Hello jury!

Coming into this season, I knew I had a lot to prove to myself. This was one of my very first group games I have every played and each season I have come so close. I have always been too loyal to someone and have them flip on me.

I was embarrassingly voted off during the premerge because I didn’t trust my gut and was too loyal to one side. These are the mistakes I usually make cause who wouldn’t want to be loyal if they could be and then I always doubt myself. Even though I was out of the game, I was still playing the game at redemption. I connected with those at redemption and even had Stoner give me his extra vote at this very FTC! I know being voted off is the biggest flaw in my game, and I will own it. And just saying it honestly worked out to my advantage, as I was able to keep my 1 idol and use it later on!

After clawing my way back in, I wanted to play differently. I wasn’t going to be loyal to any one person besides myself and I was going to trust my instinct more. I tried my best to have a working relationship with everyone; I made deals and/or alliances when I could even if those deals didn’t work out in the end. Despite being already voted off, my name was constantly being mentioned for being a threat. Every single tribal, I took a risk and trusted my gut, may it be playing at Ghost Island, or regarding my idols. I was holding onto THREE idols at one time and I had to trust my intuition each time on whether or not to play it at the merge, which is super hard when there is a plan mentioned at literally every tribal to get rid of me or my idols.

After Sagar was blindsided, I jumped ship and grouped up with the “Romeo side” and blindsided Kyle. This vote was able to put me in a swing vote position despite being a target from both sides. I was able to stay safe at 6 and play my idol at 5, despite everyone knowing I had an idol and would play it at 5 and not 6.

To this very moment, I have had five advantages (even though some were useless). I had 3 idols, 1 extra vote at FTC (shoutout Stoner), and I won a real “fake” idol at Ghost Island. I was planning on using this idol as some form of strategy, but if people thought I had FOUR idols, I think that would have just made my journey even more harder.

You can say that I depended on using advantages, but I’m not the only one who used them: one day tribe coins, vote stealers, idols, idol nullifiers, extra votes, telescopes etc. were all used. Just because some of these advantages were unused or used incorrectly doesn’t mean they were not relied on. The game would be very different if nothing was given out, but it is the game we are playing. I used what was accessible to me to carry myself further just as you all would have and did.

At this finale, I made sure the people that I felt that I had the best chance of winning against came with me. I wasn’t carried to the end despite having already been voted off and I should have been someone who is easy to beat on paper, but I had to work my way to be here. I was part of blindsides, and made moves to carry myself further. I was sitting in the f6 with having every single person there having written my name down at least once (well Ivy having voted me at that tribal.)  I was my own “ghost island artifact” and came back and reversed my own curse by playing for only myself and trusting myself.

Happy to answer any questions, won’t really be on much tomorrow cause of work, but I’ll do my best :)

Hello.

I'm not gonna lie I really suck at speeches, but I'm gonna do my best here. Before I talk about my game I do wanna say that even though I did have differences with some of you, particularly Logan, and I may not like you, and I did say a lot of harsh and mean things, I just wanna apologise, when I said you should kill yourself, I didn't really want you to kill yourself.

With that being said, coming into this season, I honestly was planning to have an under the radar kind of game, I normally excel on my social relationships with people, but this was kind of halted because I was sent to Ghost Island almost immediately, I wasn't on a tribe, I got the One Day Tribes Coin, and I was moved onto a tribe shortly after that, where I was a pretty easy target just because I was like the only one who had been to GI, the most likely to have an advantage. I really don't wanna suck my own ass here, but I was supposed to go home unanimously on the morning of Josh's elimination, so I think the fact that I was able to flip enough people and pretty much build a group around myself that stayed together for pretty much the rest of the season until the Finale is pretty impressive.

After that tribal, I was pinpointed as kind of a top dog, mostly by Brady but I know others were saying it behind my back too probably, and I thought that it was gonna be really hard for me to get rid of that reputation quickly when it was so early in the game, so my game plan at that point was to be really defensive, I recognised that I was going to be a target for awhile so I just made sure that I had loyal people on my side, I tried to get people to sympathise with me for the fact that I was being targeted so heavily, I mean, there was literally a chat named 'The Juliets' to go against me, like my impact...

Anyways, me and my alliance were slaying out a bunch of people until the Reverse round came, and this is where there was a lot of controversy. I thought Chris and I were aligned, I trusted him on that vote, that was a mistake, but who doesn't make mistakes? And Ashanti voting for LQ and LQ getting her vote cancelled out led for my elimination to happen so perfectly, but I had my power, and because of the nature of that round, the power pretty much reset everything. I just wanna say this was definitely not rigged for me, Pieguy explained to me what my power would do in this round if I used it because I asked him when he revealed it, there was no way he or I would know that I'd be voted out at that point, and everything that happened that round was VERY unlikely so I hope none of you resent me for that. Seeing everyone's reactions did scare me, I know it's frustrating to see someone be voted out and then their power saves them, but it did feel like even more people wanted me to go that night than I thought, and that's when I actually heard of the Juliets alliance by people in the chat, I think it was Sagar, but Brady may of mentioned it to me too.

When the round reset, my mind was pretty set, I wanted Chris out. I woke up with a knife in my back and it was humiliating, so yeah, I wanted revenge. It wasn't just a revenge vote though, Chris was clearly playing both sides before being caught and really most people from the alliance going home would have been good for me, but especially him since he voted me out. Again, not to suck my ass, but I really did send him home kind of single- handedly, since he didn't even get the majority of votes so I had to sprint in the immunity challenge, and I already sent Luis to Ghost before the votes were revealed because me and my alliance heard that he was the other side's vote, y'all really should have just kept your mouths shut and Chris probably would have stayed. I do think this is probably one of my biggest moves, I stomped the snake who tried to get me out of the game, and I'm not even someone who normally goes for the flashy move, but I think this was one!

Anyways, after this happened I really did want to settle down a bit, and I think I did! Even though my name was still of course mentioned and discussed as possible votes for the rest of the season, I think I adapted really well from being such an aggressive and loud player to having a lot of ties and relationships to the people in my alliance and even to the other alliance. Way before the tribe swap, I had tried to be sorta friendly with Brady, I didn't want to act like we were best friends because we both know that would of seemed phony, but I think we both made sure to let each other know we were interested in working together since people wanted us to be rivals so bad, and this worked out for me since Brady flipped to me and Vlad to  vote for Will, and yes Will returned so this was redundant in the long run, but I think it still caused distrust and conflict in that alliance.

Before the merge, I lost Vlad, loved that king, and I was in the minority along with my other alliance members. I was ready to vote out Will #revolvingdoor with brady and harry, I'm not really sure if they were truly voting Will at the beginning or were just going with Ashanti the whole time, either way, Ashanti telling Will the plan was really troublesome, I quickly told everyone to vote for Pietro solely because I just had never spoke to him so I saw no harm. Even though the vote didn't go through and Ashanti, probably my #1 at that point, went home, I still think it shows that I was a decision maker in my alliance and wasn't just along for the ride.

The next 2 votes were really about regaining my power, our power, regaining the majority, and so the best people to target were Brady and Harry because of their flip floppiness, and luckily it scared people from the other side like Kyle and Ivy enough for them to save me and vote Brady out, and then Harry shortly followed. I never trusted Harry because he just lied to me one too many times for my liking, so him going was kinda  a long time coming ever since he lied about voting with me at the Josh, no hard feelings tho king. This is also the round that I started to develop a pretty good relationship with Pietro, I was confident that I would work with him moving forward because side alliances are always great to have and I didn't think he was much of a threat so it really made him the perfect ally.

When Max went, I was very mad, along with Brandon and LQ, and we knew we needed one of us to win immunity, specifically me or Brandon, to send each other to GI with LQ already being safe so we'd all be immune, even though we also had Sagar as a solid number with us, we still weren't sure about him by then so our main priority was keeping each other safe. I won immunity and made this happen. After the messy decision (which I still don't get tbh) to go to rocks from the other alliance, Pietro went home, which wasn't great, since as I said earlier, I was really planning to work with him further, but it was just something I had to deal with and overall was barely a hit to my game, as I still had connections to the other side like Ivy and James. After this round I was pretty sure Sagar was loyal to us, or at least me, as he voted out Logan when I was the opposing vote.

I really want to explain this Logan vote, yes it would of been a big move to take out Will and his idols, but when it's ME that would go home in the event of him playing his idol, I'm not gonna take any risks! I was truly loyal to my alliance but my safety was the most important thing to me, and if someone has 2 idols at the Final 9, the odds of them playing one when they know their name is out there really isn't low. And anyways, if Will did go that round, we would of faced a 4-4 split the next round, where James won immunity, and assuming he still won that immunity which I don't see how that would change unless Logan won it, but it'd still be someone from their side, and they'd likely send one of my alliance members to GI leaving us in a 4-3 minority, and boom one of us goes home, so no matter what anyone says to me I really do think it worked out for the better as I got out the one person who was never going to work with me and I had no use for.

I was mad that Will still had idols, and I thought others were too, so I thought the best idea for all of us was to split the votes between Will and someone else, this someone else happened to be Sagar. Even though I somewhat doubted if Sagar was more loyal to me or Will still, I didn't want him to go home, so it hurt but there was no other plan that James, Ivy and Kyle were going to agree to besides voting one of me, LQ and Brandon. I prayed that Will didn't play an idol and he went home, but he did, and Sagar went. Sagar, I'm really sorry that I acted like I had no idea this was happening, we pretty much all did besides you and I'm not sure about Will, in my dream scenario I wanted to go further with you but I thought possibly sacrificing you that round would be for the better.

After that, I wanted Kyle out, so did LQ and Brandon I'm pretty sure. I had a up and down relationship with Kyle because of always hearing about he had some shit to say behind my back! But still, with all the confrontations we had we didn't have a horrible relationship, but I thought he had to go because he was just too sketchy for me to ever rely on, and James was sent to GI so we couldn't vote him out, who even tho I really liked and sort of trusted until the F9, I knew he had a great social game and would of preferred to take him out.

Thankfully, we got to get him out the next tribal, people were worried about him having an advantage of some sorts, but I honestly wasn't, it was just a gut feeling that he didn't have anything to save himself, sometimes my gut feeling has let me down but in this case it didn't.

I forgot to mention this earlier, the steal a vote advantage I won, I used correctly to save myself at the F9, and I really hate sucking my ass but I thought it was relevant to note that as an accomplishment.

Now, I'm not going to say I was ALWAYS in the loop, because clearly I wasn't at the Final 5, when Brandon flipped and voted out LQ. I wanted to go to the Finals with LQ and Brandon, and even though people may question why I voted out Brandon in that case, with Brandon voting out LQ, there was no longer a possibility for a F3 with Brandon and LQ, so I had to rethink everything basically about who I wanted to sit next to. My options were limited with Will winning immunity, even though I really wanted to stay loyal to my alliance of LQ and Brandon, Brandon didn't stay loyal, so I feel like I would have been a fool to still keep my loyalty to him and vote out Ivy who I didn't perceive as a jury threat.

Now that I've explained most of my game I'm going to post a last statement soon but my arm really hurts from typing so imma take a small break.

I'm looking forward to answering any questions you guys have to clear anything up that may need clearing up. I do want to say I really do think I had the hardest journey of getting here out of this final 3, I know Will had to return from Redemption, but he got voted out in the first place, and had 2 idols, I had no idols and I know I technically got voted out as well, but very special and different circumstances, I don't know if I've ever been so passionate about a game before than this, I made sure I made decisions within my group but I always played a few rounds under the radar to avoid coming off as a dictator to my allies, and I think that worked out for me, if you disagree we can discuss it, with that all being said, good luck Ivy and Will, and thank you, jurors, for listening.

I would just like to say that both of my fellow finalists have been voted off just as I have and we would all be gone if these advantages and twists didn’t exist. Romeo and Ivy both during the reverse and revoke. Romeo without his coin or his vote stealer. And me without winning redemption island and without having idols.

Happy to answer and questions or to go in more depth regarding anything! Gl Romeo and Ivy!

With that being said I'd like to respond to Will's comment. Yes, he has a point but me and Ivy never had our torch snuffed, personally, I feel that there's a difference.

Honestly I love you all, what a blessed final 3 that we don't deserve

Romeo - Played from the minority for a vast portion of the post-merge and are still standing here when basically the entire alliance that was originally formed against you was taken out 1 by 1, love you king. Made it here as the sole surviving member of your core alliance

Will - I know firsthand how hard you worked this entire game. Even when you were voted out you knew you had a lot of unfinished business to take care of and you did just that. I feel like you played a perfect middle game and I never really once doubted that you would make it to f3 even when you were the biggest target for a significant part of the game. I don't discount the advantages or twists that worked out in your favor, that's literally the game we signed up for and you were the one to maximize the resources you had available to you

Ivy - Honestly you're a vile hag but I do think you are lowkey iconic. You played an amazing cockroach game and I think you deserve more credit than you will probably get in this vote

My vote is locked, but I am happy with the outcome regardless. Good luck friends!

okay, well hello jury! im overjoyed that I made it here and get to now face you all to plead my case for the win.

so I guess these go as you talk about your game from start to finish so ill go for that...

so starting off I was laying very low the first few votes as there was a larger amount of players than usual and I wanted to not cause any kind of shenanigans TOO early lol. from there I was approached with an alliance called the "future queens" I think, where sagar had brought me in through my social connection with him. I then had this queen alliance grow into a divide that was uncontrollable which was "romeos pre made" vs the rest of the cast. there, through the tribe swaps I just went with this 'rest of the house' group and slowly progressed through the game, while this happened I was starting to connect with people like Brandon, Vlad, Romeo on the other side to eventually jump onto their side, as I wasn't feeling as strongly about my connections to the Juliet alliance members at this point, I also liked the idea of me going off with the biggest targets in the game and jumping ship on my alliance. I remember throughout the pre merge I was gaining stronger connections with the other side and maintaining that relationship for then, sadly when we has some whack restart week everyone went to tribal. I was clearly known as the lowest member of my team by that point as I thought James was going home and voted him, when I was almost voted out, I wasn't actually that worried because I knew when to lay low and when to let others fight their battles and thats what I did and just let my tribe of all alliance members see (after a switch yet again) that they should win the challenge and keep me as a number, so I was never worried even when I was in danger as I could rely on others needing me down the road.

then merge happened, by this point I had started to get closer to aj and was starting to see how it wouldn't benefit me to keep staying clearly close to Brady and harry; as the rest of the Juliets were imploding on each other and everyone had fights I was still early commenting and just riding this wave along, but thats when I saw an opening, I knew I was the most close with Brandon, Romeo and lequisha and wanted them to stay, to I started to then become more active and vocal in the alliance chats for the juleits speaking up on how aj should leave and speculating about ghost island. I was always trying to cause confusion and speculation bc it causes more tensions to rise and people to snap! so with that I went to work and got closer individuals to Juliet members once again. I got close to others after I realized encouraging aj go home was not good for my game as I was having a growing relationship with them. so I realized this was when others I started to talk to more; like sagar (on and off throughout the game lol) and James and even Pietro were down for things like taking out Brady and harry. so after they went home and I helped take focus off of romeos premade alliance I then wanted them to focus back on keeping our numbers advantage. as was everyone else in the alliance. this is when I became extra vocal and pushed the most as I became super active and started talking to everyone; almost too much. I spoke up more about max being a challenge threat so the Juliets concluded on voting max and not saying anything to the other side. from here I tried -emphasis on tried to build trust in hinting to Romeo Brandon lequisha who I felt closest to in the game that they would all be safe, wanting them not to play their idols, this is when Brandon did play his idol and then a small fight happened where they were all not happy with me.

this is when I had to retract and show my strong loyalty to these three after they had just fought with me, so here is when the vote split happened and we all were in chaotic mess, but here is when I saw a ballsy but good for my game opportunity, when the vote tied, I couldn't just "mutiny" if you will lol and vote with Brandons side and make it easy for myself in the game. I decided instead I had to take out another one of my fellow Juliets. so, then I had to convince Pietro who I was closest to this vote when they went home and I think this was the peak of our relationship too. but from there we agreed to tie the revote, and from there I somehow was able to convince Pietro to go to rocks and it worked! idk what I did but we all went to rocks which was so fucking stoopid omg but I was actually hoping at this point that Logan would go as he was not a threat and I was wanting to keep big threat in the game to quietly get through to the finals. so then a few more votes went by where I tried to overplay my social game skills and everything I said to my top allies, lq Romeo and Brandon was being thrown back to my Juliets. so I tried to play a more individual based game after Logan left the next round oddly enough good for my game. from here I was in on the plan with Kyle and James to blindside sagar as him and will were too close along with all the idols will had. from there I won immunity and wasn't as assertive this round as I was safe and wanted to watch what everyone else wanted to do and wanted out as it showed me where true loyalties would go down the road. I realized that especially after the superlatives challenge I needed to embrace my float like quality as people wanted me to come to the end with them and I realized it was best then to keep Romeo lq Brandon in at all costs as far into the game.

I just want to say I never had any advantages or ghost island saves I was the only person here to attend every vote they were to attend and I think between all of us finalists my name has been written down the least amount of times. I didn't get to ride through on a premade vote for a ghost island token to restart your game and didn't get to avoid votes by being in redemption island I played this game wholesome and genuine. I hope I can get your votes tonight jury! ask me lots of questions, my description isn't the best above but as ive said im much more about the individual rapport im building with you so please talk to me and ask me questions.

@Romeo’s comment

The torches were snuffed during the reverse and revoke, but just negated depending on who won the competitions. Also as I mentioned in my speech beforehand, I was voted off because I didn’t trust my intuition. I felt in my gut something was wrong but chose not to believe it. After being blindsided, it lit a fire in me and I came back with just one goal, and that was to make it to the end. I always doubt myself cause that’s just how I am but I trusted my instincts and they brought me here.

Sure you can say having my torch snuffed officially is different but redemption island was my version of the reverse and revoke twist. I worked for my own reverse button to change my game and break my own curse.

@Sagar

Awww thank you for your kind words 🥰! I just had the biggest smile on my face 😂

Will baby, just don't even try, we weren't voted out, I wasn't worried about losing immunity darling

Personally I don't ever remember Mike snuffing my torch.

okay now im back and ready to talk about the finale, so I had made it to the final day which felt amazing, im not sure but I think this was my first finale of survivor so I was very happy and new to this format. so my whole strategy this time had been to sit back and watch people fight but as well I was always going by my own motto of you don't have to outrun the bear you just have to outrun the slowest person. with this I mean how I excelled through the game always being swatted away strategically but I was able to be flip flopping through merge without ever seeming the worst. I was lying without seeming like the beset liar. I was always "doin' the most" without actually doing stuff the most as the other tribe members were going home and I was cruising through. I did this in so many aspects of my game I can discuss personally later on with people.

there was quick thinking and recalling shit from a fucken week ago bc we are so messy...COUGH COUGH Brandon. anyways so I just want to dress the jury here:
specifically the three who didn't become finalists. James LQ and BRANDON
I just wanna apologize for the robbery that all three of you experienced, I think that going in I thought you three were going to win the most and get to the end, especially Brandon and James. but anyways in the finale I wanted to explain my gameplay too as it was very erratic again.

so when it was James who was voted out I realized and sold how I gave my idol clue to James and will and that they must have found the idol bc I didn't have it, so when Brandon won safety I was down with them to vote lq. but then I realized that I didn't want lq going until the last vote bc I thought she was a great threat. so I decided it was smarter to just do what Brandon told me (WILL) and be loyal to them, this was due to the fact I knew no one would vote me and I would look more loyal than whoever stayed over will and James and then lq was still here.
now at final 5 Romeo won immunity I think and this was not good as will still hadn't played his idol and would be safe playing his idol now at 5. so from here I realized that I needed Brandon the biggest threat in the game for me, to help me get out lq, my second biggest threat. when Brandon flipped I was happy as I realized I would stay and even with lq going I had will and Brandon to hide behind here to not have any votes again.

final 4 was easy, will won immunity, which ill say I was very close for once lol but I didn't win, so will is going to finals and I realized that will and me had the power as each one didn't want to go to the end with each other and wanted me to come along. I just voted for Brandon here as I saw him as the player of the season making my final slay of the biggest threat right at the end before being as close as I am to the win!

anyways this is the finale now over so ask me questions please bc I love feeling famous. I hope my iconicness wore off on y'all peace out!

First of all I want to congratulate all of you on getting here! To me you three could all play the role of the quintessential underdog this season! BUT unfortunately only one underdog can win, so my questions to you three are?

Romeo - There is talk and chatter that you are claiming moves that weren’t in fact your own moves. I need one example of when you brainstormed the move, put it into motion and effectively executed successfully. Now I need to to be clear it has to be YOUR SOLE MOVE!

Will - from you I need to know how you would of progressed through this merge period has you NOT had your idols, what were your main strategic and social plays that would of got you here had you not had your many aids!

Ivy - To me you speech reads very confusing which I believe reflects your gameplay! This season you were all over the place lying to everyone, jumping through many alliances. I want to know was this a strategy? Did you give a fuck how you came across? And who were your main loyalties to this season!

For all three of you I want you to tell me which one player you think deserved this win this season and why!

Ivy - To me you speech reads very confusing which I believe reflects your gameplay! This season you were all over the place lying to everyone, jumping through many alliances. I want to know was this a strategy? Did you give a fuck how you came across? And who were your main loyalties to this season!

well yes, this was a strategy for me was to be unpredictable and cause tensions dn speculation all game. I brought nerves and anxiety up. I think no I didn't really, I think that when we had the reverse vote and I was labelled most expendable on my tribe I wasn't giving a fuck how I played anymore and went into a chaotic good mode.
my loyalties weren't really there, quite honestly it was only until finale that will finally asked to be a final 2 with me. otherwise I didn't get many offers for finals as I read others all wanted me anyways. this is why I felt I could lie and not face trouble as others just wanted to string me along to the end when it ended up costing people like Brandon lq mainly and also kinda Kyle who wanted to keep me to far in the game.
my loyalties though wernt to anyone really, with this I had only myself to worry about and could play evenly with any and everyone of you without pre existing alliance and feelings of devotion to others