Episode 1: Inactives be bitchin'

[Eddie]

How's it going everyone? I just wanted to touch a little bit on my strategy and mindset coming into this game. 

So this is my fourth game and I'm still enjoying trying out different strategies in each game I play. I've decided in this game I'm going to try (for the first time) to play a passive, under the radar social game. I'm going to do my best to connect with everyone I can and settle myself into a majority alliance with people who want to keep me around.

With this strategy, I would theoretically be a target come final 4/5 because of my likability should I keep my hands clean. Come then, I might have to turn it on cut a close ally but beyond that I'm really going to try to stay above the fray so to speak, using my social relationships to set up my spot in the next round.

The focus between my social and strategic game will be to use my social relationships to attain information on other relationships and strategy. Maximizing information is key in this game and I need to know as much as I can to keep myself off the chopping block. I was able to do this in my last game (although for much more sinister reasons ) and it worked incredibly well in terms of understanding exactly what is going on in the game. I hope to employ a similar mindset in this game, but with much more passive intentions.

There's not much else to go into so let's talk about the game!

Relationships: 

My top 1 on 1 relationship I have going right now is Max. I touched on our conversation briefly in my cast write up but today we actually talked a decent amount of strategy. It's clear that he trusts me a decent amount as we talked about how tribal might go down over there. He seems to believe Chase is going which seems logical considering Max and I both had the same (lack of) experience with him at the time. Regardless, a few people over here have seemed to settle on Max as a potential target so I worry that he's a little too overtrusting and is gonna go because of it. 

Beyond him, I've also connected with Misty, Pete, Sarah, and Danielle more so than others. 

Alliances:

An alliance was formed between Danielle, Sarah, Matty, and myself today during the challenge actually. This alliance is definitely in my best interest considering how much trouble I've had talking to Abi/Darrah/Stephen. Jay seems to be on the outs for whatever reason.

I do worry because I've already noted how open Sarah was talking strategy with me. She was also the one, with Danielle to approach me about the alliance so I have to worry about 1: Sarah being an aggressive player, 2: Sarah/Danielle being a pair, and 3: my current lack of a close relationship with Matty. I'm really gonna have to work on the three of them, especially Matty/Jay to make sure I'm not getting shafted by the girls.

Tribal Council: 

From what I've been hearing there's a couple options. Most people reference Sierra/Pete/Max as targets. Max himself references Chase as the unanimous boot. Based on this minimal info alone, it looks like Max might be the one going home. The three of them have all had a rough start socially (Max has according to others, not to me though). I want Max around because he seems to trust me but beyond that I don't really care who goes home.

Sorry for the really bland confessional, I'm just trying to get a good base down so I can just add more from here. And I'm sure I'll get more emotional about it as we go along

[Eddie]

Odds and ends I picked up on:

Misty got a little emotional/animated during the challenge when everyone started to target her while she was hitting Danielle. It was probably her just trying to be funny but perception is reality in these games. I think in the future I can use this because a couple people reacted to it negatively in our tribe chat. All I have to do is mention to a couple people how "Misty's crazy, she hates Danielle" and that shit spreads like wildfire after a swap or at the merge. If it makes sense for my game, I'll put that target on Misty's back.

Bobby Jon is a funny guy and he gets really animated trying to get a laugh. He's probably the most "visible" cast member out here. This perception could easily be used to spread the "Bobby Jon is the leader" narrative. 

[Eddie]

Whether Max gets booted or not, I may end up with an idol clue out of this if our prior interactions are any indication.

With my tribe thinking he's going home, it was a pretty good excuse to give it to him from a tribal standpoint. I think everyone should go along with it

[Eddie]

Playing a little catch up:

Max got the clue and shared it with me. It's a female contestant. I kinda expected the clues to go like this. I can't know for sure but I'm betting that's Tane's idol so mine is probably a male contestant. I'm glad he shared it with me because it kinda cemented what I thought we had.

And now we get to probably the most eventful moment of round 1. So I'm casually talking on aim to Sierra. TRYING to get her to talk and what not. I mention the challenge (it's at least ONE thing we have in common right?) and later talk about how I'm nervous about how it might go. I mention Stephen's name has come up because he's a fucking inactive and sure enough....10 seconds later Stephen is in the tribe chat saying I'm "revealing tribe secrets/dynamics and telling Sierra everything that's happening and all the alliances." I'm paraphrasing there but you get it.

The weirdest part is he just logged out after that. I kept cool, calm, and collecti-...sorry wrong character. I kept my cool and explained what I said. I came clean about revealing Stephen hadn't been on a lot. Everyone seemed pretty cool about it but I know that it takes a hit on my perception either way. I gotta be extra good from now on, no loose ends. So by the time he came on with no proof or way to substantiate his claims, others were pretty quick to dismiss him on the basis that he's an inactive on the chopping block. Dodged a bullet, but just barely.

The fallout was two-fold: 1. I cannot and will not talk a lick of strategy with people I don't trust and 2. Sierra is dead to me and I'm gonna make sure everyone knows she's a weasel.

Tribal Council: 

I was pleasantly surprised that Chase went home pretty unanimously. Clearly he wasn't talking to people very much as Max and I had suggested. I'm glad Max pulled through since he's a pretty good guy. Although it's nothing for certain, it makes me be a tiny bit wary of Max's game if only because he's not as weak as I thought he was. Is it bad that I liked him more when I thought he was near the bottom? Probably :/ 

Odds and Ends: My alliance was talking about the tribe dynamics over at Tane and I made sure to mention BJ as "the leader" over there, which the others readily agreed to (we have no fucking idea lol). The more I can get that narrative going the better. One more person for them to worry about. One less round the target is on me.