Board Thread:Season 21 - Salvation/@comment-10697197-20141203081634

Hello, everyone! First off, before I go on and on about all of the gameplay over the past 39 days, I just have to thank you all. This has to be probably the first time, or at least one of the first times, that I genuinely enjoyed the company of each of you 24 (as we all were together for that BS Day 1 tribal at the very least), it’s been probably the best ORG experience I have EVER had and it's been the most fun of all.

But I want to elaborate on something real quick. When I say that none of the moves that I made were based on any personal animus, I mean it 100%, or as Big Ted would say, 150-200%. If anything I did took a personal toll on some of you, and for some of you I know that’s the case, I sincerely apologize and I just want y’all to feel better. If any of you have any issue to resolve, you can message me any time, I am MORE than happy to get it fixed before it gets repressed, because I can’t know what you’re thinking without being in Ponderosa, idk fully what you all are going through, because I know Ponderosa can be a mess sometimes. I just want it to all be out and said so that we can move forward with the game and outside of the game, as mature men (and Julia <3 ). That being said, I’ll move forward with my jury speech, and explain why I believe I am the most deserving to win of the three sitting up here. Let’s begin:

As you all may or may not know, I didn’t exactly begin the game on the right foot, just because of the luck of the draw. Day 1 was fine for me, but on Day 2, when the 6 tribes were formed, I found myself 3-1 on the outs of my new tribe, with Liam, Julia and Ivan being part of a larger alliance referred to as the Old Schoolers, as Szymon leaked to me on Day 1 (after most people voted for Brian). I knew that I was COMPLETELY on the outs, and I was told by Liam that the 3 already agreed, within only a few minutes of the tribe forming, that I was on the outs, that I was going home next, point blank. I was clearly the next to go, I should have by all counts gone home 24th/25, nowhere near this point, and I was thinking, Mendi is happening again. This is happening AGAIN to me, I can’t believe it. But unlike in PNG, I kept my calm, developed an amazingly strong friendship and alliance with Liam by talking to him for as much as 4-5 hours per night and leaking info from Ivan (because my gut told me Ivan was playing both Liam & I, which that was correct), and I found a way, after trying and trying, never giving up despite the TINY odds that it actually worked, to miraculously get Liam to vote in my favor and get Julia to vote the same way. On Day 2, the vote was 3-1 to get rid of me, on Day 3, it was 3-1 to keep me, because I stayed calm, I knew who to trust in the tribe from my gut instinct, and I worked relentlessly in the social aspect.

When I was picked for Súlur, I ran into a bit of a pickle, because my original TBD alliance (Jake, Mitchell, TJ, myself) was split up with 2 on each tribe, Liam and I were separated (</3), and the tribe was under the control of the, how do you say, #TWERKTEAM xDD Yet again, I found myself with others in the tribe starting out in control just because of the luck of the friendships in the game. So I had to fit in, assimilate, and put myself in a good position, so that’s what I did: I kept ties strong with Jino, Steve & Mitchell on one end, but I also kept ties with Tyler and created new bonds with Perry and Ted (or at least semi-new for Perry from RPG AS :D), and we created a majority alliance within the Súlur tribe called Perry And The Platypussies (Eden, myself, Perry, Ted, Tyler, Zane). I wasn’t phased by having to move forward with both sides, because I knew that majority alliance may pretend to be really strategically tight, and we’re personally tight for sure, but it was a strategic house of cards. I knew that it would divide itself pretty quickly into a million little pieces, and so I just had to sit back, and in the immortal words of Crystal Cox, “EAT YO RICE.” So that’s what I had to do, sit back and watch as Tyler, Perry and Ted did the work while I prepared for later and built genuine relationships with people, as I found that I could stay in a good position going forward by staying calm and working relentlessly in the social aspect.

Though Askja 3.0 was sort of quiet, bigger and more tragic things were happening at the Súlur 3.0 camp. Tyler was exposing A LOT of things that Perry and Ted were doing that were sort of, how do you say, sketchy. So he sort of told pretty much everyone that they are not to be trusted, that they are big physical, social and strategic threats, and they need to be taken off before the merge. Because Tyler had a lot of allies and was EXTREMELY powerful at this time, quite a lot of people were on board with this, Askjas and Súlurs alike. I found myself at the crossroads I always knew would come, but it was more twisted and complex than I would ever have imagined. My mind was telling me that I’ll isolate myself from the group if I stick with Perry or Ted, but my heart was pulling me in 3 different directions, one towards Tyler, one towards Perry and one towards Ted. Eventually, I decided to simply move in favor of Tyler’s schemes because otherwise I’d be in a pretty terrible position going forward, it wasn’t easy to make the decision but that’s what I had to do, especially since Perry was targeting Ted so there wasn’t even any group to latch on to. So I had to bite my tongue and I had to shut up as Perry and Ted left, I’m not happy about it on an emotional level, but I believe that they weren’t going to take me to the end (at least I think :P ), so I had to take myself there and find a way to get out the people that wanted me out. I had to find a way to move forward with people I could trust and ultimately beat, requiring me to keep my cool and work relentlessly in the social aspect.

The first tribal kind of was quiet, as far as I know it was strictly voting on tribal lines. But OHH baby, look out for the 2nd merge tribal :’/ I was expecting pretty much everyone to vote Trace, besides Jino because he wanted to vote Eden to split it 7-1-1. I was COMPLETELY out of the loop when it happened, shocked, appalled, all of that, because I didn’t have any idea what happened and I certainly didn’t know Mitchell would vote that way. However, I was able to reconfigure things easily. I had to basically remake ties with Mitchell, and see how all of my plans would have to change. Even when things just didn’t go my way, I had to pull myself together, improvise and think on the spot. I had to keep my cool in ALL situations, no matter how flustered I may be, and I had to work relentlessly in the social aspect to move forward from it stronger than ever.

While the 3rd tribal went mostly as expected for Part A, I do have to point something out here. I was SHOCKED to find out that Zane actually decided to quit during the final 8 tribal council, and for reasons I find illuminating. Part of what he said, I quote: “ I am very sad I cannot continue, but I don't think it would be fair for me to try and stick it out with no participation or effort and rob one of you guys at a fair shot at winning.” That’s a definite problem in my eyes, because if I was on the jury, I simply wouldn’t let that happen. Even Zane knew that without true participation at the level that we’ve participated, it wouldn’t be fair to give him the win, point blank, because he couldn’t put forth a level of effort necessary to win. We all have school, college, work, all the rest, but the fact of the matter is that if you can’t put in a reasonable effort to win in any game, you shouldn’t win, point blank. Anyways, back to the strategy:

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">During Part B, I found some VERY distressing news: TJ, who I had relied on for a while as part of my original TBD alliance, was now officially coming after Mitchell & I, a plan that if it worked, would have gotten rid of me because Mitchell played his idol that tribal, so it would have been 2-2-0 → 4-1 to get rid of me, and I wasn’t going to accept that. Inside, I was FREAKING out, just a complete nervous wreck, I had NO idea what to do with myself or what to do in the game. I just had to stay calm, get my shit together, and move forward with a new set of game plans. Since TJ was scheming against me, and Mitchell 1. got rid of someone without telling me and 2. never told me about either Trace’s or his own idol (though Steve told me all about the 2nd one), but they were both immune. So I had to find a way to make a foursome alliance, of people I feel I could trust the most of anyone on the island; the most reliable people here. Well, as soon as they got online, Jino, Steve and Zane all came up to me and ratted out TJ’s plot, vowing to help save me, and I felt ELATED. My social game has paid off in a MAJOR way, I’m seeing definite results, when the majority of the contestants come to me when I’m in danger and protect me at all costs. I knew that these 3 were the people I could trust the most to keep me in the game, and I felt an insane amount of gratitude towards them. I knew I couldn’t turn my backs on them when they wouldn’t do it to me, it just wouldn’t be right OR smart because I could trust them the most of any of the final 7, something I’d need going forward. So I tried my hardest to negotiate individually with the 3 of them for a new final 4 alliance: The Corre. Jino, Steve, Zane, myself, an alliance that stayed true all the way to the end. I found myself in HUGE danger from a great strategist with plenty of ties within the tribe, and the only way out was  TONS of strategizing, 2nd + 3rd immunity wins to seal the deal for myself moving into the final 3, and working relentlessly in the social aspect to make sure that I’m staying around no matter what.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Over the course of this game, I’ve created genuine social ties with people that protected me at any sign of danger, gave me the information I needed to make moves to benefit myself, and will be friends for a LONG time if I have anything to say about it. So I feel that Salvation has been reached for me as a player. I feel that I’ve sat back when I needed to sit back, I’ve talked when I needed to talk, and I’ve always done what needs to be done, not just to survive as Steve said, but to really thrive and improve my position. Survival is not just about not making enemies and staying quiet, and just sort of not doing much until the end, because there is only 1 Sole Survivor, not 3. Steve getting here while being mostly out of the loop and not really making the necessary social ties, or Zane not being active enough to talk most of the time or even submit for most challenges do not sound to my ears like fitting winners to match this season or this ORG, quite frankly. In conclusion, I feel I’ve played the best and strongest game of the 3 standing up here, so regardless of how the vote goes, it’s been a blast and a pleasure :D <ac_metadata title="Vote For George"> </ac_metadata>