Cody,

I made the effort to socialize with everyone in this game, but I did not have everyone wrapped around my fingers. I made the effort to talk to people within my alliance even if they still had doubts about me. This perception of me having sheep in this game is not true because people either were threatened by me or did not trust me. In our Final 5 alliance of Coco, Will, Kevin, and Luke they all trusted Coco more than me, and Luke turned on me. I had to navigate my way through different alliances in this game and adapt when people were either voting with me or voting against me by having conversations and being able to understand social cues. If someone was after me in this game, then I came after them. If that makes me a villain in this game, then I accomplished what I needed to do.

I  was fighting to stay in this game when no one else trusted me other than Coco or people turned on me.

^ Chris, with this statement  please elaborate on what you did to “fight” to stay in. Were you allowing Coco to secure the votes for you to stay ( since people trusted him more) or did you make a conscious effort to make sure you still had the majority, without the aid of coco?

Also, you said in your speech that Ben shared information with me, which he and I laughed about afterwards, because he and I never had a single conversation until final 9. Was that a typo or were you using a false narrative to continue pleading your case?

I've had a very long day so I may not reply for the rest of the night (it's 9 PM for me). But I will reply any questions you all have on Sunday or later tonight, if I feel better. From what I know we can reply until Sunday 8 PM EST?

Jay M,

The animal question is a difficult question to answer but for Coco I would have to say that he played this game like a lion because he was calculating, planned accordingly, and was successful with his approaches. Will played this game like a fox where he could be cunning at times and he does not easily trust other people in the game, however foxes can sometimes be influenced by others around them.

To answer your other question, once jury started there was an order of people that I saw as the biggest threats to my own game. I knew that Blu and Cody were after me before jury started so that was the biggest priority for me in the game. After that, my focus changed to Wender because I knew he wanted me out of the game and to me the most dangerous players in the game are wildcards because you never know which way they may go. So, at times there was an order for getting rid of the right people, but sometimes those plans changed if the original target won immunity. Plans do change in this game and an example of this is when Luke turned on me as I trusted him, but as soon as he made the first move at me, I made the move back at him the following round. The only order I would change is Jay H being voted out because I trusted them more than people within my own alliance other than Coco.  To sum up, I would say it was thought out ahead of time, but also with a dash of luck involved as I had to lay back at times even if I didn’t want to and let someone else do the talking so my plans wouldn’t be revealed.

Blu,

I would be up late at night searching for an idol just to stay in this game because I knew there was a perception of me in this game that I was a huge threat. When I found the first part of the idol, and Coco found the second part of the idol we both decided that we would use it only when we felt one of us was in the most danger of going home. The first time that I fought to stay in this game was when Devyn and Cody were trying to get me voted out. I knew that my fate lay in the hands of Ben and Wender, I had a better relationship with Ben at the time and I needed to show evidence to Wender that Devyn was trying to convince me that Wender was after me, so I screenshotted a message from Devyn to a build a little bit of trust with Wender to get me to the next round. The following round when I wasn't receiving hardly any messages by noon that day, I knew that something was up and that I was most likely the target that tribal council. I spent the entire day trying to secure votes for myself over Cody to go home during that tribal council because I wanted to make sure I had enough numbers to stay without the use of an idol involved. During that vote, I checked in with everyone with maybe just the exception of Jay M to see where the numbers stood.

The two rounds where I had to sit back and make sure that no one knew my plans were the dark round and when Luke was voted out because I knew Luke, Jay M, and Ben wanted me out so having Coco as a double agent works out in my favor because they were less likely to suspect any of my plans if they believed Coco was on board. So, to answer your question there were times that yes, I did make a conscious effort to stay in this game, but at crucial moments like when Luke was voted out, I couldn't be the one to make up a lie about alliances that Luke was in with other people because Will would not have believed me over Coco. When people were against me in this game, I had to find other people that were also considered threats in this game like Kevin and Coco and look out for each other since we were the big fish in a small pond. During the last tribal council, I wanted to make sure that Will and I were on the same page when it came to voting and that he felt more comfortable bringing me to the end then Kevin because otherwise the vote would have tied. I played this game with everything in me, but as an UTR player my effort may not always be visible but after sitting through every tribal council, I can tell you I was playing this game 24/7.

From my perception, I had assumed that Ben exposed my Final 2 that you proposed to me earlier on in the game. This perception may have come from Ben lying to me and coming after me during the latter part of this game. I remembered sharing your Final 2 proposal with Ben, and if I made the wrong assumption then I do sincerely apologize. I am not trying to use a false narrative to plead my case, and if I made an error on my part then I completely own up to that because it's not my intention. This has been a long game, and sometimes the game clouds your judgment on people who may not be what you think they may be.

Luke,

Yes, being called a villain at first was hard to accept because at the time I didn’t know what I had done to warrant that perception. As I sit here now, I can see why I might be called a villain especially if I’ve made the wrong assumptions or rubbed someone the wrong way without intending to. In terms of how I approached the rest of the game I was willing to do whatever it took whether it involved shifting alliances or laying low. I would say being deemed UTR early on molded me for the rest of this game because my plan coming into this game was to be UTR, but then really start taking control of the game by actively making chats or collectively coming together on deciding what the best course of action is to take on for the vote. Since there was such a heavy target on me during the game, I felt almost confined to being UTR because I felt if I broke out of that mold then I believed there was no way anyone would want to bring me to the end. Strategically I was able to think ahead being UTR, but socially being UTR was different because I couldn’t reveal my real plans or I had to keep quiet. In general, though, I would say being labeled under the radar affected how I approached the remainder of the game over being called a villain.

Thank you for explanation to both questions  Chris, and yes to the latter part, it was the wrong assumption, but you owned up to it; so Im good. I have no further questions to ask.

Also thank you Will, I understand your reasoning from your f4 decision from your perception now.

Good luck everyone!

Thanks to you for the questions!

I did not get a SINGLE game related question other than the self vote😭😭

Coco,

My question: What did you do in this game that particularly benefited you and not chris? The majority of the answers and statements made by both of you, clearly demonstrates that you both were protecting each other; we get it. So I need to know what solely put Coco on the map in this game.

Omg thx for the question, i just saw this. This is an awesome question and I'll reply as soon as I can.

Jay's question:

Will – A Puppy. He was sweet, likable and loyal throughout this whole game. I feel like he listened to me a lot and always sided with me.

Chris – Chameleon: From my perspective Chris knew how and when to be reserved and quiet. He was able to adapt himself to different circumstances in this game, mainly to the fact that he was targeted a lot from F12 on. I feel like that's very difficult but he did pull it off.

What differentiates me from Chris’s game? What did I do on my own? What did I do that benefitted me?

That’s the question I’m asking from myself right now as I'm writing this.. and I'm going to be unapologetically me.

Yes, Chris and I were a duo. That is something I wanted to lay down coming into the final tribal council, even though I knew that I’d probably get criticized for it. One thing that we both had in common was that we wanted to sit next to each other at the end. However, the 2 of us had a very different journey and 2 of us had a very different idea as to how we would get here and who we would get there with.

I’m going to break it down to 2 parts as to what I feel like I had solely DONE in this game. 1 the social game and the more social-related moves. The other part is the strategic decision-making.

The first part: social game. I tried to talk to a lot of people, I tried to go out of my way to be involved in talks, to get to know people. My social game helped ME get into the driving seat of this game and it helped me execute strategic plans during the season.

On Day 2 of this game, I made a CONSCIOUS decision that I want to be involved in an alliance with Luke-Kevin-Will, because I simply felt like I would be able to thrive in that alliance based on their personalities and what I perceived them to be like (loyal, trustworthy, people that would likely work with me on the long term). Meanwhile, Chris on the other hand had other people like Jay H, Niko, Devyn, at times Ben for a while when he trusted him. Whenever we discussed who we would get to the end with, we could never actually agree on it. We said we would agree on later, later. I consciously made decision to not only further MY own game, Chris’ game, but my entire alliances’ game as well. Will right here said I was his ride-or-die, Chris was my duo, Kevin considered me his number 1 as well, I’m pretty sure Luke trusted me in the alliance the most as well. Who else in this game can say that they had so many people trusting them so much? No one.

I had 3 people fully trusting me in the FINAL 4. 3 people that voted WITH ME throughout the entirety of the season. They didn’t work with each other all the time, they worked with ME. They listened to me and trusted ME the most, not each other. What else shows how much of a control I had if that doesn’t?

I made the alliance chat on DAY 2 to work with those 3 people (Chris was not part of it at that point) and they ALL trusted me the MOST in that alliance. THAT Alliance got me here. THAT Alliance was the reason people kept being voted out and that is especially true when the merge hit.

Why is that alliance so important? I was not only the ONE that formed it, but was the actual GLUE that kept it together, because ALL of those people trusted ME the most. I feel like that shows how well I positioned MYSELF in this game and how well I managed to get people on MY OWN SIDE.

And when Luke was ready to flip… who had the social awareness to realize what was happening? It was ME. I was the one who realized that Luke was ready to flip. Who had the strategic plan instantly to flip the script around? I was the one that saved the rest of our alliance by coming up with the blindside plan against Wender and then Luke. THAT BENEFITTED ME on the long term, because had I not realized Luke was plotting against us, he would have probably taken over this game and I would have lost control.

So, to sum this part up. I CREATED the alliance that was in so much control in this game, but if you look at it from an outside perspective. You could see that behind the alliance, I had the control. I had 3 out of the 4 FULLY considering ME their number 1s throughout this entire game and I truly feel like even Luke considered me his closest ally INSIDE the alliance.

I used my social gameplay to build such strong bonds that I was able to use that to be in the driving seat without ever taking the heat, without ever being a possible target up until the F6.

To further prove my social power: I was the one Willie was spilling the different alliance chats, not others. I was the one Luke admitted to that he wanted to blindside Chris, not others in our core alliance and I was the one who found out that Kevin had the idol, not the rest of my alliance. This further proves my point of being basically in control OF THE ALLIANCE because I was the one receiving the information. And why did I receive that information? Because of my social game.

I got this alliance to the end, that my duo did NOT want to go to the end with, because of how well I managed to control the votes, the relationships and how successfully I managed to eliminate anyone that posed a danger to it.

So when I talk about that alliance, it originally consisted of Will-Luke-Kevin-Myself and I talk about something that I truly believe I had major control over. And THIS alliance is the one that had the control over so many votes.

So, to the strategic-strategic side:

Final 14: I realized the votes would be 8-2-2-2. I identified that. I, myself, made the plan to go to Kevin and convince him to vote Niko with me to make it a 6-4-2-2. Why? I wasn’t talking much to Niko, we never really had game chats. I wanted him out before merge solely because of my own game, even though Chris liked him.

Final 12: Chris wanted Wender out. I wanted Devyn to go. Why? For my own game. Devyn was not talking much to me; he was talking a lot more with Chris. Wender, on the other hand, was talking to me a lot. This round we really couldn’t agree on what we would do. So, when you(Blu) told me Devyn was going to come after Chris, it didn’t matter whether it was the truth or not, because that is simply what I needed to get rid of Devyn. That gave me the ammo to completely pull the target off of Wender and replace it to Devyn and get her out of this game.

Came merge, Chris became the target in nearly all of the votes but I talked a lot to my allies: Kevin, Luke, Will. By this point I was pushing the idea that we can trust Chris, we can work with him. This didn’t just benefit him, it benefitted me as well. Chris was always going to be targeted over me by that point, but he was also always going to be loyal to me throughout this whole game.

By that point, he didn’t have the luxury to choose which players he wanted to go to the end with. The only way to the end was to stick with the 3 people that I GOT ON MY OWN SIDE.

Had it not been for the alliance that I kept together; this game would be looking completely different now.

Had it not been ME that realized Luke was going to flip, this game would be looking completely different. I worked out a plan to stop the flip and I successfully executed it.

All in all, I came up with so many ideas, plans in our alliance. I was sometimes sending essays to my allies in DMs, discussing the vote and relentlessly strategizing. I do believe in the end I had the most say in what was happening in the game and ultimately it was really I that sat in that driving seat and if you thoroughly read through the speeches, the answers, you could see what I’m telling is the whole truth.

„Coco was my ride or die”. „Coco was my duo”. „Coco was doing too much dirty work”(Dirty or actually I’ve done what no one else could do and took control of the game?)  „In our Final 5 alliance of Coco, Will, Kevin, and Luke they all trusted Coco more than me, and Luke turned on me.”  „I couldn't be the one to make up a lie about alliances that Luke was in with other people because Will would not have believed me over Coco.”

I truly believe this should give you a true idea of MY game and what I have achieved in this game. I truly think I dominated this game both socially and strategically with the help of my duo BUT MANY MANY TIMES without the help of my duo.

I just want my game to be seen for what it actually is and not be solely determined by the fact that I somehow forgot to lock in a vote or because I had a duo with Chris. I really needed to say these to prove it to my own self that I really did these. I KNOW I did this…

This is all I got, I guess, whether it’s enough or not, I’m content with the way I played and I’m content with what I have achieved in this game. Throughout the game, I was really nervous and I just wasn’t sure how others have actually perceived me and what they thought of me. I had huge meltdowns from final 6 onward, but I never actually gave up and just kept pushing and pushing, despite feeling so anxious and just overall expecting the jury to be pissed at me. However, now writing this answer, I finally feel relieved. I’m at peace with whatever happens, because I know I played my heart out, I’ve done what I could and I worked super hard, putting so many hours of dedication to get to THIS SEAT in the final 3. I didn’t just survive this game, I controlled it.

Thanks for reading this!!!!!!!! (this was so long X.X)

Hi guys, first congratulations on the final.

After reading the speeches and responses, I can better form some opinions.

My question is simple. If you don't win who would you "like" to lose to and why??