1. The game has reached the real merge! You made it to the top 14. Who are you thrilled to see? Who do you wish hadn't made it this far?
I'm excited to see TYLER again, he was a lot of fun to chat with during our few days together a little while back and I was worried he might not survive. I don't have like any incredibly strong attachment to him, I had only really spent two days with him prior and in this time kind of targeted one of the people he was closer to, so on a game level there is definitely some work to be done here. I'm glad we can chat again nonetheless and he is a relationship I definitely could make use of here!
I think Jessica should be out by now, I've actually been trying to talk to her this weekend but haven't seen her online like.. at all, which is fine I don't really get on a ton during the weekend either I have other shit to do but if we vote her out tonight she's obviously not going to be a huge fan of mine! The rest of them like... eh! I mean Taylor and Wendell are alright to chat with so it's a little bit of a step up in terms of options but I wouldn't exactly say that I was MISSING them either.
2. Were you surprised at the results of the challenge tonight? Did anyone throw it? Are there any challenge beasts emerging to worry about?
So this goes back a few days now, sorry for doing these kind of late. I think Lindsey did fucking awful and it wouldn't surprise me ENTIRELY if she threw. She was expressing concern about Shirin on the other tribe who in all likelihood would have left and was getting pretty angsty about this whole Bradley thing. I had actually tossed out throwing in a 'we shouldn't do this butttttt' type way earlier though I did kind of mean we should do it. It was the right move to lose that challenge honestly, if we had won Crete goes into the merge with pretty solid numbers (even without me) and they really could have run of the merge if they wanted to.
I think like.. Jacob is clearly pretty good at the more logical type challenges once he finally gets what is going on. Some others are pretty COMPETENT though I'm hardly like worried about any of them especially at F14. Tyler is good, Genie is good, I dunno. It's such a stupid thing to worry about at this point.
3. How did the vote decision go from your perspective, are you happy with how it went down? Who was calling the shots on your last tribe? Will that continue?
So I do wish I answered this question more in the moment. Towards the end of that tribe the energy is definitely that Lindsey and Genie are gathering in a corner and panicking about things that don't matter together and then trying to tell everybody what to do as a result of it. I kind of contributed to it that round in tying Bradley to Wendell who is apparently a big and scary threat to them so woops!
From my point of view they wanted to vote out Jay all day even though I kept expressing a preference towards Jacob. They kind of just kept being like 'well that's cool but I want to vote Jay'. I think Jacob was the RIGHT vote even now because I think it's fairly likely he has the idol from that tribe and beyond that he's the type that is definitely going to be forgotten about and slip through the cracks round after round. I guess the reason I didn't REALLY fight it is because the same thing is true for Bradley, besides the having the idol part. I think not splitting the vote on the two of them is just pure stupidity and a waste of opportunity but I had to be somewhere else that evening and didn't feel comfortable trying to organize a split vote while not even at home.
Lindsey and Genie are still trying to hold the power, particularly Lindsey and.... she's just not that good at being in charge I'm sorry. I could put money down on Lindsey not making the end of the game because she's bad at handling people and has a bad tendency to let paranoia get in the way of playing to her best interest. The whole vote this round is needlessly complicated and is lying to a lot of people that we don't have to for honestly minimal gain and I really don't see the point, but at the same time I don't think I'm the one that suffers for it so if they want to do this I'm happy to follow along.
4. As we move into the final stage of the game, please give us a quick trust ranking of the new Delos tribe.
Okay so once again, I do not trust anybody in this game. It's a weird position for me in games, I think like... well I don't know. I feel like I'm used to having stronger social connections at this point of the game, people that I actually like really do like as people and care about and like... I'm sorry I just don't really feel that way about anybody here. They're all like Tinder conversations where I'm really fine whether we talk or don't honestly! I don't think anybody here would really save me on the basis of liking me too much to vote me out and that's.. a bit unfortunate because that's usually how I can do well. I have to trust people on the basis of mutually beneficial strategy and that I can be a benefit to their game which is TOUGH because that basically means looking useless? But not too useless, which is always a hard balance for me.
TIER ONE
1. Genie
2. Lindsey
These are the people I have good social connections with. I think they do in a GENERAL sense enjoy me and would be averse to fucking me over completely. They are also both overplayers and constantly in their head and could randomly get the idea that I need to leave at any moment for a reason that either does or does not make sense. I trust them to want to play with me but I do not trust them to always have my best interest at heart.
TIER TWO
3. Ricard
4. Will
These are kind of by association, I trust them in the sense that I am 'on their side' and I work as a number in their favor for the time being. I think they could very well end up flipping and will likely have to do so eventually, I will have to make sure that is WITH me rather than... against me.
TIER THRE
5. Jay
6. Tyler
7. Wendell
8. Shirin
These are people who I generally enjoy talking to and in theory COULD work with, the upper part being people I do have some game relationship with in the past but am a bit removed from or have some reason to otherwise doubt. These are people that could move up and I do feel like I can talk to about the game but do not TRUST in any way to have my back at the current point beyond it benefiting them in the moment.
TIER FOUR
9. Taylor
10. Bret
11. Erika
12. Jacob
13. Jessica
These are people I just really don't have much of a strategic relationship with at all, we have never really talked much game together and while we still COULD improve things I think they have other priorities that will take some time to overcome. Taylor and Bret I at least... like so there is like ROOM for these relationships to grow. Erika I haven't really met yet just brief hellos over the weekend, and the bottom two I actively don't like.
5. So now what?
So for this round I hear that the vote is some kind of like... split vote blindside? Where Rhodes is telling Crete that they're voting Tyler with Bret as a backup but are actually just blindsiding Jessica? Which obviously I am more than happy with because she is never going to work with me. If the jury hasn't started yet that's even better and just doubly beneficial to me.
My plan is a general sense is to hunt some of the 'goats' though it's not really fair to label anybody that way at F14 when there is so much game left to be played. I want to target some of the more lowkey players who I don't think would ever end up being numbers for me. There is nothing I HATE MORE than when threats start getting targeted this early because it leads to a fucking snoreshow of UTR players trying to cut the biggest perceived threat every round and I can't stand that kind of game. The ideal for me is a few rounds of people like Jessica, Bret, Jacob, even Shirin or Will going. I'd prefer to keep this up for most of this week, if not all. This will leave a bunch of BIG THREATS poised to target one another and a few more lowkey players.
Because I'm kind of a lowkey player this game? I think? I don't really think I occupy any kind of threat right now. So basically at around F10 or F9 I want to scoop up a finals alliance with like a Ricard and a Shirin and just ride the wave of all the threats trying to kill one another before FTC, kind of jumping from here to there in the process. It's tough because I've never lost a FTC before but I think I COULD here if I don't play my cards correctly, I just don't have the social game to win purely on likeability and these people are going to be looking for AGENCY and BIG MOVES they just give those vibes. I really will have to look more strategically involved down the stretch and I have to begin setting up the connections and the distrust between some of these groups now to effectively have it work out then.
Anyways in short, kill UTR now, kill threats later, make end with the living UTR and uh... win.
