Zac:
I made merge! I'm super excited to make it here and ready to ride this thing out to the end. The merge is the most fun part of the game. At this point we've all made our alliances and adding in new players from the other tribes tests those alliances.
The merge started off with a bang with that immunity challenge. Both Sanda and Ethan were talking to me before the challenge and I had pretty good bonds with my swap tribe so I felt good going into the challenge. Ethan even said he wouldn't target me until f3 of the challenge. So, I'm like ok work sure I won't go for you either. I wasn't very intimidated by him as a player so why not I'll take your deal. Boom Sanda shoots me...a mistake. Newz shoots me...facepalm we're on the same side dude. Then to top it off Ethan takes me out of the game. He did not know what he was starting at this point.
In the main chat there was drama with Ethan, Hadley, and Brady. They fought over some chat or whatever, but I used this opportunity to paint Ethan's target even bigger. I tell the tribe the deal he offered me and that was enough to expose that the man is shady.
Sanda ends up winning...yawn. That girl is exhausting, it's like playing with some immature toddler who you let win when you play games because they cry if they lose. She'll definitely be crying when she's eventually voted out.
Clearly based on my fight with Ethan and tension with Sanda, I was gonna be a target for the vote, but I pulled out some tricks. First, I apologize to Antonio for everything I did to him on our swap tribe and we have a truce (for now at least). Second, I solidify my f2 with Daniel, he is in the ears of a lot of people on our tribe so having him as an ally is best case for me since he can keep my name out of the plans of people I'm not as close with. Finally, I make another secret alliance with Hadley. I got the vibe that Hadley has some fight in them which I love to see in my allies. They were on the other tribe for all of the pre-merge, so I don't think many others will suspect us two working together.
Now we get to the vote, I pretty much took control of this vote since no one else wanted to say a name. At that point I had already called out Ethan so it was easy to just throw his name out again. Everyone else ran with that and Ethan was voted out 10-2. The flavor.
These next few votes will really decide if I can win this season and its all gonna be about maintaining my relationships. In every vote now I have to think, what is the best move I can make that will not piss off Daniel, Brady, and now Hadley. For right now I want to work on gaining Hadley's trust. I already have Brady indebted to me for saving him during the swap, and Daniel has mainly been doing what I want anyways. If I want to go to the end with Daniel I have to make moves that will distinguish myself from him, and working with Hadley to take out a big threat like Newz could be that move.
However, my alliance from the swap wants to split on Sanda/Hadley. My biggest fear with this would be Sanda playing her idol that we all know she has and Hadley being voted out because of this. At this point I don't know if I'm going to expose the plan to Hadley or just stick to the split. I guess we're gonna have to stayed tuned to find out what will happen.