Nikki

**Nikki** (Nikki !!#7975) placed 8th in Season 7.

Off to a slower start on Yalo, Nikki found herself in the majority alliance “Ghostbusters” and was able to sit pretty for the pre-swap challenges due to an immunity run. At the swap, Nikki was once again cushioned with an immunity run, and became one of two people in the season to make the merge without ever having to attend Tribal Council. Despite this not at all being a sign of a player having a strong social game due to it being immunity wholly, some of the players began to look at Nikki as a big threat and potential mastermind for “being able to stay alive for so long.” As if sensing this perception, Nikki stepped her game up instantly at the merge, becoming a lot more active and attempting to have a very large social game. This at times led to Nikki being outright messy or perceived as so, as she would play telephone often with pretty much the entire tribe without being incredibly subtle about it. Her core alliance came shortly after the merge with Jesse and Sage called “Smoke Sesh,” which she would devote all of her loyalty to. While initially #1 allies with Nehemiah, Nikki quickly turned fully and completely against him when Sage took his place and she perceived him as a liability for being very extroverted in the camp chats. During her time in this alliance, Nikki would confessional often about being the mastermind behind the alliance, and how they were essentially doing what she said and she was manipulating the entire group. In reality, while her input was valid especially during the Nehemiah vote, Sage was playing a very impressive and manipulative game and was misting key players into trusting him and thinking they had more agency than they actually appeared to. This alliance was especially ironic, as Nikki initially blew up on Sage in the first day of the merge due to him being ranked noticeably higher than anyone else in the entire tribe in Captaincy despite claiming to “talk to no one,” telling her fellow Yalos that they should try to get him out. Her downfall in the game came in two parts. First, during Nehemiah’s blindside she brought in Ron “The Rat” on the plan despite her alliance being firmly against it, which ended up almost ruining their plan when Ron promptly ratted to Nehemiah about a plan to blindside him. This made her allies perceive her as a very messy and emotional player, and while she confessionaled this was partially intentional, perception is reality and her allies began to keep a close eye on her and consider her a potential liability. Because of this, a major misunderstanding occurred that would send her shocked and bitter, completely blindsided into Ponderosa. After Touchy Subjects, a tense Tribal Council followed in which the entire tribe ganged up on Ron for “being a rat” and publicly told him he is going home. Seeming to start and help foster this public chaos was Roci, as she felt emboldened due to possessing Safety Without Power but not intending to use it. In the Smoke Sesh alliance, the group decided they felt bad for Ron as he got heavily ganged up on, and that it would be iconic to then blindside Roci as she would never see it coming and they were starting to perceive her as a threat. Nikki, having a better relationship with Roci than Ron, was against this and expressed her hesitation to go forth with the blindside. Literally minutes after she expressed her displeasure, Roci got paranoid and played her Safety Without Power mere minutes before it would expire for the round, saving her life in the game on her own whim that calling out Ron would put her in danger. This sent off false alarms to the rest of the Smoke Sesh, as they thought it was “obvious” that Nikki had told Roci to play it due to them flipping. A furious Sage then suggested that they take out Nikki instead, which the other two happily agreed that she proved to be an untrustworthy threat. They became comically hostile on their voting parchments and DMs about “sussing her out” despite being completely wrong, and pulled Leo into a new “Final 4” alliance against Nikki. All the while, Nikki was snoozing thinking the vote was an easy Ron vote, her famous last words to the alliance “goodnight guys, see you tomorrow.” In the end, Nikki would wake up to see that a 5-2 vote blindsided her into Jury despite seemingly being completely loyal to the Smoke Sesh. She is remembered for shifting from being a goofy character to being strategically competent as a player, albeit a bit messy.