Hello jurors!
Man, has this been an uphill battle for me. I have had to fight my way through numerous tribal councils in this game, and somehow I have made it here today. I've had the time of my life playing this game and you guys sure made it fun to play.
Coming into this game as a returnee, a winner, and the partner of tashi, I knew I was going to have a target on my back for winning this game. I made sure to get straight down to business and caught up with Harry, who I've worked with in the past, and the two of us made a cross tribe alliance with our partners, where we coached ourselves through the pre-merge and made sure we all made it to the merge.
I knew that I had a lot of bad blood in this game, and I made sure that I patched any of that up with the people on my tribe. That included Ryan, Logan, Josh, Nicky, and Barbra. I instantly grew into a power position, putting myself in the middle of two groups. I was added to alliances and was given options for the pre-merge, and ultimately I felt like I would do best benefiting from working with Logan, Josh, Chris, and Yandere. I knew that the likes of Ryan, Barbra, Anthony, and Nicky would be hard to play with in this game and they had my alliance (Tina, Tashi, Harry) on their radar. I knew that Chris had a similar mindset as me and I pulled him aside and began plotting for the Seth blindside.
After the blindside, I made sure that Anthony and I were still good and covered my tracks in order to protect me going forward. When the tribe swap came around, I was lucky enough to have a solid majority on my tribe. Of course this is where my distrust with Logan starting brewing as I became paranoid throughout the next three vote outs of Corey, Sharon, and Tyler. I made sure that my alliance avoided any possible idols and got the three people on the outs eliminated. As much as I wanted to get rid of Logan at one of these tribal councils, I didn't want to have Corey, Sharon, or Tyler left to mess up my game.
Going into the merge I had a strong alliance (Tina, Tashi, Harry, Myself) and I had side alliances with the likes of Logan and Josh. I won the first immunity, the only immunity I won, because I wanted to see how the sides were going to form. I had beef with X before this game and I knew it wasn't going to be able to be saved, so I helped push the idea of voting X along and he left. This was about the time that I knew that Logan and I would split ways and I needed to find a pair to gain a majority in this game. Ultimately I looked between Josh/Leanna and Chris/Mearl. I had good connections with both and I felt it could go either way. Mearl approached me with the idea of forming an alliance and instantly I was on board because I felt that my relationships with Josh and Leanna were not as strong as say Chris and Mearl. So, I convinced Mearl to start an alliance with him, his partner, my partner, me, and then harry and tina to gain a majority. And so the Night Club was formed. It all was perfectly set, almost as if the red carpet was laid out for me to go to the end.
Tashi getting medically evacuated put a dent in my plans. I knew it was going to be a hard fought effort to gain myself back into a good spot in this game. The next few tribal councils were definitely a dark part of my game, but I kept fighting nonetheless. I do not regret playing my idol during the fast forward. I realized that I had a 33% chance at regaining majority in this game and I went for it. I guessed wrong, but I had the guts to take a chance and see what happens.
Instantly after the fast forward occurred I started talking to people. Latisha and Logan had their minds dead set against me, so I worked on Josh and Leanna. During this round it occurred to me that Josh and Leanna were not as close as they would seem, and that Leanna was being held back by Josh. I tried making something work with Josh, but he declined the offers and wouldn't accept anything until "next tribal council". This indicated that he wasn't willing to make a move. I had to vote out Josh and ultimately this is where I started playing harder. I jumped on the opportunity to make a connection with Leanna.
Leanna was alone, she wasn't a huge threat, and I felt like if I wanted to get out my adversaries in this game, she was my best bet. I already had bonds with Stoner and Harry, so I knew that I had my back covered. And even though I was constantly targeted for being a threat to win this game, I was able to convince people to go my way and vote out others over me. The whole idol situation worried me, so I made sure that I covered my ass from being idoled out and threw Yandere's name around. I knew Logan would never play an idol on Yandere, and I was right. I successfully got Yandere out who, to this point, showed he was not open to working with me.
That left me with two others that had both made it clear they were gunning for me. I knew that I had Leanna working with me, and that she would take me over Chris or Harry. Chris and Harry both also wanted to take me farther in the game. Harry and I both came together and threw out the idea of splitting votes, and we pushed it until Chris accepted it. I had to trust that nobody would backstab me and once again, nobody did. I was close to getting voted out in the revote but I convinced people to vote Latisha.
At this point Chris was winning immunity after immunity and I knew my chances were getting slimmer and slimmer. Luckily, Logan had used his idol last round, so I was able to push him as a vote and get him out of this game. Logan was a threat and in order for me to win this game, I needed him on the jury and not in one of these spots here. Then came final four and I was in a sticky position. I was on my way out the door, but both Leanna and Harry decided to give me a chance at fire and I fought for my chance to the final tribal council.
I have received a total of 22 votes in this game, counting revotes, and I have fought my way from the bottom to the top not relying on immunity wins but my social and strategic gameplay. Some people may see receiving 0 votes as a big accomplishment, but I believe that the fact that I was able to overcome so many obstacles and votes this season shows the prowess I have as a player. I did also come pretty close in some of the challenges, reflecting that I was competing as well. I played hard in the pre-merge to ensure that I was in a good position come merge, and even after losing three of my closest allies, I stayed in this game even though I was constantly told I was the biggest threat left in the game. I tried to make connections with people in this cast and I truly did enjoy playing with everyone here. This has been a great season and I definitely think this is a good way to end it off. I'll be answering any and all questions.