I actually love this swap for me, timing wise and people wise.
timing wise, got rid of the one person that probably wouldn't be willing to work with me in the long term in shonee. then remaining on that tribe were three people i was pretty tight with...and now i dont have to vote any of them out
and on top of that, i switched onto a tribe that has BOTH all the best challenge people as well as NO TULUA. in fact, ive only played with two of these people before, flick and jennah louise back on larrakai. i think in a swap where the tribe balance is 4-3-1 and i dont really have any preexisting relationships for people to worry about (maybe they know about flick?) my threat level is pretty minimized. it'd be super dumb for them to take me out first, particularly the group of 3 - they are opening themselves up to being pagonged if it even came to that. at the very least powerless.
so my strategy will continue. meet the new people here. have a group of people that would want to work with me come merge time but im not indebted to, suck up to the louder "power players" and start to learn the relationships of these people going into a merge so i can start playing chess and flipping with reckless abandon.
"who are the power players" you might say. Well, Flick is an easy first choice. AK has wisely told her im loyal to a fault. i know she's got her hands in many pots probably but she's a loud, fun player that even if i was in the minority with her she'd probably get targeted first at this point. she's an easy person to pin the vote on. will be interested to monitor, when I asked her who she's most excited to see besides me she said JL. Then shane and Jacq are "cool". jacqui first tried to bond with me by saying flick is her closest ally...we'll see who's being honest there.
the other player im hamming it up to is shane. she clearly knows what she is doing and understands the game. there's a reason she was voted #1. she is also the person, for those reasons, who i would least expect to be "djaru strong". if theres a cross coalition to be formed it'd be through her. i also have power in knowing that she had an alliance with zach and conner back on the original djaru. i learned this through the "viewing who is online" feature seeing they were private messaging each other. i dont know when/if id bring that up but it could be a bonding point.
JL and moana are other good peeps to keep in good graces which I think i've done a good job of, just in case that old swap tribe wants to stick together. i dont think they will though
lee everyone said is boring and then when i joined the tribe he immediately was like tell me all your alliances. lol. he sounds 12
moana is actually in high school and i like her a lot. i dont think shes actually good at the game from what i can see so far but she's likable and knows a lot of people so it'll be good to remain in good graces.
benji is basically nonexistent at this point