In post 627, Jamelia wrote:I’ll also say that Bella/Scoots please be a lot more specific about what you did throughout the game because Zoraster just shat on y’all in his opening speech.
Sure! I didn't know how detailed I was expected to be in my opener, but I'll work on one, gimme a bit.
In post 636, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Scoots - I enjoyed (finally) meeting you and we had some good conversations! However, when I sent you a promposal, you threw the corsage I bought in the garbage. Was there ever a chance of us at least riding in the limo together? If yes, why didn't we? If no, when did you make that decision?
Hasch! We definitely did have some good convos. I really do love bluegrass I wasn't just saying that. And I pressed those flowers!
I actually anticipated this question!
So I'll answer by zooming out a bit. I worry that there's a misunderstanding of exactly how loyal I was and how willing I was to work with people. You were not the only who promposed to me, and this roundabout answer will apply to everyone else who did as well:
Was there a chance? Yeah. Because of my challenge ability and my social strength, I didn't want to be viewed as a strategic threat as well, so I made sure to never be seen as pushing a vote. Often times I would lie to people and tell them that, by the time I had heard about the vote, there were already enough people to make it happen and it was out of my hands. That wasn't true even one time during the merge. I was always one of the first to hear about it, if not decide it myself. Even though I purposefully took a step back from a more survivor strategy, I was still in the thick of things. This served two purposes, minimizing my threat level as I wrote above, and (now we get to your question), making me seem like someone who could be convinced, who could be worked with. My strategy was all about keeping as many doors open as possible so that whatever happened in the game, I was good.
So, for every deal I had, I was in the limo until you were the target. Not because I was powerless to stop it, but because I had invites from so many people, I was gonna be at prom no matter which way the cookie crumbled.
In post 625, entreri wrote:To all of you:
What single play are you most proud of this game?
I have a few moments I'm proud of, but the thing that I hang my hat on is the Jamelia Saga. Wayyyyyyy back during the idol hunt, I was (i think) the only one he trusted to let in that he had an idol, and I kept that secret for him because I wanted him onside. During the last swap before the merge, we finally came back together and things were different. My vibes were pinging wrong. I realized, how nice would it be fore Jamelia to go to the merge with no one knowing he has an idol? That was a huge incentive to vote me out. I told my alliance as soon as I knew that he had even floated my name out there. This changed the course of things entirely, basically forcing him to flush the idol at the last vote before merge and opening him up to be the first juror.
Even though after the merge, he tried to build a bridge with me, (I'm sorry Jamelia but I still don't believe you when you said you targeted me
after
I spilled the beans), again, the vibes were wrong. I did what I could to ensure that the vote remained on him. One of the ways was elevating his threat level, making people scared of him. He's a very good player, but I wanted to make him seem like and urgent threat. (DK, when you asked me why I told Bella I was "terrified" of you and I said I wasn't, I was telling the truth. I wanted other people to jump at the mysterious player who "apparently they've had to cast around in other ORGS.")
So from being seen as trustworthy enough to share info of an idol with, to reading the room correctly, to spilling the info at the right time thereby flushing an idol, to successfully pushing his vote, I'd say that is the move(s) I'm most proud of.
I wasn't targeting you, I was targeting the idea that you/brom/dv were sticking together, but my target was never you because of our relationship and you knowing I had the idol. You didn't "force" me to flush the idol, I had already decided to play the idol before all of this because I was going on vacation and everyone all game had figured I had it.
Hiya all, first off congratulations to all the finalists for making it this far, it's been a long game, but these days might end up being the longest for y'all. And well, I have some questions.
Bella, you're great and I adore you. Of the finalists you are the only one who didn't turn their back on me, even to the point of casting a protest vote. Everyone always called you a threat and yet here you are, I have every reason to vote for you. But if you want to win this game, I and everyone else need to know, in detail, what was your strategy, did you just ride your own hype wave to the end? did you make moves that people barely noticed but were key to your survival? Did you strategically choose not to do things? It sounds like the last of those based on your opening and if so, well, it certainly needs expanding on why it was necessary beyond the blurb you have.
Scoots, tbh, I was most interested in what you would have to say in your final speech, but of the finalists it certainly seems the most, vague and sparse, and to be honest, the perception of you from the jury is that you were more or less in zoraster's shadow the entire time, do you have a rebuttal to this? Was there a round post-merge where you got what you want over Zor or drove a vote that Zor didn't, cause if not you're gonna have a hard time swaying people.
Zor, tbh I was expecting your speech to miss the mark, at least when it came to me, but I am pleasantly surprised, it's a pretty good speech, and the section about me, yeah I liked it. Whether you intended to or not you stroked my ego in all the right ways and I appreciate it, BUT that does not mean it would be easy to get my vote, in fact if you want it it'll be quite hard and you'll have a lot easier time convincing most of the other people around here to vote for you. However, I still have questions which I want answers to, and hopefully you'll give them to me. Still, how you paint the round where I went home was that you were basically backed into a corner by the twist because it would have take literally everyone to overwhelm the "will" of the gods, but to be honest, it sounds to me like you just decided that and didn't even try. After all you had good relations with pretty much everyone who was around, you could have at least drafted up a list of who you most wanted to see gone of that group and tried to make that happen (hell if you had done that and decided I was the one you needed gone most then I'd probably respect it a lot), you could have gone to bat for me with Radja (and if you did I'd like for one of y'all to enlighten me) or given me a heads up instead of me having to be informed by DV, but instead you decided to do nothing. And sure you can hide behind the "but if I did something I might have died instead" card, but ya know that doesn't me a lot to ME, because 1. I don't for one second believe you would have been the one to bite the bullet and 2. I want the person I vote for to be someone inspiring, and someone who lets a presumably close ally just die and doesn't even give them the heads up, doesn't inspire me. Sorry, there's suppose to be a question here, I guess it's "why should I be inspired by your game?" like it sounds like you made a lot of long term deals with a lot of people and cut them only to then cut the people you made yet another deal with, only to fall back on the people from your first tribe and giving almost everyone the runaround, and that framing, I can't vote for. So what about your game should I strive to emulate?
Secondarily (I know I have a second question after that paragraph, I am being really greedy), like honestly where did I fit into your game? Cause you mention how I managed to pull a lot of things off and how you didn't want to vote me the round after haschel and even talked me up in your opening statement, and I am having a hard time reconciling that with my send off and you saying that you got the final 4 you wanted. So did I matter? Or was I just a stepping stone, cause if I was that's fine, but I'd really like to hear it for myself.
Anyway that's rambly and I tried to be as fair as I could, I might have failed, but yeah, those are my questions to y'all.
Pants was worried that DV/Scoots/Brom/Zoraster were going to just steam roll us, and we had to figure out a way to get in between them. I didn't think I would be targeted before them, but i certainly didn't want Ent/Pants to go before... like DV who hadn't talked to me. And if the choice was between Brom/You, then brom because less of an ally to me than you.
I expressed my concerns to Zoraster who hadn't betrayed me yet, who then spun it to where Pants was trying to get out Scoots (not necessarily true), and I supported it (not true). So, to me this just confirms that Zoraster played you off of me, and the same back. He got you angry at me and then you told him about the idol, which he basically hinted to me about. Which is when I said ok well Scoots isn't a good ally anymore, I am fine with him going.
So that's my timeline. I don't really think you did anything to get me out more than believe what Zoraster was telling you instead of confirming with me what happened. Which I think is a plus for Zoraster
In post 652, Jamelia wrote:I wasn't targeting you, I was targeting the idea that you/brom/dv were sticking together, but my target was never you because of our relationship and you knowing I had the idol. You didn't "force" me to flush the idol, I had already decided to play the idol before all of this because I was going on vacation and everyone all game had figured I had it.
So wrong I guess
Oh I was just going off of what you told me
You told me in DMs "And I burned the idol because you told people I had it." and "it really fucked up my game when you told people that."
In post 652, Jamelia wrote:I wasn't targeting you, I was targeting the idea that you/brom/dv were sticking together, but my target was never you because of our relationship and you knowing I had the idol. You didn't "force" me to flush the idol, I had already decided to play the idol before all of this because I was going on vacation and everyone all game had figured I had it.
So wrong I guess
Oh I was just going off of what you told me
You told me in DMs "And I burned the idol because you told people I had it." and "it really fucked up my game when you told people that."
I lied to make myself look more reactionary in a merge that was going to be hard for me to navigate, and just hoped and prayed I would look way less of a threat than I thought I was...
In post 641, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Scoots, you focused on challenges in your speech. Zor, you talked about adapting to a game-changing twist. Bella, you talked about the non-anon nature of the game allowing you to focus your social game. Theses are all exactly the sort of things I want to hear about; I want to hear about how you used the structure of this game to your advantage. How did you handle swaps / the rate of swaps? Did you use group chats? Were you the one making the group chats? How did you handle being in multiple groupchats that overlapped members? Did you have plans in case it was an F2?
The structure of the game influenced my decisions in that, knowing that there would be possibly millions of swaps before merge, and knowing it would be a long long game, I knew I had an amazing opportunity to make as many connections as I did. Unfortunately you and I never ended up together before merge, but for most everyone else there, creating those bonds was something I knew I would need down the pike. To bring it back around to my relationship with challenges:
I remember early on in the game, Bella told me that I was shaping up to be quite the challenge beast. I thought to myself, oh, maybe I should play it down a little bit. But because of the nature of all the swaps, all of the webs of connections, I decided I would never throw anything, even if we had the easy majority and I was confident I wouldn't be going. (the one time i timed out of a puzzle it was because of a freaking typo in my answer, ugh. anyway....)
It's not because I just blindly wanted to win, it's because if we lost, the web of connections that I had created would be shattered. In most of the tribes I was in, i had a good relationship with most every single person. A vote would reveal that I wasn't as close to certain people as they thought, so I did my damnedest to win every time.
Definitely your vote, sadly. Not because of the end result (I actually think that round and the round or so before it we'd started to become personally closer and connect to each other, even if just over a shared geeky interest in video games and hobbits).
It was because I went against a reactive play. I was upset, I felt left out, I felt 'on the bottom' in a way that was a fairly new feeling within the game. It would have been really easy to commit to working with you 'til endgame, voting out het and Zor...but I feel that always runs into a time where I'm suddenly noones top priority - I know you had fairly good relationships with Radja and DV, and I think handling myself well that round is definitely the place where I made choices that progressed my game.
....I'm also thrilled I won the f4 challenge. I don't think I'd be here without it, and I spent a long time and a lot of maths to make sure I won.
In post 659, Bellaphant wrote:DK, I'll come back to you when it's not 4am if you have any specific questions in the meantime, please let me know.
Honestly no, I don't think I need to understand your game in order to vote for you. I just want to make sure whoever I am voting for, they actually paid enough attention to me (whether directly or through others) to thoroughly understand why I could/want to vote for them.
That's a really interesting question - I think initially I was so frustrated because I saw you and Zor out there 'doing things' and because of the structure of the averages for challenges, etc, I was stuck at my two TCS doing -nothing-.
I met you in the chemist vote and immediately realised you were already used to getting your way - my suggested list of four votes was very quickly narrowed down to 1, and I was unhappy with how you seemed to present Utah as the next obvious vote.
I think we both used distancing a lot on that pre merge tribe, to counter this idea that we were each others endgame, but for me that blurred way too much into reality with the pj conversation. From there I had to consider you not only a 'threat', but a threat to me. In hindsight some of this was probably stoked by people like het, who benefited from you not being my number one. Coming into merge though, I knew I needed more options and I felt some real intransigence from you around the DV push. (Your pitch of 'everyont left would be my friend' without considering how many people weren't -my- friend just confirmed what I was already thinking)
As to timing, part of it was very intentional. I had a chat with het before the pj vote about why voting you out then was a bad idea - it changes the game for like, 16 other people at that point and elevated my threat level beyond anything I was comfy with going into merge.
The first few rounds of merge it made sense to work together to remove some threats to my game, but your push on DV gave me the ammo I needed to convince people that we couldn't wait - it just happened you'd decided to 1v1 him!
Personally it felt better to work with zor, who had similar 'threat' level but who had commited to working with me til the end, but was also not an obvious relationship for me to have - it gave me more wiggle room and I was able to stop looking over my shoulder at you!
In post 653, VashtaNeurotic wrote:Scoots, tbh, I was most interested in what you would have to say in your final speech, but of the finalists it certainly seems the most, vague and sparse, and to be honest, the perception of you from the jury is that you were more or less in zoraster's shadow the entire time, do you have a rebuttal to this? Was there a round post-merge where you got what you want over Zor or drove a vote that Zor didn't, cause if not you're gonna have a hard time swaying people.
Hi! I totally get the vague and sparse bit. I had no idea how these things usually go, my only frame of reference was the TV show! )The openings are brief, and things get more detailed in the questions.) DK asked me for a more detailed account of my game as well, and I'll be posting that. It's just going to take a little bit to type it all up, bear with me!
To answer your question about Zor, and based on it, I think my strategy may not fall within your parameters for the vote here. It sucks to admit, but I'll try to explain and hopefully you'll see where I'm coming from. You asked me for times I drove a vote, or got what I wanted over (insert ally here), but the thing is, my strategy was explicitly about avoiding both those things. While others were running numbers and clawing to plant their flags in votes, thus making themselves targets, I decided instead to focus on building relationships and opening doors, and keeping them open. This was my gameplan from nearly the very beginning. I get from a few of you in this questioning that you may not value that in a winner, but driving votes, and coming across as a 'strategic' person or someone who imposes their way over yours, was specifically something I was trying to avoid. My goal with that, and it worked, was to keep as many doors to the end open as possible.
As far as "getting what I wanted', I pretty much got what I wanted at every vote (except for the Brom one), because after each one, the majority of the remaining players were working with me. I basically made it so that it didn't matter who went home. I was gonna be good in any scenario. I had no reason to push. Literally, as long as it ain't me.
So, I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your question, but the game I set out to play just wasn't about all that. If that's not the kind of game you value, I understand.
Last edited by ScootsBaboo on Mon Feb 03, 2020 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hey guys, I'm really proud of all three of you. You all did terrific jobs and I loved getting to know you all throughout the course of this game. I'm traveling for work currently so I don't have a lot to contribute at the moment but hopefully will have more to say tomorrow night.
You and Radja were by far the people who'd social relationships I handled badly this game. With you I think I got into my head a bit - I felt early on that we approached this game very differently and we were looking for different things. I should've been more upfront with you about the little things, like making you our challenge hero that round.
It's not just because we had different friends - if we take away the game some of my best conversations were with pj - but that didn't help, especially in the mid game when the cabal stuff was getting me down.
I think there's a word in which I say 'fuck it' and we wreak havoc together. But that would have involved me giving my head a wobble and also trying harder to do those things that build.trust - the smal talk, the sharing of jokes, etc. That never felt organic with you and it definitely stopped us progressing in the game together. It's probably about 60% my fault as I let it happen and then got comfy with it being the status quo.
Last edited by Bellaphant on Mon Feb 03, 2020 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Menno, noone was more surprised than me when I won that one! I did my best but my best was average against people like you and scoots! Sometimes immunity isn't about winning, it's about someone else not winning, so I never skipped a challenge and always tried my best, even in blind hope - one answer different on the coin game and o have that too!
Apologies, all. Some great questions out there that I'd like to give their full due, but I won't have time to do so until tomorrow morning. Thanks for your patience!
Hash, the structure of the game often frustrated me, from challenges u was mediocre at to how they were scored - pre merge there want much for me to do apart from deepen relationships with people. My swaps also didn't have masses of variety - I was with some combination of pants scoots DV menno and pj a lot. Even when we did try to throw a challenge, one of the few times the way scoring working allowed us to, someone else threw harder!
However, the game shouldn't be just about who was on a tribe with who, and I think I managed the swapping element well by making those later and deeper connections - with zor at merge, with het from the first time I met him, people I didn't have an established working relationship with.
I wish id changed one thing about a structural element - the game would've been very different if pj had gone instead of bro at the joint TC.
However, this is where another structure element came into play - the deadlines. In a normal ms lsg, some of these votes are different - pj goes a lot earlier, Radja possibly goes instead of Lexi, etc. Using that time period to feel people out but also to make clearer plans about 'what next' was a skill I felt I developed this game. It also made my time zone less of a disadvantage - I was able to talk about votes early.
Even in the merge, the double immunity became an obstacle to work around .I knew when it was announced that the people o considered my core (me het vash) wouldn't all get through unscathed. That one I just had to ride out.
I meant what I said in brackets though - I won key immunities, I handled the button push situation in such a way that people were happy to share their responses with me (indo that zor, for example, didn't have) , I dealt with what was for me a surprise f3 by convincing people around me, especially zor, to do something that was beneficial for my game (voting out DV. I'm not remotely ashamed to say I'd lose votes to him), when really he should've made a different choice.
The structure of the game felt very confining at times, but I think I did what I could to use it to my advantage.
As I said to menno, I didn't do well socially with you. I feel I made it clear it the first tribe that we weren't connecting like I wanted and I felt at arms lengthy from you - you responded by chatting me up! Which, I did enjoy, but it did make me feel like I was only ever an option to you. Later in the game I felt I did try to reach out to you, but things like being your damsel in distress felt like platitudes and I really struggled to connect. I should have made how I felt more obvious - maybe to you there was nothing wrong but I needed to feel like we trusted each other within the game.
We also had issues about being online at the same time -;we missed some fairly crucial early conversation. I didn't know how strongly you felt about vash until he was gone, for example.
In the merge it felt like you had other friends and other plans, and I don't know how much I was in them. It made it hard to be vulnerable with you.
I let myself make too many assumptions about you. If you wanna chat to me about some of them, please do.
Bella, in the final 4 vote, was Zoraster on the table for you as an option to vote out? If not, was it more because of the f2 deal with him or more because you stood a better chance against him than against DV? Was Scoots ever an option?
Here's a more detailed blow by blow of I premerge survivor life, I'll follow with my post merge and "thesis".
First tribe:
I'll go back to the confessional I quoted in my opener here to explain how I tackled the first tribe: "I have no experience with ORGS, but I am a massive Survivor fan, and I'm a good conversationalist. I'm trying to present the version of myself to my tribe that would get assigned to the Brawn or Beauty tribe (Zumba Instructor, social butterfly, bartender, funny), and not the side of me that would be on the Brains tribe (Great at puzzles, NYT Saturday crossword personal best of 8:18, etc)
I really had to learn on the job here. I didn't know what kinds of twists MS has produced in the past, I didn't know what kinds of challenges there would be, I didn't know how fast or slow paced things were. I remember actually asking Brom if anyone had approached him about an alliance because I was getting early-game jitters that I was being left out! Because I knew that there was a long dark road full of twists, swaps, and who knows what ahead of me, I decided that my best option was to use the tools I'm best equipped with, my sociability and my ability to get people to like me. Every source of income I've ever had has been dependent on getting people to like me, so I knew going in that that would be my greatest asset. With this in my holster I was confident in my ability to make myself safe in any situation. So on tribe one, I had to get the ball rolling with these juicy convos! I got to work on showering everyone with good vibes, being someone people wanted to talk to. With some, things flowed more naturally than with others, but things were never sour with anyone.
It wasn't long until it paid off! Zor approached me about a group with Bella and DV, which I was very happy about. Not only to be in a four, but I also had a close relationship with Brom at the time, and so did Bella. That put me in a 3 within a 5 within an 8 and that's all she wrote!
Second Tribe
This is where things heated up a tiny bit, and is also one of the best examples of my strategy in play. This tribe broke down in an interesting way; 3 people from my tribe, 3 from another, and 2 solos. As soon as I saw the tribe distribution, I knew it was critical that I lay the charm on thick to all my new friends. Preferably, we'd move forward with the 2 solos because that buys us three votes instead of 2, but I wasn't gonna be picky!
My strategy paid off, though, and I got to choose! Elsa approached me about doing a 3+3 against the 2, and I had a positive enough relationship with both solo players to go that way as well. DK was one of them and we had hit it off right away, and he was keen on voting Elsa. I could tell overkill was a gonna be a bit more of a struggle, but all it took was telling him that Elsa has approached me to get him out and he was fully on board. I played it off to everyone that I wanted her out due to her challenge performance, but obviously it went a bit deeper than that.
That also put me in a 3 within a 5 within a 7, and I was golden.
Third Tribe
Even though this tribe never went to tribal council, I think it's important to highlight something that went down in the tribe. I was back on a tribe with my close buds Brom, Bella, and DV, my new buddy DK, and Bella actually on the other tribe talked me up to Pants, so we hit it off there. I had, I think, done a pretty good job at creating a positive relationship with Vash at that point even though we were on opposite sides of things in the last tribe. So I went in to this new tribe just as I had hoped: in good social standing.
But then...Even though I tried to initiate conversation with the other new friends on the tribe, things were slow going. It was then, within the first day I think, that I heard from multiple people I was close to that there was a 'big alliance' being formed by Panzer,
But y'all, that didn't worry me at all because if it was a viable grouping I wouldn't have heard about it from three different people who were in it (that's half the damn alliance). It's also on this tribe that DK and I pulled an all-nighter trying to get that idol, and he shared with me that he got it!
A quote from my confessional on this tribe:
[*]"I still have a great relationship with Bella, Brom, and DV from The Real tribe, plus I like talking to Pants and I think Vash is still good with me. And of course DK trusting me with this info means that I've got him on my side too. That makes 7! This tribe shuffle has been the most...iffy one for me, and therefore concerning, because of the radio silence from a few tribe members. But I'm confident, or as confident as you can be, that my ability to make relationships has done the trick!"
Fourth Tribe
On this tribe my memory is a bit foggy. I just got my new job when this tribe swap happened and so I was really focused on that, and I actually only wrote one confessional. Fortunately, thanks to me, we won the first challenge, and thanks to a few of us we won the second, so I didn't have to go to tribal on this tribe either.
Fifth Tribe
On this tribe, yet again, my bonds kept me insulated. I swapped onto a tribe with Bella, DV, Pants, and Brom, so that right there is already a majority. Also, this is the first time I got to be on a tribe with my new buddy Het! We are both RHAP patrons so we bonded over that, and he became another person on my side. Things were all set for a vote on Menno or PJ here.
This is also where things started to go south with Pants. He started having doubts about the "easiness" of the votes. I'm like...yeah bud they're easy for a reason. He wanted PJ out on the last tribe we were on, but now that we're on a tribe with PJ he is having second thoughts? This is when I started really keeping an eye on him.
Also, this was the two-tribes tribal vote. Brom and I voted for Panzer even though the vote was on Menno "just in case menno had an idol" (I knew who actually had the idol at that point, but it was still important to keep that to myself. Sorry Brom!) For some reason nobody ever asked me about the 2 PJ votes but there you go.
Pants tried to push things onto Brom at this point, and I decided to stick my neck out and convince him away from it. I'm not normally one to do that in this game, but I saw Pants' reasoning as really foolish. He wanted PJ in the game because he was terrified Kilby was gonna come for him, or something. In any case, I responded the following way in a confessional:
[*]"Moving forward, I'm still keen on eliminating people who aren't working with me. Past that, I'd like to eliminate people who are working with me, but I'm having trouble working with: His philosophy on playing differs from mine. He keeps making decisions based on who he thinks is in power/coming for him on the other tribe. I don't believe there really are people coming for me on the other tribe, and anyway I prefer to set myself up with as many allies/numbers as possible that are on *my current* tribe. I know that may seem short sighted, but I believe it's really the only way to play. 5 birds in the hand are worth many many more than..however many birds Pants thinks may be in the keep-PJ bush."
Brom was working with us now, PJ wasn't. Simple. In the end, though, this tribe never voted anyone out.
Sixth Tribe, last before merge
Again, I set myself up well. Every single person on this tribe was someone I'd had a positive relationship with in the past. Zor, Brom, DV, Entreri, DK, and Pants. NOTHING COULD GO WRONG RIGHT?
So before all this mess, I had come to the decision that I didn't want to work with Pants anymore. For one, I saw him as pessimistic, and I was worried that I was putting so much energy into lifting his spirits that I was nervous I'd miss a legitimate red flag he brought up? And two and most crucially, the vibes, bro, the vibes. I could tell he was more distant from me than before, and I was ready to cut him loose.
Then the vote exploded. Things were on entreri, the person I had the least strong relationship with, when I hear that Pants and DK had approached Zor to try to flip the vote onto Brom or myself, worried about our group. I immediately knew I had to tell people about DK's idol. If people think our group is a threat, nope! Look over there! Also, I believed that DK wanted to go into merge without anyone knowing about his idol, so I felt like telling people would remove that reasoning for wanting me gone, and move a lot of heat elsewhere. We switch the vote to Pants which is fine by me, as explained above, and also because he was the least likely person we thought would get an idol played on him. All good right? NOPE.
Unfortunately, we came to this decision pretty quickly, and without much input from DV. Time zones. We offered to switch the vote back to Entreri to keep him happy, but he said no, he was sticking with voting Brom. It was at this point I suspected he had some secret thing going on with Pants. Oh well! That Sucks! On to plan D!
Zor and I approach DK, and he offers up the option to flip the vote onto DV! Wohoo! At this point, we realize we actually have the numbers now to be able to move back to Pants. Not only does it get rid of someone I'd been trying to get rid of, but by "saving" DV from DK, that protects us in the next round of votes too because those two sides would be against each other.
Or so I thought! lol. As the vote wound down, I thought things were all set on Entreri, but as the clock ticked away...the vibes were wrong. I wrote in a confessional minutes before the vote:
[*]"I have a bad feeling about tonight. The vibes aren’t right! DK’s vibes are wrong! Entreri’s vibes are wrong! Everyone's vibes are wrong! I think things are not gonna go my way tonight. Oh Jeez. I have a stomach ache."
Unfortunately, everyone had decided it was best for Brom to go, and I was seen as being too close to him to be let in on things.
This proved to be a valuable lesson for me going into merge. I promised myself it was gonna be the last time I'm close enough to someone to stick my neck out for them. From then on, I promised myself I would be loyal to no one.
MERGE
Most of the merge can actually be summed up in one way: as long as it ain't me.
After that Brom vote, it really sunk in with me that I was at my best when I was under the radar, and working with everyone. So I set out to manage my perception, and start working with everyone. Right from the start I set out playing up to people how "on the outs" I was after the last vote and how no one was talking to me. Not true, everyone was talking to me. I wrote a confessional before the DK vote:
[*]"So I’m feeling a bit better about my position in the game right now. My strategy has been to lean in to the fact that I’m an easy vote to pick up, and hopefully that will buy me some rounds until I can maneuver into a stronger position. As far as I’m aware, there are 6 votes on DK at the moment, and that’s fine my me!"
The thing is, you could have put any name in that slot and it would have been fine with me. I constantly worked to make people feel like they could work with me. For example, I always made sure whoever I was talking to felt more in-control of the game than they thought I was. I always tried to make people think I was less aware of the game than I was. I always pretended I was one of the last people to hear about a vote, when each and every time I was one of the first.
I knew that it would be a more difficult style of play to explain in the end, but damn if it wasn't effective as hell.
Some curated confessionals from throughout the merge:
[*]"I think I played up my position well as an easy vote to pick up, and a lot of information is flowing my way. My ideal position in this game is that everybody thinks i'm working with them and no one realizes that everyone else thinks that. That way no one is even bringing my name up as a possible vote. I knew going into this game that my strongest asset would be my social game, and I'm hoping that it's paying off here like it has in the past rounds.
I'm having good friendly strategic conversations with DV, Zor, Het, Bella, Entreri, Vash, Haschel, and Menno. I messaged Radja but he's sleepin. I hope people 1.) appreciate my willingness to talk to them and see that as a vote on their side, and 2) don't go spilling the beans that i'm their ally because then people will realize i'm everyone's friend.
[*] "From what I understand, the vote sits on menno at the moment, but Haschel is trying to vote DV and DV is trying to vote Haschel. I'm fine if any of the three of them go home."
[*]"Radja, Entreri, AND Haschel all approached me for alliances, saying “I think people wouldn’t suspect it” or “we seem to have few connections and I think we could benefit each other”. This is exactly what I wanted. If I’m reading this right, none of my close alliances have told others that I’m working with them, and I’m everyone’s secret BFF! I’ve set it up so that, no matter which way the game goes, I’ll be there with it. Fingers crossed this trend continues. I feel I have a little work to do on the relationship with DV and Bella, but we have a long history so I think that shouldn’t be too hard."
As you can see, my merge strategy worked absolutely perfectly. No matter which way I turned, I faced the FTC. I know I'm perceived as being in Zor's shadow, but I was exactly as loyal to him as I was to everyone else in the merge. If his number had ever come up, my game wouldn't have changed one bit (sorry buddy). He'd be out the door, but I'd still be here. I understand it's not the kind of analytical game some of you were looking for: It means I'm going into this FTC with an uphill battle explaining my game, it means no vote was "mine", etc.
But the beauty of my game; what makes it so impressive; and the reason it deserves your vote:
Is that my strategy gave me a straight shot to the final three when there were still
10 people left in the game
. No one else can say that. It's pretty damn good.
Also, menno, I meant to add last night - I loved watching you in Equestria and you were like, the highlight of the jury for me, so I should have tried harder to get to know that side of you. I did enjoy our chat about reality TV and your name!
if you have any specific questions in the meantime, please let me know.
