Going to quickly talk about Davie's exit before getting to your questions. I posted a lot about it in my Episode 3 post, but I really appreciated him sending over his coins (and 14 which was crazy, it was either all or most of his coins - I am now up to 28). I thought for sure he would send them to whomever voted for Alison (I assume it was Dan, but Alison seems to think it was Angelina). I did not want Davie to leave, and I pushed quite a bit for Christian using the logic that we don't want to piss off Dan or Carl before what we correctly assumed was a swap. When Carl said he was voting for Davie, I know that it was over, and Davie had no chance. I don't know if Kara, Jessica, and Alison were annoyed with me at the time for thinking through the options and subtly pushing back. Really hope not, and they seemed to understand the logic I was using since it wasn't malicious against Christian either. I also don't know if they told Christian I wanted to vote for him, but I think they didn't. I do believe that Kara, Alison, and Jessica are closer to Christian than I am which is fine but could come into play on this new tribe. Anyways, I was shocked that I was the first and only person to tell Davie his name was getting thrown around. The dude had a lot of game in him, and I think he was a stronger player than some of the other members of our old tribe. Him finishing in 19th place isn't really an accurate portrayal of what he had to bring to the table, and I wish it didn't have to end like that. I also believe Carl, Dan, and even maybe Nick all wanted to keep Davie over Christian, too. The vote was a lot closer than the final ballots showed. He just didn't have enough people willing to fight for him this early in the game. Wonder how different the vote would've been if we didn't think a swap was coming? I feel like we all wanted to focus on tribal unity to all work together post swap. We'll see if that even happens now.
Now onto the questions....
Gary Hogeboom wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:25:33 pm
Howdy OOOOOWWWEEEEE what a fantastilicious night for the fans out there. Y'all should take a collective bow. Let's dig right in to these here queshins. 
1. Most people expect swaps nowadays. Did you plan for this at all? tell us how you plan to adapt to this new tribe.
I think more people would've stuck to their guns and voted how they actually wanted to last round if we didn't think it would be a swap? I don't know. I would've probably ended up voting with my alliance for Davie anyways, but if Carl doesn't concede so easily due to the expected swap, this would have been a much more difficult decision.
I think the major mindset is for everyone's original tribes to work together at the start. We'll have to see how long that will last.
2. Break down what you think might happen on your tribe and others? Perhaps numbers will be dominant... or have you identified some cracks in OG that people can exploit?
I mean on the surface, we have a 4-2 majority on our tribe. We would be dumb to give it up immediately, especially with idols potentially floating around. That said, the merge will not be the two original tribes drawing lines in the sand and only working with each other. Everyone should be trying to build relationships with the new people they are meeting as it will have a huge impact on the merge.
I think that the New Miombo tribe will be the toughest to break because Elizabeth paid 19 coins to join them. She has to be aligned with at least one if not all three of the others, so I feel bad for Angelina and Dan. Jack told me that he thinks Missy and Chelsea were the duo leading their original tribe, but he knows Tommy and Elizabeth are close to them, too. I would be very surprised if they do not work together.
The 3-3 split tribe will obviously be the most interesting of the bunch. I am considering the possibility of sending Jessica my idol to not only ensure she stays, but if there is a rock drawing, our old tribe would have a smaller % of drawing the purple one with her being immune. I do not know if I am willing to do that just yet, but I am definitely considering it. Very curious to see how Lauren and Carl and Jessica interact as well after the public fighting we saw early in the game. No idea what will happen. I know Nick was aligned with Carl and was separately aligned with Jessica, so if they stick together I assume it is because Nick kept them close. Actually, they could also stick together out of necessity. If they don't? Honestly anyone could have flipped from either tribe so no idea what to expect.
As far as my tribe, I had an alliance with Kara (the group chat with her, Jessica, and Nick), and an alliance with Alison (the group chat with her and Jessica). Alison knows I have an idol, and I trust her more at this point due to the information we have shared. That said, I really get along with Kara and enjoy her conversations and strategic mind as well. Both are smart. Christian may or may not know I was thinking of voting for him; however, I told him I was voting for Davie fairly early in the day, so I would like to think he trusts me for the time being since that is where my vote ended up going. I fully believe the four of us all intend to want to work together right now. That does not mean Jack and Karishma are sitting ducks. In fact, I had an amazing deep conversation with Jack tonight and really like him, more than I like some of the people from our original tribe. It could also be beneficial to work with him to use his connections with his original tribe if we can work together. He also felt backstabbed by Elizabeth for paying to leave him on his own and is starting to realize he wasn't in the best position on the other tribe. Now, he could easily be blowing smoke and lying to me about all that, but the impression I got from the auction was similar. His old tribe really wanted Elizabeth to win the auction prize and didn't seem to care too much about what happened to Jack and Karishma. I think there is a lot of potential to work with him, but I am not sure how the rest of our group will feel about that (especially if it results in us voting out one of our own to keep him - something I may be willing to do). l also really enjoyed the conversation I had with Karishma on Thursday. She is hilarious. Only problem is I haven't seen her since Thursday, and we're starting to get worried if she will even attempt the challenge. I hope she returns and speaks to us more. I mean I don't want to throw any challenges despite the numbers on other tribes since we have no idea how long we'll be here and would prefer to keep her and get to know her more. But anyways, I think she is a goner if we lose, especially if she doesn't complete the challenge. Unless she has the idol? That would be dirty to throw the challenge then idol one of us out.
3. How did you feel about the whispering at the swap? Did you expect so much cross talk? Did you learn anything interesting from the people who didn't practice when we told y'all to?
I am terrified of the whispering coming back to screw me over. Everyone saw Jessica whisper to me that she wanted out because she messed up the code, then she didn't whisper anyone else. If I am called out or asked about it, I can say it's because I posted a question right before, and I think she wanted out of the tribe because Lauren had made the group chat mocking her and calling her a barbie. She thought Lauren would target her which is a valid reason. Why did she only message me? Much harder to defend, but I think I can argue it's because she was going to message everyone then realized she didn't know how to use the code so didn't want to post any public messages accidentally. If people are concerned about that, there is literally nothing I can do to make people not be worried about us being aligned, which is obviously 100% true. I didn't want to be seen as publicly close with anyone, so I am interested to see what repercussions the two of us face for it. Hopefully I'm overreacting, and it is a complete non-issue, but I don't know. Pretty worried about it.
Otherwise, we learned that Karishma was on the bottom of their previous tribe. We can also kind of tell who was the tightest aligned on the old green tribe (which my personal opinion is Missy, Chelsea, Tommy, and Elizabeth, but who knows if that is accurate?) I'll reread that topic to see who actually was messaging whom, but I sent a whisper to every single person on our original tribe in order to try to hide my allegiances as much as I could. Although I was close to almost everyone, so I dunno if it will hurt me that much. I'm mostly concerned if Jessica will be in trouble because I do not want her to leave this early.
4. What were your thoughts during the crazy auction twist? Walk us through your decision making process there
Whenever you get a chance to meet your new tribe, make sure you drop in and give us your juicy first impressions and keep all your fans frothing for more content!
My thoughts were overall consistent but also semi all over the place. I saw I was with Christian and Kara, and I asked them both if they were staying. I didn't think Christian had the coins to win (or would be transferred enough coins from anyone else), so I wasn't concerned about him, and Kara posted publicly that we should all stay. Figured if the three of us were staying here, we would at least be able to force a tie. I also saw that the person bidding the most was on our tribe, so I assumed she would switch with someone else from my old tribe (which is what ended up happening with Alison) or Jessica would win and join either my group to give me a 4-2 majority or Alison's to give her the same. That said, it wasn't anywhere close to that simple as I'm okay, so I can sit this one out.
Let me explain what happened....When this auction started, Jessica sent me 1 coin, I believe since she thought she was screwed on her tribe (which I don't necessarily think is true) I could bid and transfer her to my tribe that she wanted me to take the reigns and go for it. Then the hosts announced that you had to switch yourself with another player. As this was happening, Alison said she has no chance and is obviously done on her tribe (I also am not sure why she thought this, oh actually it's because there were 3 of the old green tribe + Dan and Angelina, one of which who voted for her at our last tribal council. I do think Dan would have turned on her in a heartbeat. But also Alison thinks that Angelina, not Dan was the person who voted for her, so either way I now understand why she thought she was toast). As this happens, she sends me 3 coins, saying to save myself, and I assume she sends her remaining coins she has to Jessica (I think she had 7 or 8 to start but I could be wrong so 4 or 5 to Jessica and 3 to me?). Anyways, as this is happening I notice Davie gave me 14 coins, so I am now one of the richest people in the game. I haven't told anyone this yet, and I doubt I will. Also, I noticed Alison sent me the 3 coins and immediately shipped them to Jessica. I then saw she was outbid at 19 and sent her 4 more coins (one of which I realized was the 1 she had originally sent me). She then used those coins to bid 20 but was a few seconds too late. While I will be very upset if this is the reason she leaves (because I didn't send her the coins a few seconds earlier), I think this is not the end of the world. The moment the bidding was over, she sent me the 6 coins I sent her (7 - 1 she sent me before), and she did the same to Alison. I sent Alison the 3 coins she sent me back. So basically we got the other tribe to spend 19 coins, and we still have all of ours to buy idol clues and whatnot to potentially help us later in the game. Again, it is a terrible situation for Dan and Angelina, and I feel awful for them. That said, I think it could have been worse for me personally if Elizabeth switched with anyone else except Alison. That being said, it doesn't mean the original tribes will stick together.
All in all, great twist and way to divide the tribes. If someone didn't like their spot, they could technically do something about it if they saved up and/or had friends to help. So while I hate that it added a ton of stress for me and everyone else, not too mention the hilarious constant whispering, it is better than a completely random swap where someone is in a 5-1 disadvantage and completely screwed over by the swap. Some people are for sure it better positions than others, myself included, but no one is 100% a dead man walking that cannot recover as a result of the swap.
