FTC Opening Speech
Mar 8, 2019 5:53:58 GMT
Post by Deoxys on Mar 8, 2019 5:53:58 GMT
First draft:
Hello everyone. Before I begin, let me just say that the last five weeks have been an absolute whirwind of emotions for me. There's been some really amazing highs, some really disheartening lows. I have sunk countless amounts of hours into this game and put everything I have into it. As everyone who played in this game knows all too well, nothing was ever easy in this game nor did things ever go according to plan; not once in this game did I allow myself to rest or let my guard down, but instead constantly put in the work I needed to on each and every vote. I had days where this game kept me up at night, thinking over what I should do next or coming up with a contingency plan; and I had days where this game was the bright spot I looked forward to after a hard day at work or an argument with a friend. But through it all, this has been a wonderful experience for me and I have had a blast - and so I do want to thank each and every one of you for having been a part of this game and for having made it better by your presense.
Coming into this game I had played in a few of these before as had everyone on the Mystics, but unlike some or most of them, I had never done particularly well in any of them; the Jeff Varner of returnees if you will. When I saw the premise of the game, it piqued my interest because I figured hey - at least I'll have more experience then half the players this time. What I hadn't realized at the time was that it also meant that I'd end up on a tribe where I was very much out of my league at the start, surrounded by a ton of very good players. And as those of you on Mystic know, there was a point in that first tribal council where I was one of the main options to be the first boot of this season. You know, it's funny, the new players who were on Valor and playing in their first game were each given a trainer to help them learn the ropes and get their bearings in order to help them settle into the game, but I was more fortunate; I felt like I had five trainers to help me through the opening phase. Coba, Meltan, Poipole, Hoopa, and Celebi - you were all instrumental in helping me learn how to avoid going out early once again, how to get my legs under me, and how to get to a point where I felt comfortable in the game. I feel very confident in saying that were it not for each of you, I would not be here and I probably would have gone out first had several of you not gone out of your way to help me either directly or indirectly. So thank you all for that especially.
Early on in the game, on the original Mystic tribe, I wanted to prove my worth to my tribe in challenges and help us avoid as many of the early tribals as we could. I do think I performed well in challenges: I was the one to figure out how important Tangela was in the fusion challenge, I along with Coba had a very strong performance in the Codenames challenge where we pretty handily won our board, and I along with several others worked together sketching out various plans in Google Sheets for Santorini to figure out which move would help us the most. Obviously we didn't have a particularly good challenge record as a tribe, but I do feel I was a strong contributor all three times. Socially, once I was given the reality check the night of that first tribal council I redoubled my efforts to build genuine relationships with people, and with a few exceptions where a PM slipped through the cracks always responded to any PM every time I checked the game (which sometimes wasn't always as often as I'd have liked given my work hours and inability to have my phone on the floor at work). Strategically I tried to lie low on the original Mystic tribe; even when I was a target the first time I didn't push Jirachi or any other wagon but instead just focussed on being liked and reinforcing my work ethic in the challenge to ensure people wanted me to stay and by the next morning two wagons had emerged and I neither of them was me. Again in the second vote I tried to let others be the decision-makers and was happy to follow Meltan on the Solgaleo wagon as Sol was the one person on Mystic that I just never had a great connection with.
We were entering the swap down in the numbers, but in what I thought was a stroke of luck at the time I ended up on Mystic 2.0 and a tribe that was 3-2 in favour of the original Mystics. I considered that a perfect landing spot, as I was with Articuno and Meltan, two people I trusted and I knew had shown a desire to keep me in the game in the original Mystic tribe. The two Valors were of course Tapu and Regi who I sit here at the end with though never would have expected that at the time (or really any time until fairly late merge, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Despite having what I thought was a comfortable Mystic lead on the swapped tribe, I still gave it my all in the challenges as I had 23 items in the scavenger hunt. I didn't play in the Wheel of Fortune game, and as the other 2.0 Mystics know I fucked up the Unicorn flash game by submitting just after the 30m deadline had closed through not having anticipated potential delays in submission and giving myself a buffer. That was probably my lowest point in the game and I spent about 22h having to dread the reveal of scores and upcoming tribal council, but thankfully I had build good enough relations that no one held it against me. That vote was also a huge shift in the game for me. As I mentioned, I felt safe in that tribe as we had 3 Mystics to 2 Valors, but as soon as tribal council started I got a PM from Meltan with a suggestion to vote Articuno as he was afraid Articuno might be loyal to Hoopa at the merge or play both sides. That told me that (1) Meltan wanted people who were loyal to him; (2) he considered me to be loyal; and (3) that Meltan wasn't afraid to cut people at the first sign of potential trouble. What worried me much more, though, was how easily Regi and Tapu seemed to follow Meltan's every word and stuck by his side, something that would continue later on.
We merged after that vote, and despite having entered the swap down in the numbers the Mystics went into the merge with a slight 6-5 edge due to the Mystics on the other two swap tribes having managed to overcome the deficit in both tribes. If we were all to stick together we'd have had the numbers, but I knew Meltan wanted no part in working with the other Mystics and that some of the other Mystics still had hesitations about Meltan from the first two votes. I knew Meltan was rounding up Valors in preparation of what in his mind was an upcoming standoff with the bigger group of Mystics. I knew most of the Mystics were wary of Meltan and keen to stick together as much as possible, at least for a little while. During the first couple of days in the merge I spent time firming up my new alliance with Meltan/Tapu/Regi, catching up with Poipole/Coba/Hoopa/Celebi, and getting to know Mes/Uxie/Volc, and for the most part that was going very well - with one main exception. Volc and I couldn't seem to mesh at all in our chat and things seemed a bit forced, leading him to eventually say something that I think by now all of you have heard about. As he was the one person I did not feel like I had a good relationship with, I made sure to tell a few people what he had said, then a few more, and then it started spreading where others were coming to me and asking me about it; I reasoned that the early merge was likely to be similar to the start of the game where it just takes a name being out there and a reason to vote that person and often people will go with it to avoid being the target, and that seemed like a good way to get the target on the person who clearly wasn't working with me while avoiding taking too much heat for calling a shot. The bad news was that Meltan had all of the Valors voting with him anyways, so the majority of the votes weren't going to be going for Volc - the good news was that I knew Coba had an idol and so steered the Meltan-group votes in his direction as much as I could and then made sure Coba knew (though I am sure he already did) that he needed to play it. Coba had trusted me with an idol clue he found back on the original Mystic tribe that involved him having to make a post asking for an idol clue then one hour later make another post to find the idol; he could edit one or both posts after but had to leave the post asking for an idol clue up for that hour. Given that he had trusted me with that idol clue I knew I had a strong bond with him and so was happy for him to have the idol as that would mean I knew where it was and an ally had it - so I created a 'wishing well' thread in the Mystic forum that would hopefully both boost tribe morale and also allow Coba the cover he needed to get his idol.
After the Volc vote went down, Poipole had thrown a hinky vote for Coba so the numbers were fluid on both sides and I took full advantage of that by both telling Meltan's group as well as the Mystic bloc that I voted with them and was working with them against the other side. I knew that while I had good individual bonds with people on both sides, I was not high enough on the overall heirarchy of either group to want to commit and go to the end with either group, but instead wanted to ride the middle and play one side against the other for as long as I could. Obviously the next tribal council ended with Mesprit pulling herself from the game; I'm sorry for everything you were going through Mesprit and hope things have resolved themselves for you in the time since - that's certainly much more important than this game of Survivor.
Coming out of Mesprit leaving the game, that left Meltan's group with four people (Meltan/Uxie/Tapu/Regi) and the Mystic group with three people (Coba/Celebi/Hoopa), with Poipole and I somewhere in the middle floating between the two sides. If one of the Mystic Three had gone out, Meltan's group would have been 4/8 and despite the fact that I probably could have slid into that fivesome without being questioned, I was still very worried about the pull Meltan seemed to have over Tapu and Regi in particular; Regi had a couple times told me stuff like 'Just do whatever Meltan says today' when discussing the vote. Given that I did have more of a relationship with the Mystic 2.0 group though, Uxie was the natural choice for someone from that group to go, so that's the way Poipole and I voted - Regi's big move of the game came at this point when he flipped from the minority of a 4-5 vote to make it 3-6 instead.
At this point in the game, it was final 8 and so far post-merge three Valors in a row had left. That meant that it was myself, Regi, Tapu, and five other Mystics - none of whom I felt good about going up against at the end; I still saw myself as the overwhelmed played I was at the start, and how could I ever expect to beat someone at the end who had taught me about the game as it went and helped me get to the point I had. I knew that we had gotten to the point where I could start looking to take out threats while I avoided becoming one myself. Coba was the obvious first name through his strong challenge performance and two successful idol plays, but that wasn't why I wanted him to be the first one to go; after all, I felt very good about my relationship with Coba, having helped him find an idol and not told anyone about it. I knew that to get to the end though I would have to keep playing both sides, and Coba seemed the person that would be least likely to end with anyone pissed at me - had I voted off Meltan there I was afraid I'd lose his two loyal followers, and didn't know how well Hoopa or Celebi would take it if the other went - Poipole would have been another option here but she was playing the middle with me and also was extremely well-liked by everyone.
After Coba went out, I again knew I needed to swing back as voting out another one of the Mystic bloc would have left Meltan's group as 3/6 and that was not something I found appealing given Regi and Tapu's loyalty to him. Poipole and I discussed it and decided to vote off Meltan here. I was not as worried as I had previously been that Regi or Tapu would hold it against me, since by this point once Meltan went home they would be left in the game with just myself, Poipole, Hoopa and Celebi; I knew the other three were much bigger threats than I was and that Regi and Tapu wouldn't have too many other options but to work with me. Regi had berated me several times by this point in PMs and called me everything in the book from useless, to a goat, and anything else he could think of when he was frustrated so I knew he thought he could beat me at the end, and I had a good relationship with Tapu as well.
The next vote was one of the most important of the game. Poipole had made a comment in the previous vote about not wanting to go far into the game with four people from Mystic 2.0 still alive, and so I knew she would be worried about going to the final five with myself/Tapu/Regi. I had tried to set the stage for it by building up Hoopa as a threat as much as I could - not that I had to do much since Hoopa was incredible in this game - because I knew how important it was for my game that Regi and Tapu be at the final five with me, both to give me some protection since I knew they wanted to go to the end with me, but also to give me a very safe option to end up with the two people I thought I had the best chance against at the end. This was definitely one of the votes where I had to put in a ton of effort; Poipole was the person I trusted and liked the most in this game and had worked with the closest, but at the same time I knew I needed to convince her to vote Hoopa here. This was of course made much more difficult by Regi being Regi and deciding to threaten her at the start of tribal into voting with us, which did nothing to ease Poi's concerns. Obviously in the end I did manage to convince Poipole that Hoopa was too big of a threat to take to five, and she proved my fears accurate by pulling out an idol and sending Poipole home. That was the only time I voted for someone other than the person who went home and also the only time I didn't know exactly what would happen at the tribal, as Hoopa and Celebi had pulled a fast one. I had managed to get safety that round through being the one person who could get through the gauntlet of bullshit puzzles the mods had assigned, and so I was safe from the idol blowback - though I can't imagine I would have been targeted over Poipole given how incredible of a UTR social game she was playing and how much everyone adored her.
Once Hoopa had idoled out Poipole her threat level was of course increased even more, so she was an easy vote to get everyone to agree on at five. Bringing her to four would have meant that she was one challenge away from a sure and dominant victory in the game, so everyone was in agreement that she had to go. This one is brief not because it wasn't important - Hoopa was probably the biggest threat in the game for the entire postmerge - but because this was the one vote that didn't seem to swing as much back and forth given that I had Regi and Tapu voting alongside me and was also able to talk to Celebi to make sure Hoopa went out unanimously; given that I didn't have immunity here I was afraid that Hoopa would manage to talk her way into staying at my expense. That brings us to the final four where once again I was able to make it through the mini-gauntlet and win safety and guarantee my place at the end; I knew that most people weren't underestimating me anymore and so absolutely wanted to assure myself that I wouldn't go home as the r.obbed g.oddess. What I at first thought might be an easy vote turned out to be anything but as I had to talk Tapu into keeping Regi right up until the deadline when she tried to flip her vote to Celebi but missed the deadline, though did swap on the tie. Regi had been writing his jury speech since final five, but was spared a fire challenge due to me convincing Tapu to bring him to the end with us.
I apologize for the length, as that was longer than I expected but I did want to take the time to walk you through the game from my perspective. I think I played a very strong game of Survivor, and I do absolutely think I deserve your vote to win. I put myself in a position from the very start of the merge to play both sides, I played the sides against one another so that there was minimal chance that either I would be discovered or that the two sides would decide to unite to vote me out, I had just about everyone in the game thinking I was voting with them until the round they went out, I took the time to get to know everyone as much as I could and socialize, and not least of all for the two rounds I was in real danger of going home I won immunity to guarantee my safety. But the truth is, what I think doesn't matter as the power is in your hands. Ask me and the other finalists questions, take the time to evaluate all of our games, and make an informed decision about who played the best game. I look forward to hearing from all of you during this final tribal council, and also look forward to keeping in touch after the game. Thanks again everyone for making this game so memorable and amazing!
-Deo
Hello everyone. Before I begin, let me just say that the last five weeks have been an absolute whirwind of emotions for me. There's been some really amazing highs, some really disheartening lows. I have sunk countless amounts of hours into this game and put everything I have into it. As everyone who played in this game knows all too well, nothing was ever easy in this game nor did things ever go according to plan; not once in this game did I allow myself to rest or let my guard down, but instead constantly put in the work I needed to on each and every vote. I had days where this game kept me up at night, thinking over what I should do next or coming up with a contingency plan; and I had days where this game was the bright spot I looked forward to after a hard day at work or an argument with a friend. But through it all, this has been a wonderful experience for me and I have had a blast - and so I do want to thank each and every one of you for having been a part of this game and for having made it better by your presense.
Coming into this game I had played in a few of these before as had everyone on the Mystics, but unlike some or most of them, I had never done particularly well in any of them; the Jeff Varner of returnees if you will. When I saw the premise of the game, it piqued my interest because I figured hey - at least I'll have more experience then half the players this time. What I hadn't realized at the time was that it also meant that I'd end up on a tribe where I was very much out of my league at the start, surrounded by a ton of very good players. And as those of you on Mystic know, there was a point in that first tribal council where I was one of the main options to be the first boot of this season. You know, it's funny, the new players who were on Valor and playing in their first game were each given a trainer to help them learn the ropes and get their bearings in order to help them settle into the game, but I was more fortunate; I felt like I had five trainers to help me through the opening phase. Coba, Meltan, Poipole, Hoopa, and Celebi - you were all instrumental in helping me learn how to avoid going out early once again, how to get my legs under me, and how to get to a point where I felt comfortable in the game. I feel very confident in saying that were it not for each of you, I would not be here and I probably would have gone out first had several of you not gone out of your way to help me either directly or indirectly. So thank you all for that especially.
Early on in the game, on the original Mystic tribe, I wanted to prove my worth to my tribe in challenges and help us avoid as many of the early tribals as we could. I do think I performed well in challenges: I was the one to figure out how important Tangela was in the fusion challenge, I along with Coba had a very strong performance in the Codenames challenge where we pretty handily won our board, and I along with several others worked together sketching out various plans in Google Sheets for Santorini to figure out which move would help us the most. Obviously we didn't have a particularly good challenge record as a tribe, but I do feel I was a strong contributor all three times. Socially, once I was given the reality check the night of that first tribal council I redoubled my efforts to build genuine relationships with people, and with a few exceptions where a PM slipped through the cracks always responded to any PM every time I checked the game (which sometimes wasn't always as often as I'd have liked given my work hours and inability to have my phone on the floor at work). Strategically I tried to lie low on the original Mystic tribe; even when I was a target the first time I didn't push Jirachi or any other wagon but instead just focussed on being liked and reinforcing my work ethic in the challenge to ensure people wanted me to stay and by the next morning two wagons had emerged and I neither of them was me. Again in the second vote I tried to let others be the decision-makers and was happy to follow Meltan on the Solgaleo wagon as Sol was the one person on Mystic that I just never had a great connection with.
We were entering the swap down in the numbers, but in what I thought was a stroke of luck at the time I ended up on Mystic 2.0 and a tribe that was 3-2 in favour of the original Mystics. I considered that a perfect landing spot, as I was with Articuno and Meltan, two people I trusted and I knew had shown a desire to keep me in the game in the original Mystic tribe. The two Valors were of course Tapu and Regi who I sit here at the end with though never would have expected that at the time (or really any time until fairly late merge, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Despite having what I thought was a comfortable Mystic lead on the swapped tribe, I still gave it my all in the challenges as I had 23 items in the scavenger hunt. I didn't play in the Wheel of Fortune game, and as the other 2.0 Mystics know I fucked up the Unicorn flash game by submitting just after the 30m deadline had closed through not having anticipated potential delays in submission and giving myself a buffer. That was probably my lowest point in the game and I spent about 22h having to dread the reveal of scores and upcoming tribal council, but thankfully I had build good enough relations that no one held it against me. That vote was also a huge shift in the game for me. As I mentioned, I felt safe in that tribe as we had 3 Mystics to 2 Valors, but as soon as tribal council started I got a PM from Meltan with a suggestion to vote Articuno as he was afraid Articuno might be loyal to Hoopa at the merge or play both sides. That told me that (1) Meltan wanted people who were loyal to him; (2) he considered me to be loyal; and (3) that Meltan wasn't afraid to cut people at the first sign of potential trouble. What worried me much more, though, was how easily Regi and Tapu seemed to follow Meltan's every word and stuck by his side, something that would continue later on.
We merged after that vote, and despite having entered the swap down in the numbers the Mystics went into the merge with a slight 6-5 edge due to the Mystics on the other two swap tribes having managed to overcome the deficit in both tribes. If we were all to stick together we'd have had the numbers, but I knew Meltan wanted no part in working with the other Mystics and that some of the other Mystics still had hesitations about Meltan from the first two votes. I knew Meltan was rounding up Valors in preparation of what in his mind was an upcoming standoff with the bigger group of Mystics. I knew most of the Mystics were wary of Meltan and keen to stick together as much as possible, at least for a little while. During the first couple of days in the merge I spent time firming up my new alliance with Meltan/Tapu/Regi, catching up with Poipole/Coba/Hoopa/Celebi, and getting to know Mes/Uxie/Volc, and for the most part that was going very well - with one main exception. Volc and I couldn't seem to mesh at all in our chat and things seemed a bit forced, leading him to eventually say something that I think by now all of you have heard about. As he was the one person I did not feel like I had a good relationship with, I made sure to tell a few people what he had said, then a few more, and then it started spreading where others were coming to me and asking me about it; I reasoned that the early merge was likely to be similar to the start of the game where it just takes a name being out there and a reason to vote that person and often people will go with it to avoid being the target, and that seemed like a good way to get the target on the person who clearly wasn't working with me while avoiding taking too much heat for calling a shot. The bad news was that Meltan had all of the Valors voting with him anyways, so the majority of the votes weren't going to be going for Volc - the good news was that I knew Coba had an idol and so steered the Meltan-group votes in his direction as much as I could and then made sure Coba knew (though I am sure he already did) that he needed to play it. Coba had trusted me with an idol clue he found back on the original Mystic tribe that involved him having to make a post asking for an idol clue then one hour later make another post to find the idol; he could edit one or both posts after but had to leave the post asking for an idol clue up for that hour. Given that he had trusted me with that idol clue I knew I had a strong bond with him and so was happy for him to have the idol as that would mean I knew where it was and an ally had it - so I created a 'wishing well' thread in the Mystic forum that would hopefully both boost tribe morale and also allow Coba the cover he needed to get his idol.
After the Volc vote went down, Poipole had thrown a hinky vote for Coba so the numbers were fluid on both sides and I took full advantage of that by both telling Meltan's group as well as the Mystic bloc that I voted with them and was working with them against the other side. I knew that while I had good individual bonds with people on both sides, I was not high enough on the overall heirarchy of either group to want to commit and go to the end with either group, but instead wanted to ride the middle and play one side against the other for as long as I could. Obviously the next tribal council ended with Mesprit pulling herself from the game; I'm sorry for everything you were going through Mesprit and hope things have resolved themselves for you in the time since - that's certainly much more important than this game of Survivor.
Coming out of Mesprit leaving the game, that left Meltan's group with four people (Meltan/Uxie/Tapu/Regi) and the Mystic group with three people (Coba/Celebi/Hoopa), with Poipole and I somewhere in the middle floating between the two sides. If one of the Mystic Three had gone out, Meltan's group would have been 4/8 and despite the fact that I probably could have slid into that fivesome without being questioned, I was still very worried about the pull Meltan seemed to have over Tapu and Regi in particular; Regi had a couple times told me stuff like 'Just do whatever Meltan says today' when discussing the vote. Given that I did have more of a relationship with the Mystic 2.0 group though, Uxie was the natural choice for someone from that group to go, so that's the way Poipole and I voted - Regi's big move of the game came at this point when he flipped from the minority of a 4-5 vote to make it 3-6 instead.
At this point in the game, it was final 8 and so far post-merge three Valors in a row had left. That meant that it was myself, Regi, Tapu, and five other Mystics - none of whom I felt good about going up against at the end; I still saw myself as the overwhelmed played I was at the start, and how could I ever expect to beat someone at the end who had taught me about the game as it went and helped me get to the point I had. I knew that we had gotten to the point where I could start looking to take out threats while I avoided becoming one myself. Coba was the obvious first name through his strong challenge performance and two successful idol plays, but that wasn't why I wanted him to be the first one to go; after all, I felt very good about my relationship with Coba, having helped him find an idol and not told anyone about it. I knew that to get to the end though I would have to keep playing both sides, and Coba seemed the person that would be least likely to end with anyone pissed at me - had I voted off Meltan there I was afraid I'd lose his two loyal followers, and didn't know how well Hoopa or Celebi would take it if the other went - Poipole would have been another option here but she was playing the middle with me and also was extremely well-liked by everyone.
After Coba went out, I again knew I needed to swing back as voting out another one of the Mystic bloc would have left Meltan's group as 3/6 and that was not something I found appealing given Regi and Tapu's loyalty to him. Poipole and I discussed it and decided to vote off Meltan here. I was not as worried as I had previously been that Regi or Tapu would hold it against me, since by this point once Meltan went home they would be left in the game with just myself, Poipole, Hoopa and Celebi; I knew the other three were much bigger threats than I was and that Regi and Tapu wouldn't have too many other options but to work with me. Regi had berated me several times by this point in PMs and called me everything in the book from useless, to a goat, and anything else he could think of when he was frustrated so I knew he thought he could beat me at the end, and I had a good relationship with Tapu as well.
The next vote was one of the most important of the game. Poipole had made a comment in the previous vote about not wanting to go far into the game with four people from Mystic 2.0 still alive, and so I knew she would be worried about going to the final five with myself/Tapu/Regi. I had tried to set the stage for it by building up Hoopa as a threat as much as I could - not that I had to do much since Hoopa was incredible in this game - because I knew how important it was for my game that Regi and Tapu be at the final five with me, both to give me some protection since I knew they wanted to go to the end with me, but also to give me a very safe option to end up with the two people I thought I had the best chance against at the end. This was definitely one of the votes where I had to put in a ton of effort; Poipole was the person I trusted and liked the most in this game and had worked with the closest, but at the same time I knew I needed to convince her to vote Hoopa here. This was of course made much more difficult by Regi being Regi and deciding to threaten her at the start of tribal into voting with us, which did nothing to ease Poi's concerns. Obviously in the end I did manage to convince Poipole that Hoopa was too big of a threat to take to five, and she proved my fears accurate by pulling out an idol and sending Poipole home. That was the only time I voted for someone other than the person who went home and also the only time I didn't know exactly what would happen at the tribal, as Hoopa and Celebi had pulled a fast one. I had managed to get safety that round through being the one person who could get through the gauntlet of bullshit puzzles the mods had assigned, and so I was safe from the idol blowback - though I can't imagine I would have been targeted over Poipole given how incredible of a UTR social game she was playing and how much everyone adored her.
Once Hoopa had idoled out Poipole her threat level was of course increased even more, so she was an easy vote to get everyone to agree on at five. Bringing her to four would have meant that she was one challenge away from a sure and dominant victory in the game, so everyone was in agreement that she had to go. This one is brief not because it wasn't important - Hoopa was probably the biggest threat in the game for the entire postmerge - but because this was the one vote that didn't seem to swing as much back and forth given that I had Regi and Tapu voting alongside me and was also able to talk to Celebi to make sure Hoopa went out unanimously; given that I didn't have immunity here I was afraid that Hoopa would manage to talk her way into staying at my expense. That brings us to the final four where once again I was able to make it through the mini-gauntlet and win safety and guarantee my place at the end; I knew that most people weren't underestimating me anymore and so absolutely wanted to assure myself that I wouldn't go home as the r.obbed g.oddess. What I at first thought might be an easy vote turned out to be anything but as I had to talk Tapu into keeping Regi right up until the deadline when she tried to flip her vote to Celebi but missed the deadline, though did swap on the tie. Regi had been writing his jury speech since final five, but was spared a fire challenge due to me convincing Tapu to bring him to the end with us.
I apologize for the length, as that was longer than I expected but I did want to take the time to walk you through the game from my perspective. I think I played a very strong game of Survivor, and I do absolutely think I deserve your vote to win. I put myself in a position from the very start of the merge to play both sides, I played the sides against one another so that there was minimal chance that either I would be discovered or that the two sides would decide to unite to vote me out, I had just about everyone in the game thinking I was voting with them until the round they went out, I took the time to get to know everyone as much as I could and socialize, and not least of all for the two rounds I was in real danger of going home I won immunity to guarantee my safety. But the truth is, what I think doesn't matter as the power is in your hands. Ask me and the other finalists questions, take the time to evaluate all of our games, and make an informed decision about who played the best game. I look forward to hearing from all of you during this final tribal council, and also look forward to keeping in touch after the game. Thanks again everyone for making this game so memorable and amazing!
-Deo