Episode 08

[Ashley Underwood]

Congratulations, you've made it to the Final 12, and the merge!

Tell me how you're feeling about making it this far, and what your plan is now that all of you are in one big tribe. How are you going to survive this next vote? How are you going to win the game? :)

[Kimmi]

I'm pretty excited. Particularly because up to this point I don't think I've ever once been considered a threat. I seem to be well-liked and well-trusted. I've got a couple close friends in Tina, Angie, and I hope in Jeff. And I've got a hidden immunity idol that no one knows about (I'm still waiting to spring that on people)

Right now I'm mainly going to keep my head down a bit. I'll try to suggest and hint at a few things with Jeff and Debb, like how Stacey isn't trustworthy and stuff in hopes that we can get her out, but mainly right now I want to just stay fairly non-threatening and try to use my connections to keep my finger on the pulse of things. I think Stacey doesn't know that I voted for her last night. My vote comment probably helped. I think it sounded like something Angie would say. I think she thinks that me and Tina voted Artis with her and the others voted for her and lied about voting Artis. So if she still thinks I'm with her, I could really use that to figure out what's going on in her head. The other Rai's are really the only wild cards, so I'll probably help vote them out first if I can.

[Marissa Peterson]

Why would you like Stacey out as the first boot?

[Kimmi]

Voting out Stacey would weaken Rai, for one. I'm not entirely convinced that Hayden, Rich, and Ramona wouldn't want to work with her at all. Especially since Hayden saved her. It would also keep me from exposing too much about my loyalties right off the bat. Honestly, I don't even know where my loyalties completely lie at the moment And let's be real, she's kind of a chaotic presence. At least, when she's here. I don't know where she's been the last day but apparently no one's heard from her. Probably just taking it easy though. That's what I should be doing But with all the chaos she caused during the last boot I think it'd be prudent to get rid of her. I wish she was already gone. It sucks that she can get on the jury now.

[Kimmi]

Thanks for fixing my name!

[Ashley Underwood]

What do you mean by the chaos she caused during the last boot? :)

[Kimmi]

I don't know if it was deliberate or not. I don't think it was, because she doesn't strike me as a strong player. She'd go around telling everyone to vote with her "or else" (in some cases) and then when they lied to her and agreed to get her off their back, she went to others and was like "I have so-and-so and so-and-so voting with me, you need to vote with me too" so no one really knew where everyone stood and couldn't tell if she really did have people voting with her or if they were just lying to her. It just caused tension that didn't need to be there and complicated an otherwise easy vote.

Also, I have another reason to get rid of her. She approached me and tried to get me to vote with her and the other Rai. She wanted to pull in one more person and I suggested Jeff, so we could keep a good grip on things. I figured it'd be better to have someone I trust faking being alligned with her than someone I don't. So if she bites, Jeff will have an in as well and we can get some more info through that. But back to what I was originally saying, if we vote out Stacey I think the other Rai would be more understanding than if we targeted one of them. Stacey lied to us and caused problems, so it'd be reasonable to vote for her. Also, Jeff could use the fact that he didn't trust her as a reason for voting for her. It's not a guarantee that they'll be ok with him doing that, but it's better than the alternative.

[Jeff Probst]

So from an outside perspective, it seems that this season is unique in that there are no huge power players that are pulling the strings, at least not outwardly. It seems as though there is a lot of UTR play, or maybe I'm just not paying attention :P So anyway, my question is, in a season full of UTR play, would taking a leadership role make sense? Would the UTR players be too timid to challenge an authority role?

[Kimmi]

Do you find our UTR play boring, Jeff?

I think a leader will emerge eventually. Stacey seems to be trying, bless her heart. But for now I think everyone's in the same mindset that they want to see how things reveal themselves in the first merge round before they try to step up and make any big moves. Taking a leadership role later would probably be ok, but for now I think it'd be incredibly dangerous. Everyone is looking for a reason to target someone so to try to step up and take charge would just give them that excuse they're looking for. So no, I don't think those of us playing UTR would be too timid to stand up to someone trying to play leader. They'd just stand up to them by secretly plotting to vote them out.

[Kimmi]

I don't know what's going to happen tonight. None of the Kirati have really focused on making sure Denise is with us and Rai is pretty together on what to do. They've also recruited Debb to their cause. I thought I could convince her to flip but I guess I was wrong. She seems pretty unsure on what to do and could be a very crucial vote.

I also told Jeff about the immunity idol. I'm almost positive I can trust him. I wouldn't have, but he asked about it and if I lied it could bite me in the butt later. Speaking of the idol, I think there's a small possibility that I might have to use it tonight. I'm pretty much relying on Jeff for that one, but I think there's a chance that Debb might have outed me to the Rai and I'm no longer in on their plans, so they could very well turn the vote on me for that. I don't regret the decision to lie to them at all, it got me valuable info, but it could still hurt me a little. I did NOT come this far to be booted at the start of the merge.

[Kimmi]

It's waaaaaay too quiet for the two hours before the first merge vote.

[Jeff Probst]

I want to see a feisty Kimmi that is a boss bitch, chances on that happening?

[Kimmi]

You know I'm not really all that feisty But we'll see what happens.

[Kimmi]

Thank goodness that worked. I swear, I have no idea why she liked me so much

[Jeff Probst]

Why thank goodness for ousting someone who liked you?

[Kimmi]

Why thank goodness for ousting someone who liked you?

Well, I didn't realize she liked me that much for starters. She was so shifty and her messages were so short and contained nothing but instructions on what to do for the vote. I voted for her because I didn't think I could trust her and she was trying to order me around, also she was an easy vote for the extra votes like Jeff, Debb, and Denise to get behind. So I don't regret voting her out at all. I think it was a good choice. Plus, since she apparently likes me she might possibly be a jury vote in my favor if I get that far. I just have to make sure people who are fat are in the finals with me