Hey y'all, I'm going to TRY my best to keep this as short as possible, but I am
a) An English major
b) Ranty
so this will probably be much more than you want to read, but I'll try to include TL;DRs to skim through the worst of it.
*Section One: Christian and M&N- A Love Story Gone Dreadfully Wrong*
As one of the returning players this season, I want to give y'all some insight into how I approached this game based off my prior experiences in this series. My first season was S3: Hong Kong after my dear friend Newz asked me to apply. I was fortunate enough to play with one of my closer friends on the site, and together, despite being in the minority since the merge, we managed to get to the FTC. I thought I had played my heart out. I found idols, I won challenges, I did all the stereotypical
#BIGMOVES you're supposed to do. Yet I still lost by a single jury vote. Don't get me wrong, I love Guigi to death and she totally deserved that win. But that game taught me that you can do everything right, defy all the odds, and still lose. It was a lesson I needed to learn, and one I tried to take with me as when I came back for All Stars.
HOWEVER, that trainwreck quickly hit me when at the merge, I was so anxious to be part of the majority and repeat my mistakes from last tribal, I ended up just making myself a huge target instead. I was promptly blindsided 8-4-1 (I was the one) with both a legacy advantage and an idol in my pocket, and despite making merge, was not a part of the jury.
I was completely humiliated to be quite honest. Seeing how embarrassing my All Stars exit was, I never wanted to return to this series ever again. I was a flop of a runner-up, an embarrassment of a merge boot, and I felt this series was cursed for me.
But then JB asked both Ben (bigben1996) and myself if we'd be interested in playing as part of his Bloodlines. Despite my initial hesitations, Ben told me to take the spot. Although I feared an exit similar to All Stars, I told myself, honestly how much worse could I do? I gave myself three goals upon coming in
1) Make the jury- Since two seasons of me not being a jury member, I wanted the feeling of being a part of the winner's story tbh
2) Have fun- All Stars and Hong Kong both shared that I was stressed the entire time I was playing. From being in the minority constantly, to the expectations of performing well in All Stars, I never got to just enjoy the game for the game. Since this was my first Survivor in over a year, I wanted to remind myself of what initially caught my love of the game. I wanted to recreate that magic and was hoping this would be the game that would do it
3) Reverse my personal curses- As cheesy as it sounded, I didn't want to come in this game just to experience the same results. I felt 13th was an easy enough placement to avoid, and 2nd was a little out of the question, so I felt I could at least get one of them down and leave this game accomplished.
And now here, I sit, having reversed that first curse, and now hopefully having a chance to reverse my second.
TL;DR: Embarrassing prior experiences cause Christian Underscore to seek a happier, more enjoyable game, and redeem the past
*Section Two: Bloodlines Pre-Merge*
I'm not going to lie, as one of the five players who didn't attend tribal pre-merge, my game wasn't as exciting or thrilling as JB's was most likely. I largely spent my time talking to my tribe, winning the challenges, and finding idols. I first found my tribe's idol and pocketed, glad to have that on my side, despite trusting my tribe. I then found the Mud's Marauders one, and passed it off to James, hoping that since he was in my pact it could protect him. Then post-swap I found the Dogana one and kept that in my pocket. I also found the Will's Warrior one but
#thought it was too late, little did I know Will had actually found it before I sent him the link.
JB then asked for an idol, after James' blindside with the idol, he didn't feel secure. Although I knew it would probably paint a target on my back, it was a risk I was willing to take to ensure my team stuck together as long as we could.
While King Jxhn was taken out, the rest of my Juggernauts were fortunately able to arrive intact come merge.
TL;DR: Challenge wins, idol finds, and a cross-tribe idol swap