[Jeff Probst]

Bit of a reset here.

What are your thoughts on the game becoming 20 players? What are your thoughts on playing with the newbies?

With mostly all of the inactive players gone, do you foresee the gameplay ramping up? What is your strategy in this new tribe?

Who do you think will be the immediate target on the tribe? How will your game evolve with this new stage of the game?

[Joaquin]

Bit of a reset here.

What are your thoughts on the game becoming 20 players? What are your thoughts on playing with the newbies?

With mostly all of the inactive players gone, do you foresee the gameplay ramping up? What is your strategy in this new tribe?

Who do you think will be the immediate target on the tribe? How will your game evolve with this new stage of the game?

Thoughts on the game moving forward

The game is afoot! This tribe swap literally could not have gone ANY better for me. 5/6 people who voted with me throughout the Refuge stage (and the one missing is Drew who I fought with before tribal last night...) Missed Ryan who is probably the one person in the game that hates me, and got Danni + Lydia who are the two members of Brian's Lucayan alliance who I haven't met yet. Three easy targets in Mari, Jim and Blake. On paper, this is a perfect landing spot, with current and great potential allies and easy boots before an inevitable swap. BUT we gotta put in the work here. If I sit back and do nothing, I could easily see myself voted out. Eyes on the merge.

Gameplay obviously steps up. No inactives, there's nowhere to hide, no tribe kumbaya bullshit. My number one priority is getting in tight with Brian's Lucayan alliance. Convincing Brian I'm not a snake for voting out Nick (which he wanted, but obviously the kind words Mr Maiorano left can leave an impact), really establishing Danni and Lydia as long term allies and that I want to work with Gary. Connecting with these people can give me numbers in the event of another swap and can give me an out post-merge if shit hits the fan with Fuckboys R Us + Chrissy. Caryn, Dale and Chrissy obviously know where I stand so need to keep it up with them too.

Thoughts on Last Night

Last night was a rough one, probably the most eventful tribal involving me since I started playing stranded (shows just how boring Indo was...) Voting Nick out was NOT something I wanted to do, Ryan was my target, but Ryan won immunity (partly out of my own selfishness to go drinking instead of doing the challenge. I would have won that 8/10 times). Chrissy and I have bonded well over the past few days and she is well connected to other members of our alliance (Caryn). Nick is a great guy and we came into the game as friends, but honestly he wasn't playing well. He wasn't as active as he needed to be and only was really close with Ryan, and had supporters in me and Drew. Not enough to fight the others on to vote Chrissy out instead. Drew and I fought over it before tribal - he wanted Nick to stay since he felt like he could be a Drew pawn. He also felt like me and Caryn were basically bossing him around all game and that he didn't get any input. BITCH WHAT. Dude, the first three votes were two inactives and a pretty much unanimous vote among us four, this last one was the only one that was even complicated. AND YOU WEREN'T ONLINE AT ALL DURING THE DAY. Caryn Dale and I all put it WORK on some of these people and strategizing all day. At some point you can't just use us for numbers and gotta join in. I love the kid but this could be a contentious moment going forward, especially if he teams up with Ryan over on the new swapped tribe.

[Joaquin]

Two things I forgot:

I was an asshole to Nick, buttered him up way too much. That's my bad and I gotta own that. Hopefully shit works out after the season .

Danni is fucking awesome, I think we may be the same person. Gotta push this bromance

[Joaquin]

Saturday going into Sunday Tribal Update:

- Vets for sure have the power in this tribe. We barely had to work for it, all the newbies kinda just came running to us. All the OG Lucayan are kinda just angling for who gets to be the top tag-alongs to the vets, which is absolutely great for my game. Barring some sort of epic collapse, I don't see myself getting voted out pre-swap here. Once Blake and Mari are gone (the consensus first two boots, due to inactivity and weirdness) the vets essentially hold a majority.
-I really, really, really like Danni. Like, potential partner in crime for the rest of the season like Danni. We just have such similar backgrounds and are ex--frat bros that try to seem cool but really we're weirdos. Idk, I know that I should trust people like Dale and Drew more since we know each other from the past and have voted together consistently, but I'm just getting a vibe that this is the person I need to own this season with. We'll see how it develops. We've had some pretty personal conversations already.
-Lydia and Brian need to calm the fuck down. I play along, but they keep writing these essays about the amazing time they're having and how blessed they are to be casted with us vets. Like chill your tits I'm just a random 23 year old dude
-Jim is back, which is good and bad? He would have been an easy third boot if it came to it and he was still inactive. But he also seems to like me a decent amount I guess that's alright. He's pretty oblivious to some things (he offered up Caryn as a boot) and is clearly sucking up to all the vets but better to have him active than not. I threw some strategy words at him like "alliance" and "merge" and he seemed to dig it.
-Blake is nonexistent. He messaged me the first night and that's it. Y'all know the drill, if you don't message me you can get the fuck out.
-Mari is active but super weird. Hyper. Apparently told Danni that us vets must suck because "it's our third try" (well, my second). Bitch please, you don't get invited back unless Proobsty saw something in ya.
-Speaking of Jim tossing out Caryn's name...this worked out really well for me today. Chrissy heard this too and freaked out. Basically complaining that me and her are the only ones putting in work on the vet side and that Caryn needs to be active yada yada yada...I'll take all the Caryn complaining I can get! Not that I don't love my good cuntress, but being able to pry Chrissy away from Caryn and closer to me is always optimal. That's one of the reasons I didn't mind Chrissy, I'm relatively close to her this time around.
-Which...I feel like I'm in a pretty good spot with everyone not named Blake or Mari. I hope we don't have to boot three people before a swap, because someone is gonna fucking hate me again. Lydia I need some more time with but I'm confident.
-I FOUND THE FUCKING IDOL TODAY. One-clued that shit. Hopefully I'll never have to use it, it's useful even in knowing that no one else here has it. No one is finding out about it unless absolutely necessary.
-THERES STILL 20 PEOPLE LEFT. My god. This is such a long game. Like, I feel so deep into it and there's all sorts of relationships going on and I'm looking towards the merge yet there are more people out here than started in Indonesia. Absolutely wild and puts it in perspective how long I have to go.