Well, here we are. First off, I’d like to say hi to everyone on the jury, and regardless of your placing, you all should be proud. As one of you recently told me, being called back for an All-Stars is always an honor. It means you clearly did something right, whether that be positive or negative, and it made others want to see you again. Most all the players this season brought it, and easy to say I’m rather pleasantly surprised that I’m left standing in the final two. Not because I didn’t have confidence of doing my best going in, but because I knew outlasting 20 other massive veteran threats would not be an easy task. Yet here I am, and I couldn’t be happier.
First off, let me just say that what Rhys said just before the merge was incorrect. Him thinking that I had no clue what was going on was just a façade. The fact is that I knew about every single vote this season, except for one, and the fact that I only received one random vote (which honestly made no sense anyway) proves that I was almost always on top of everyone else in terms of knowing what was going on. While some players prefer to be the mastermind or the dominant, pushy leader, I wanted to take a backseat to that and allow someone else to fill those roles while I just did my best to slide by without trying to hurt too many people. I don’t consider myself a villain, to be honest. I was shocked and really upset that I was placed on the Yang Tribe at the start of this season, and I was determined to prove that I wasn’t an insidious, evil player that I was apparently made out to be.
I made sure to show up for every single challenge, both post-merge and pre-merge. I made sure to never miss a single vote, while others in this game ended up casting several self-votes. I played every single day like it was my last out here, because while some people clearly just didn’t care, I did. I knew I was up against some of the best around in group games, and I knew that I couldn’t blink an eye or else I might be going home. I continually got second places in challenges, which just further dampened my spirit and made me very depressed. You see, everyone, I have atychiphobia, which is the fear of failure. This is a real condition, and it’s something I’ve had to live with my whole life.
Being bullied, attacked, mocked, and hated for no reason my entire life, I always fail at everything I do. I always give 110% effort, yet I always lose. No matter what it is, whether it be a video game or a sport or even a game of Survivor on Tengaged, losing will constantly hurt me. It means I failed and I’m once again the loser my older half-sister always said I was. That is why I did everything in my power during Survivor Mexico to win, but I failed and I was blindsided by the TRUE villains from that season. This season, I tried to do the same thing, but I worked even harder at building connections and talking to everyone I could so that they would trust me and want to work with me instead of just trying to vote me out.
Pre-merge, I was called into a rather unstable alliance that constantly seemed to change every single day. The main people seemed to be Jordon, Nathan, Rabby and Zach. But sometimes Dino was brought in, and sometimes Eric was pulled in, and even Rhys was called in now and then. It’s like the villains were trying far too hard to keep playing every single person, which I honestly didn’t like too much, but making sure to stay active and consistent, I stayed on top of every pre-merge vote by always speaking to the people necessary. When post-merge hit, however, I knew I had to change up my game to possibly make the end. And this meant going against the villains when I had a chance. This is when Rob came up.