- Tue Apr 19, 2016 4:24:48 pm
#867
Hey Wigles!
I'll answer #1 and 4 sort of together. Yeah it was a bit of an eye-opener. Seems to me So decided, either on her own or with help, that she wanted to either set me up as a social threat, or make a veiled attempt to secure my loyalty, or some other shady crap that I felt could get me into hot water and I don't like.
We all know how surface-level and transparent that gesture really was given the nature of the vote itself.
The Max hinky vote was something I figured might happen. The paranoid self-centered part of me is nervous that it was an attempt to set me up in some way considering I've been vocal about wanting Max out since pre-Shirin exit. Either way, I'd like to believe no one would try to do that with messages attached to votes, but you never know what people may have planned.
I hope that Max vote doesn't bother anyone and it's just shrugged off as an attempt to stir up drama, which is what it was. I may try later to deduce who it may have been based on the comments, but I have no suspects. Could have come from anywhere and still make sense to me. My read on these guys as players is iffy so far.
My thoughts on So wanting a group vote for the idol was either she got scared due to that late pressure from Dan and Joe at Tribal, or something else. Deep down I know I'd rather the idol be gone than still in her possession. She already serves as default tiebreaker at all pre-merge tribals, and an idol to boot could have been an obstacle. However she came to that decision, I'm happy she did. And now Kelly can't hide behind wanting to align with the idol as she mercilessly tries to flip me, at least for now. Or so it seems.
This vote is of great importance. I've spent what time I've had on here today trying to mend fences with my 5-person alliance after that idol was played on me, steer the vote in Max's direction and clear my name from being a target tonight. I know So, Jenn, Max and Kelly can get me tonight if they want to in a 4-4 tiebreaker, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm hoping they feel like I'd still be more beneficial to have around and be less angry than Dan and company if they stage a flip without me? That I could be siphoned over to continue to work with them in a situation like that? Playing the fence is not something I wanted to do, and if I had my way I would never have been in this situation, but it's my own fault. And now I want to fix this in a way that doesn't splinter Asmat irreparably.
Trustworthiness rank... is so hard. I can't help but rank Dan #1 right now, which may be a mistake. He certainly is sharp enough to realize that I have not been fully open with him, and hopefully that's not enough to put me in his crosshairs right now. I hate to cop out of this answer but I couldn't actually put names into a ranking because I really don't know who I can trust, if anyone.
I THINK So has slowly begun warming up to me over time, hence our slowly improving game discussions and the fact that we seem to be very similar as Survivor fans and players. We've established a decent enough rapport with our shared TV show interests and things like that. Gun to my head, I like her better than most of the tribe, but this for me is about positioning myself as hard or impossible to boot for the duration of this game, and I don't think turning on the Amigos achieves that. All it does is expose me as a liar and flipper at F17. I get the appeal to "play Survivor", but I want to believe I'll be able to hitch my wagon to either side of things after our next vote, using my relationships with people. So my goal is to either make both sides happy, or at the very least make them feel like "okay, there's still a chance with Sierra. Let's hope she comes to her senses".
Being on the wrong side of a big move isn't the worst thing in the world in Survivor. Being on the wrong side of it and being the boot is the really bad thing. I really do not want the Amigos to doubt me. And if they do doubt me, hopefully they still doubt me less than they doubt Kelly thanks to Dan hopefully vouching for me.
I believe, given the info I have, that So's idol play last night was a mistake. Maybe even one made out of panic, and if so... that's something that Dan can put on his resume. If the Amigos take charge of this tribe, a lot of it can be attributed to Dan's persistence and guts in sticking with his argument that So needs to use it at all costs. It took a lot of effort from him, but he did it and my hat is off.
The game I'm playing right now is not my bread and butter. I hate that I'm being viewed as one of the "sought afters" right now, at least to my face. But it's fun. It'll take a few more Tribals for me to be fully sure how this pre-merge is going to go, but it's safe to say that my confidence level from before the first round has been lowered. The stakes have been raised a lot more quickly than I ever anticipated, which is a testament to the cast.
I underestimated these people. Now it's up to me to figure out some way to create a path for myself to be successful. Nothing would surprise me at the next vote. Ideally we take out Max 7-1 with no debate. Kelly knows she can form a majority one way or the other. With So's tiebreaker she has the majority, and with the Amigos she has the majority. She clearly likes the So side better. If she comes with the Amigos it will speak volumes about her current level of loyalty to me, since I know if I agree to flip she would love it.
Thing is, there's always next round if we really wanna flip. But odds are good we can win 2 of the next 3 immunities, which is when I'd expect the swap to hit... I'm still holding out some hope for better positioning if we do swap. Also it may be too soon to turn given the other idol(s) that may begin floating around.
Will we be given notice when the hidden idol becomes a thing?