Hello everybody, I'm thrilled to have made it to the final tribal council. This game has been an emotional rollercoaster to me and while on the one hand I'm happy that it's coming to a close, on the other hand I feel like I'm going to miss it. There were so many memorable people and moments that I'll be thinking back on this game long after it's complete. But enough about the future; we're here for the past and present, to decide who's worthy of being crowned the sole survivor.
My goal for this game was to stick to my guns, play with humanity, and to make an impact on how things went. I feel like I accomplished all three of those goals: my decisions were my own, I believe I connected on a personal level with quite a few other players, and unlike my last few games, I proved to be far more than an easy compromise vote.
Pre-merge was largely smooth. From day one, I was very tight with Oracle and our connection had a major role in how votes went down. The other people I considered to be "core" allies were Richie, Anthony, Suzy, and Duke. Unknown to me until later, there was a large chat consisting of the people who supposedly bid nothing in the auction; this ended up not being an issue because my bonds with individuals were strong. Things were very calm until the kidnap twist, when Peter arrived with the intention of causing trouble for our majority. Despite his double vote, an attempt from Peter, Anthony, and Sam to target me failed because their intended recruits from outside the majority, Duke and Herman, were on too good of terms with me to be interested. I wanted Sam gone that tribal, and he went. It's around this time that I began to distrust Richie and Writer for perceived closeness to the Rushmore players, and that I started valuing Herman as an ally.
Then came trash island and the mandatory tribal council. It's here that I pushed for what has to be considered a mistake: I pushed for Anthony to go over Margot. Considering Anthony's genuine regret for voting against me the round before, and how strong Margot would prove to be later on, I feel like getting her out at that point would have made things much easier for me later. But whether it was a mistake or not, the vote once again went the way I preferred.
Merge is where the game got spicy, and the first few votes are some of my biggest personal regrets. Peter and Young Writer deserved far better from me than to be ignored, and I'm embarrassed at how I treated them. The Peter vote was nearly unanimous, as everybody seemed to think he was too reckless to commit to as an ally. Buckley's medevac came at a very opportune time for me; if we had gone to tribal with 11 players, my core group of {me, Oracle, Suzy, Duke, Herman} could well have been picked off. But instead, we got the first of many ties. This was the first time I didn't know what was happening - my intention had been to split on Writer and Royal to indirectly weaken Richie, since there was no appetite for a Richie vote at the time. But a tie happened due to Richie spreading a lie: he told Suzy that Margot had thrown her name out, thus getting Suzy to flip onto Madame; Oracle followed suit because he didn't want to risk his relations with Suzy and Richie. But during the revote, Richie's attempt to save Writer failed as Suzy and Oracle saw through his manipulation and switched.
The round after that was my lowest moment, my biggest failure. I'll be honest with you that I was just mortified; in theory, my group of five had a majority and could do any vote we wished, but we knew an idol was out there. The plan was, assuming that Richie had one, to leak to Royal that Richie was a target to flush it while actually voting Madame. Unfortunately, the two called my bluff and let Madame know she was the real target, at a time where Suzy wasn't available for us to all switch. Knowing that the minority was targeting Herman, I switched to him to keep myself safe. Herman did nothing to deserve this and I was devastated that my error cost him his game; that, combined with my good friend Duke medevacing immediately after, put me in a bad spot mentally. Everyone around deserves a lot of credit and thanks for helping me through that; seriously, you're all wonderful people.
The Royal vote came during this time; if I had been in better shape I may have pressed for a different target, but I had no energy and so was content to go with the flow, and I don't believe voting him out then actually hurt me. This was another slice of luck, because after the Duke medevac I was truly in the minority for the first time. But what happened happened, and I think ultimately the Royal and Duke eliminations cancelled each other out. Margot was the other time I was caught by surprise; Madame voted with me, thus avoiding a tie. The reason for that, as I figured out, was that she had made a final 3 deal with Suzy and Oracle. While Oracle would still have sided with me despite said agreement, Suzy really was with Madame, thus leading to the 5th place vote.
What happened is that Richie idoled me, 'saving' me from the vote and eliminating Suzy. In exchange for his 'generosity,' I agreed to not vote against him next time. This whole scenario, of course, was completely artificial - Oracle only voted me because Richie claimed he was dead-set to vote me, and he only said that to create a chance to score some style points. Natalie Anderson idoling Jaclyn at F5 in S29 was outstanding because it was actually meaningful - this wasn't. At our F4, had Richie not won, I would have voted him out, promises be damned, because I think he's my strongest competition; he would have been steamed about it, but I'm not here to hide from confrontation anymore - not after Peter and Young Writer. But he did win, and so the next biggest threat, Madame, was removed.
In no way did I play a perfect game - there were plenty of things I regret, and that I wish I could do differently. But nobody plays perfectly, and if they say they do then they're kidding themselves. What's important is that I feel like I grew as a person, made some friendships, and played a good game. If you all decide I'm worthy of your votes, I'll be ecstatic, but whoever wins will deserve it greatly for managing all the unplanned departures and other twists. I'm looking forward to answering your questions.
Topic: {Opening Speech} (Read 191 times)
