Knowing you, the two aren't mutually exclusive! I don't doubt you can enjoy your sense of revenge by making me work for it.
I guess this is something that comes down to my communication style. Putting aside the fun we had with character style (Pietro says hello, and you're giving him a manual workout at the typewriter) I was very real with you the whole time. But I don't know exactly what you mean by real, or what you take for realness. Can an agenda-driven person not be real to you? Survivor is inherently an agenda-driven game. Gustave had an agenda. Oracle had an agenda. You did, I did. But I was never pandering. I was legitimately enthralled with you, with the way you were playing and with the way you were PMing. I spent much more time carefully crafting my responses to you than to most of the cast so that they would be an equal labor of love, because you made yourself so unique and your effort in this regard was so plain to see. I can remember specific, funny, clever rhetorical flourishes from you right off the top of my head right now. PMs that were simultaneously about comparing me to Edward Cullen and your reluctance but fascination with what could happen if we wore the rings and worked together, ending it "Once bitten, twice... sigh," where you take the offer. That was absolute gold. That's AP level PMing when most players are still in elementary school. That's why even though you aren't in the Wes Anderson superfan category that I started the game looking for you were a natural fit for me in this game.
Now look, I've been accused of being personally false in Survivor before. I have a gift for making real bonds with people that lead to strong early game alliances, but because the agenda driving me is playing to win at all costs I don't blindly stick with those people if I'm not in a position to compete with them in a Final Tribal Council. It pains me precisely because I do pour so much of myself into the game, and I'm making bonds by being my real self. The only thing about you that frustrates me is that you are letting yourself fall into this same emotional trap. Is Gustave more real than me? What is that, not lying or omitting when lying or omitting is a strategic benefit? Is it that his communication style is straightforward while I tend towards flourish and wordiness? Is it that he never capitalized letters? Is it that you and he were never nearly as close as we were and so there's less opportunity for gameplay to come in the way of realness? I was always going to play with my head at final four. I told you what my heart really wanted, maybe the realest thing I could have said was that I was locked in as a vote against you. But that would be bad play, because your effort at final four was a resource it's better for me if you're expending your effort trying to get me to vote with you than if you went and found someone who could actually benefit by voting with you. I'm the only vote I can ever fully guarantee. Oracle would be in a better position if they had voted with you. Oracle could be losing votes to Gustave at this FTC that they would win against the two of us, and you and I are more likely to compete for some of the same votes than either one of us was going to be competing with either of them. Even if they put you into a fire making challenge against Gustave and you lost it Oracle would have something better to say about the last round, because then they would have gone against what I wanted. I controlled Oracle's vote at four. I did it by using the long suffering and dysfunctional Horsemen chat as soon as the votes for Margot were read to say that if I won immunity at four I would vote with both of them, then repeating that after I won the immunity at five, then again before the challenge at four, and again after I won it. I made it seem inevitable, because I didn't want them thinking through other options and taking away any of my agency over the last vote. I talked to you that round about what my heart wanted while knowing full well that I'd play it with my head so you wouldn't spend all your time working on the others. And I don't think I did it in a way that really led you on! I could have left a lot more room for doubt, I was extremely straightforward about the fact that the right strategic move was just to vote you out. Maybe you worked on them just as hard as you would have if I wasn't saying those things anyway, maybe you and Oracle had that exact strategy discussion and they thought things through and decided against it. But any non-realness from me always had a purpose in strategy and agenda, and I don't believe that makes me any less real on the whole. It certainly doesn't make me some fake person who never meant any of things I said to you or about you.
That was a lot so let me give a tl;dr version. I was always being real with you on a personal basis. I lied strategically as all players should. What frustrates me is the idea that you think I was false about the things I said about you or the way I feel about you, and that you'll be surprised to go read my confessional and torch walk and see me saying those exact same things because I loved you so much.
I have the honor to be
Your obedient servant,
R. Ten
P.S. If Pietro develops carpal tunnel syndrome after this game I believe it only fair that you grant him a truly insignificant portion of your mind boggling wealth as a pension and spa fund.
Topic: {Madame D.} (Read 386 times)
