Just here to bump Grouch's question for Lucifer. I want to know what you were thinking going forward in most rounds. What was the larger picture that you were making or were you just playing round by round? Either is fine, I just feel like I didn't get to know which was your mode from your speech and want to give you the opportunity to detail that here.
I wouldn't say I ever had a concrete larger picture, but I was always considering the long term implications of decisions for sure. I drew up a couple of possible boot lists and while they weren't really accurate- they were helpful in planning and considering possibilities for me.
For my round by round thinking starting from right before merge on:
Strike Team TC:
So for this TC I had a pretty good idea prior to the round that Judy and Nick were likely to be targets. I'd heard from Nick that he didn't care from Judy and the general vibe I got from the SVU players was that Nick wasn't too active. I had also felt, especially based on my conversations with people from the BAU, that this might come down to tribal lines- at least to a degree.
Once the round started my suspicions were confirmed. I was initially undecided going in- but I pretty quickly decided I wanted Nick gone. A large part of that was because I was worried I couldn't trust Jake- mainly because he had hardly been talking to me- and I felt like that ended up being a correct suspicion because later into tribal, I heard that at least some of the BAU people had tried to pitch my name behind my back.
Going into merge, I was initially hesitant because I didn't know what was going to happen. It honestly took a long time for anything to get rolling. I'd heard rumors of Grouch a bit because of the drama on Narcotics, but nobody was really pushing anything. Eventually Pikachu finally reached out and we discussed the vote possibilities before finally settling on Jake. I think it's also worth noting that I did kind of tell people that it was Pikachu's idea and intentionally gave him credit for it- and that was partially intentional. I didn't want my name out there as someone leading the vote early in merge because I didn't want to be seen as threatening and get idoled out.
Then next round Scruff went- I kind of already explained this elsewhere- but to recap: nobody really seemed to want to push Jake and I was hesitant the numbers would be there for it this round. So Scruff went as a bit of a compromise? And I think it was also important for my game that he went over like me or Rust, who were the alternatives I had heard about.
Next is the round Grouch Cop went home- I was obviously misled. I do remember talking with Grouch like fifteen minutes before deadline about how the TC had the feels that something sketchy might be happening and then that happened. The intent was to push Jake there and make that vote happen. But obviously that had to wait until the next round. Getting Jake out was something that I thought benefited me greatly since we had a very rocky relationship for a while now. And I don't necessarily think Grouch going was a major blemish on my game necessarily either- like I've said elsewhere, I think this round highlighted some of the good social connections I did have and I think the perception of me as someone who wasn't threatening and my strong ties to Judy in particular made my survival here no accident. And I also think Grouch going encouraged me to invest a little bit more into my other relationships.
Then the next round after this Lennie went. Going into the round the big focus was on making sure Judy would vote with me/Rust/Penelope and then I also tried to flip Leon to our side as well and work with him. I think this was the point where my vision of the end of the game went from more of a hypothetical to concrete. I started to feel good about my odds of making it there again and I kind of realized who I couldn't be against and who I felt I had more of a chance against.
Then Judy went the next round after she lost the challenge and Penelope afterwards. Those were pretty straightforward rounds, but I will elaborate on them a little more when I answer Leon's question in a little bit.
At F4, I was conflicted, but ultimately felt that I was better off getting Rust out. The catch was that I had known from previous rounds Leon really preferred Hercule going, so I was working hard to convince him, but it didn't work and he misled me about where he was voting. I do think it was really important I won immunity this round, because prior to the tribal occurring I could've easily been targeted had I not.
I'm just going to explain the F3 decision in response to Grouch's question in a second if that's OK.