[Danni Boatwright]

Welcome to the merge! the 14 of you are all that remains of our cast of winners, and one of you will be walking away from the Valentine tribe $200 richer.

1-Did you expect to make it this far?
2-Who are you excited to meet back up with? Anyone you're ready to drop?
3-How does the merge change your game plan? Are you prepared to start playing harder?

[Cassandra]

Welcome to the merge! the 14 of you are all that remains of our cast of winners, and one of you will be walking away from the Valentine tribe $200 richer.

1-Did you expect to make it this far?

Yeah.

2-Who are you excited to meet back up with? Anyone you're ready to drop?

Obviously Jeff and Yve were the freshest breaths of air since I could rely on some prompt and thorough recaps of events from them. And it is nice that the middle man in Cochran was axed so they become reliant on me--in Yve’s case pretty much entirely reliant. Yve is shaping up to be prime goat material while Jeff is still trying to downplay himself out of relevance. Right now he’s so worried about his relationships being exposed that he wasn’t even willing to talk about Cochran to Catalie in the fear that she’d connect him to me and Penner. I’m not really mad about it because it makes it easier for me to maneuver, and I’ve already started hearing his and Yve’s names thrown out as easy boots, which might not have happened if everyone thought I was tight with them. The only problem is, if I can’t scrounge something together this round, I might just downplay him out of the game.

Someone else I was not happy to see was Val, who immediately confronted me about calling her a bully to Alex. I don’t know why Alex ever thought it was a good idea to pass along that info, but I had to do some damage control and retcon things to say I told him Dan and Alec were bullying me, and that she was just allied with them. Judging by her forwardness, though, I would think she’s the type of person who appreciates this sort of thing being settled dead-on and we may actually have grown closer thanks to it because now we’re cracking jokes and putting off the pretense that we love each other.

3-How does the merge change your game plan? Are you prepared to start playing harder?

With the developments that went on at Jormungand, I’m not sure where Tammy stands, but I am increasingly satisfied with my move tipping her off on the Ziggy boot (and with the fact that I threw Penner under the bus). Talking to her so far, it doesn’t seem like she’s totally comfortable with me just yet, but I see it less as distrust of me and more being wary of my connection with Penner, so it’s fine. I think I grew on Kim a lot on Munin 2.0, which will help me with Tammy in the long run. More importantly, I seem to have passed Kim’s evaluation with such flying colors that Cristina has trusted me with the information that she is willing to flip, and willing to flip as early as this round if I can get the numbers together.

Problem is, I have no idea where to go from there and I don’t even want to go anywhere without cross-checking with Cristina beforehand, lest she feels I mishandled something and ends up balking. Before I had even gotten anything concrete from Cristina, I figured Russell was a safe bet, seeing as 1) he was slated to go next on OG Munin, 2) he was shaky enough to waste that idol, and 3) we had actually played together for a single round on Allies when he was Chris. So I took the opportunity to slip in all this information as justification for asking him about OG Munin dynamics, and he started talking about how “amenable” he was. He just kept repeating that word. And like, I haven’t really gotten anywhere since then, but that branding makes me think that I could get something a little more solid from him tomorrow. After that, if Cristina is stumped, he might have some idea of the next OG Munin(s) to flip.

My pitch to Cristina was basically a two-pronged attack of:
1. The 6 OG Fenrir are actually more maneuverable than the 8 OG Munin at any stage of the game, due to the existing cracks which would probably end up as Jeff/Yve/Penner on one side, the other couple/few OG Munin who we bring in on the other side, and me/her/Kim/Tammy in the middle
2. The longer this is deferred, the more OG Munin we’re going to have to bring in, so even though it’s early the clock is ticking fast

But obviously I can’t use these arguments on Russell or anyone else, so I’m gonna have to think of some other way. One thing Russdawg did tell me was he couldn’t imagine I’d be on the chopping block this round, so worst case scenario I have to let one or both of Yve/Jeff go before making any kind of GAME-CHANGING move. I think I’ve cemented in Cristina’s mind as a pretty necessary component for a flip so I think I’m protected for a while.

Quick thoughts on everyone I haven't mentioned yet:

Joaquin: Funny guy, I get similar vibes to Vytas where we’ll both appreciate each other but never really trust each other.

Stephanie: Haven’t talked to her much, but when I did I just sort of enunciated my disappointment in things looking like they’re on “OG tribal lines.” Been doing this with pretty much everyone to see if they’ll give any inch on an OG Munin fracture, and so they’ll associate Tammy as distinctly orange.

Catalie: Literally have not talked to at all yet.

Melinda and Love are also being super shitty. The whole “downplaying Munin 2.0” thing sure has given them a great excuse to go off and ignore us. Melinda told me the stupidest shit about Jeff and Yve being in the hot seat for throwing out Russell’s name. And that’s the most substantial thing she’s given me amidst all the “ahhhh ok that makes sense” and “it would be cool if we did something haha”

I also have this extra vote good for this round and no longer! I have no idea how I would use it because even with “Fenrir strong” it’d end up 6-8 and with the extra vote 7-8. The only thing I can think of is if we all acted like we were going with the majority to encourage a vote split, and then maybe me/Penner/Jeff/Yve/Kim use it to break a 6 through the 5-4 split. But then we burn every respective bridge we have. Maybe we tell Tammy and Cristina beforehand but let them vote with the majority so they have plausible deniability and can feed us info? Say, this isn’t such a bad idea. I may need to wake up early to float this by people. There’s also the option of putting “Fenrir strong” out there so that they can’t split the votes, and then maybe if I get Russell to come along the extra vote (which would make it 9 vs. 6).will be enough security for Cristina. Or maybe leverage it over Russell or whoever else, saying we already have Cristina and the extra vote would make it go to rocks? In that case I’d need to ask Cristina how many additional people she’d need to feel comfortable. There’s also underneath all of this the very real threat of someone else on OG Munin having gotten the other extra vote. By my calculations, the only people who could have this without it being expired is Loveita, Melinda, or Cristina. If Cristina had it, that’d be grand. If Love/Melinda had it, not so much. So, question to the fans at home...what the FUCK should I do?