Oh no! Brenda! I swear you must have snuck that post in while I was typing all Stealth-R-Us style! I would never fob off Serenity like that girl! Ugh, look at you though all flawless skin and glossy hair and perfect teeth.... Seriously, what a divine deity. Thanks for the post of praise, I hope I can do you ladies proud!
Now, let's get down to answering those questions, yeah Steph?
How confident are you going into this game that you will win?I'll be honest, in the lead-up to today I was starting to get some major doubt issues creeping in on me. But now that I've actually started and am getting to meet my tribemates I am feeling a lot more confident about things. I can't even say why particularly, I just feel like things are gelling at the moment and that I'm off to a great start for me considering I usually find these first few days the most gruelling mentally since you're doing almost nothing other than making pleasant small-talk and sizing up all the people on your tribe - trying to determine who you think you can trust and who you might want to keep at arm's length.
What are your opinions of your fellow tribemates?OK, I've spoken to everyone except Marissa and Ciera so far and it really seems like a very sweet group with some obviously varying degrees of experience in the game. Vytas has taken quite the liking to Katie and I'm still trying to figure out if he is being genuine and might want to work together or if he is trying to string me along so that I will do what he says and be a bit of a puppet. As nice as it is to have someone flirting with you (if not a little bit creepy at times though), I'll be certainly keeping my eyes and ears open in regards to Vytas and will make sure that he is worthy of trust before I jump into anything head-first.
John Cody and Brad Culpepper both seem incredibly green and a little naive. I've made sure to let them know if they need anything at all or have any questions whatsoever that they can come to Katie and hopefully they feel comfortable enough to actually reach out to me as I'd most certainly look after them and make sure they feel comfortable and safe as it can only help me to be seen as friendly, helpful, central figure in their eyes.
Laura is a hard one to read. Her first post being Caleb-related made me think she was going to be a spectacular trainwreck.. I mean, honestly? I was so concerned that people wouldn't just leave that outside the game and was a little annoyed that in the
first post on the tribe board it was brought up. However, from speaking to Laura a little after that she actually slightly turned my opinion on her around and I think she definitely has her head on her shoulders somewhat which makes me less likely to just want to write her off as I was intent on doing after seeing that post.
Hayden is my friend Coby's partner and that makes me exciting to work with him as he and I just seemed to click really well right off the bat. I was contemplating telling him that he is partnered with my friend but might actually hold those cards close to my chest for a little while longer in order to see if my partner, Cochran and I, can figure out a strategy that we want to run with as I don't want to have limited our options because I've already spilled the beans on my end.
What is your strategy and approach to the game?I can't rely on challenge strength so it's very important I integrate into the social core of the tribe to avoid being picked off for challenge weakness pre-merge. I think that I came up with a pretty solid way to play the partner's twist with my partner Cochran but that is all dependant on us trusting one another enough to divulge the identity of our respective friends in the game.
How do you feel the rep of Katie fits you? Will you adjust your game to fit the rep, or just play as you would regardless?I'll be completely honest. When I saw the Katie avatar in my inbox I was thoroughly disappointed. She is actually nothing like me and her style of play in BvW doesn't line up with the way I prefer to play
at all. Never mind that I also didn't want to play a female rep and that seeing Katie meant we were obviously using BvW reps and that meant someone else was getting my ultimate rep choice in Hayden which lead to me spending a good half hour or so sulking and pouting and hating life. The more I thought about Katie as a rep the more I realised that she represented an opportunity for me to pull myself out of my comfort zone and use her to play a different style of game. I think Katie is going to inform how I play this game for sure, not to the extent that it could be considered a schtick but I am definitely hoping to incorporate a few of Katie's more well-known traits, the sweetness, shyness and friendliness, into my social game while trying to also maintain a strong strategic element so that I don't get too soft.
What are your thoughts on the partners twist? Are you disappointed you're not partnered with your friend you came into the game with? Do you plan on working with your friend should you end up on the same tribe?Well, considering my friend was the very first person I PMed in the game and I have yet to receive a reply I am going to go ahead and say no, I am not disappointed to have not been paired up with Coby and I certainly hope this isn't an indication that he actually couldn't care less about me being in the game now that things have gotten underway. The partners twist is certainly interesting in that we've got to not only consider our friend and our partner, but our friend's partner and our friend's partner's friend.
I proposed to Cochran that we should quickly divulge the identity of our friend to one another so that we could form a three-person alliance with them and our friend's partner on our own tribe. There are a lot of moving parts though and it could get really messy, really quickly. The twist could lead to individuals being targeted in order to weaken their partner and that worries me. I like that I am teamed with Cochran though as he and I seem to have hit it off really well.
Do you feel the returning players could have an advantage over you given they've been through this all before?Not especially. This is far from my first rodeo. But we do seem to have a fairly inexperienced tribe which could be slightly problematic in terms of challenge strength.
