that idol of yours? Did you tell Fabio that time? At what point do you share that info with your allies if ever?

I haven't told anybody, and I'm not going to. Well if any of my close allies ask me if I have it, I'm going to say yes. If not, it's going on dont ask dont tell.