Board Thread:Season 46 - Kariba/@comment-34802226-20180414225919/@comment-33060993-20180415164524

Ahh Dovile!! Fave!! Sorry for the delay - I performed in my show last night and couldn’t get to this any sooner, but I’m thankful for a chance to defend myself, even if you feel hurt by my actions across this season!! I’ll start by addressing your comments, then move onto your questions!

“From your final speech, I understood that each your vote was A HUGE PART OF YOUR STRATEGY. But I do not agree with something you said. You said that Dovile is gonna fight so hard after the merge. This is true, I tried to survive somehow, but it doesn‘t mean I was dangerous or a huge threat. You and Louise had to understand that I was addicted from you both. We formed an official alliance after Augusto‘s elimination, so why I would change my way of game play, if I leaked an alliance of 4 (those people didn‘t want to work with me at all, so they couldn‘t be my allies), I was always voting with you and telling you all info. Plus nobody wanted to align with me, so there is no way I was running this game. I also noticed that you said I told Louise I don‘t trust you. I have no idea what she said for you, but that was a lie (now you may thank her for this). I always trusted you, respected you a lot, so there was no fucking way I would vote you out”

I don’t think you understand how good you are at this game. Truly. To play the way you did and survive as long as you did is really fucking impressive and you should be proud. Louise never really told me you didn’t trust me. Both her and Elizabeth told me about your alliance of three with them on Zambezi 1.0 and it was ELIZABETH who was telling me you were concerned I would play the middle on the ORIGINAL TRIBE and that you needed her to control me. I just wanted to clear that up, because it was not Louise that led me to believe that, and I only did for so long because we did form our alliance on Zambezi 2.0 and were v trusting. But that aside, you are entirely right that we were very close on Zambezi 2.0. The respect and the trust were so mutual, but we fall fatally short on the voting each other out. When you sent me that paragraph on Zambezi 2.0 about how you wanted to go to the end with me despite thinking it might not be your best outcome strategically, it really touched my heart and gained a lot of respect from me - even if I knew it wasn’t something I was nearly as set on. Once the odds were stacked against you in the merge, I could stand with you and maybe go with you, or I could acknowledge that the best thing may be to let go. Knowing you were a threat and knowing my game and yours had been linked in a way that benefitted you more than me, I chose to let go. I know how sincere your loyalties were, and I know that hurt you. If I did not believe wholeheartedly that by moving forward with you, I would be condemning myself to a game I did not want to play, I would not have done it. That’s the damn truth.

Now, for your questions -

How important are deals and agreements for you

For me, feeling loyalty is difficult. It takes a lot. I won’t pretend otherwise. Across my inexperience in four orgs, there is only one instance where I felt the truest of loyalties to someone (@jack stanley ilysm) and would have sacrificed myself for them. I am not, nor will I ever be afraid, to cut the closest of allies (@andrea geiger ilysm2) if I believe it will propel me forward in this game, especially when I’m relatively confident with my position in the game. Survivor is a game wherein I think we build bonds to break them down and we have to lie to do so. It’s not cute sometimes, but it’s just the game we play. So for me, deals are something I use to advance, but honoring them only follows if I believe it is beneficial for the perception of me. That’s not the case in real life, but in the game we play - deals are tools. We use them to move forward for ourselves, because Survivor forces us to be selfish. It’s really not a testament to my personal perception - I still respect you and trust you, despite breaking our F3 deal, but something I used to advance.

In summary, they’re important to advance, but not to honor. I didn't honor ours (on swapped I did consider it for a while), but it advanced me through the swapped phase and was crucial to the navigation of the merge vote.

and tell me something you found out about me as a personality (I am not asking to describe me, just gimme some facts about me)

Yess! I loved getting to know you this season and we connected really well, so I’m really glad to get to elaborate on my Touchy Subjects a little as to why I think you are such a sweet person outside of the game.


 * You’re a very good student. I remember us talking about your Lithuanian speech and how you scored well on it!
 * You love cooking!! I remember joking about how I like it too, even if I’m not good at it and you passed on wisdom that if you love something, it’s hard not to be good at it, which made me smile.
 * You’d always call me “Jakie”, which is also what my sister calls me, so that really was always something that made me smile.
 * We’re fellow hated Koror finalists and both of us encountered a lot of adversity at FTC, which was nice to bond over and this was also our second game, which was funny that our placement/org history was identical.
 * You’re very good at flag-making. I know you always thought mine were better, but I loved the aesthetic of your first and second ones. As someone who loves a refrained color palette in art, I personally adored it.
 * You still follow Koror a lot and were constantly there to offer words of kindness when I was going through a lot with Iguazu.
 * It was very important for you that you were not blindsided, and I did not want you to be. I really tried to be honest with you about voting you.
 * We have the same family circumstance, which is something I really bonded with you over, even if we didn’t talk about it a lot. It was important to me.

WHY SHOULD VINCE BETTER NOT WIN THIS GAME?

I know Vincent has already gotten a lot of grief this FTC and it’s kinda tearing him up, so I’ll go light and try to stay objective while staying true to the purpose of the question.

The best way I could characterize Vincent, as someone who worked very closely with him this season, is an over-confident, socially-unaware, strategically-off player. He's not always like this, but in Kariba he just was. I adore him to death on a personal level, but we had a lot of fall outs this season and they weren’t without reason.

Socially-unaware:

I think Vincent’s game was always lacking due to his social. As soon as the first vote, someone voted for him simply because of how he went about conversations. That’s just a red flag to begin with. It happened again at F10. I know you, Becky/Jordan, and Louise described him as annoying as soon as the swap started and while I disagree with the sentiment, it says a lot about the impression he makes. I tried to address this with him when we argued at F5 over him sabotaging me, and he said his social has been and always will be his strongest trait. After F9, he, Jack, and I had all voted incorrectly, but Jack and I managed to maintain relationships, whereas he directly confronted the majority and antagonized them, telling him he “would wiggle his way back in”. It got to the point where they were just hating on him in the tribe chat and publicly admitting they would vote him.

Over-confident:

You read his speech.

Strategically-ambitious:

There were multiple times this season where I’d vent in my confessional about just having a distaste for the game Vincent played and how it constantly deterred mine. Once the goat perception set at F8, I don’t think he understood that it was a social commentary, and began wilding strategically when he really didn’t need to, undermining his own position more often than not. There were multiple points where I tried to convince him to do something that would advance us both and he disagreed. Okay that felt low key terrible because I know he’s been really upset, so I did get his approval to write that, but I hope that satisfies your question! I know he doesn’t have a chance to win and I think he does too, but I just don’t want to kick him while he’s down.
 * At F9, I tried to initiate a decoy target plan to ensure the other side misplayed an idol. It’s ironic, considering that’s what they did, but it stopped because Vincent felt it would be better to CAMPAIGN AGAINST JACK, which ultimately led to more upset and confusion towards him after the vote.
 * At F6, I suggested that since he and Roisin were shaky and she could be bluffing about her idol play, that he could call her out in the tribe chat for playing the middle, making her feel paranoid enough to play it and leaving her as an option at F5. Instead, he proceeded to tell her “everyone had said her name”, which was a poorly fabricated lie that created a significantly less functional paranoia, one that ultimately flopped.
 * At F5, I tried to convince Vincent we could devise a plan to get him, Roisin, and Jack to vote Hals, that I would negate their votes with the idol, and then Roisin would be convinced it was 2-2 at F4 in the wrong way, providing us with information useful to navigate that vote. He proceeded to tell Roisin the plan and about my idol, because he believed she was his goat, then he proceeded to tell me that he thought I was a frontrunner and he was intentionally sabotaging me to 3-1 me with Hals, Roisin, and himself at F4. It was an unspeakable “WTF?!” moment because he turned on me so suddenly.

Also, tell me some negative words/descriptions about Roisin, like why should I not vote for her? ​

This one I don’t mind as much, considering the amounts of attacks in her responses that clearly stem from insecurity with the game she played.


 * She didn’t take a lot of initiative this game. She flipped back and forth, but she never stood up. She describes making alliance chats for locked votes as initiative, when that’s really not the case. That’s adding a layer of security, sure, but it doesn't make her as pre-emptive as she hypes herself up to be. The one exception she’s reiterated is that she took initiative on the Matthias vote, but so did I and I actually secured the votes by navigating the tensions between myself, Vincent, and Jack in a way that got us all on the same page. She talks about me saying it was the “easiest route” as if that changes things - like yes, when my name was out there by MATTHIAS, voting him is my easiest route to surviving when three people are sourcing the information to me.
 * She voted correctly, but did she voted the way she wanted to? If she wanted you in the game, why didn’t she actually say “I’m locking down with Dovile here and voting Becky/Jordan regardless” because that would have been powerful and influential. If she wanted you here, that would have been a bold first step to actually accomplishing her goal and I think it could have sold Jack and Louise, who both also wanted you to advance. Because she tried to campaign for it, but ultimately backed off and if it truly was her pushing to keep you and me feigning reluctance, it shows who was more efficient. I mean Becky/Jordan was her TARGET at the time and despite you literally spoon-feeding her the votes, she wouldn’t stand with you. With your two light pearls, there were eight votes. You, Roisin, Jack, and Louise would have been enough to at least force a tie and a discussion about you staying. She could’ve done that, but she didn’t. I could’ve done that, and I admit I didn’t by choice for all the reasons I’ve explained to you.
 * Was her position on original tribes really that strong? Because my impression is that she was kinda on the outs, which is what allowed her to move towards the middle in the merge. As in the lack of strong bonds meant she was a number up for grabs. Ask yourself this - if Hwadze 2.0 did not have critical challenge performances from Drew, Vincent, and Dan that saved them, would Roisin have survived three votes the way you did and the way I did? Something leads me to believe she might not have. I think there’s a reason her speech is very brief around that phase of the game and it is a crucial one. Because while their impression has changed, Becky/Jordan referred to Roisin as a non-factor at F10, indicating some form of strategic isolation in the swap, Vince felt she was on the outs of 2.0, Drew didn’t tell her about his idol despite her having nineteen days to work her bond with him. For a Hwadze/Hwadze 2.0, surviving the pre-merge was not a feat. It sounds like the boots were an inact and a low challenge performance. Actually building bonds is one, however. All I see is that she formed a bond with Hals. and Hals formed F3-level strong bonds with literally everyone… Vincent, Roisin, Kiley per her ROP, Matthias, as well as Dan/Becky/Jordan. It’s a testament to Hals’ social and strategic game more than Roisin’s. Even when Hals survived a target at F7, that move is largely attributed to Jack.
 * On the note of the F7 vote, can we just talk about how strategically atrocious that was? I understand there were personal circumstances, but the result was that she worked with the person who threw her name to eliminate her closest ally, one of the people who told her her name was thrown. Then when confronted about it, she admitted she was gunning for VINCENT of all people. Was that her example of initiative? Because if she had a vote steal and Hals/Matthias, she could’ve made it 4-3 Vincent, so either Hals influenced her away from that outcome or someone else did, because she publicly said in the tribe chat that she wanted Vincent gone, tried to make it happen, flopped, and then voted with him against a close ally DESPITE the fact that he wanted her gone too?
 * It’s part of the reason she was so ineffective with him at F6. She told him his actions were “unredeemable” and he felt burned when she needed more friends than enemies. He was the one putting work into that relationship, not her - so props to him for THAT.
 * And on the note of voting outcomes that weren’t the best for her game, I maintain and I think the jurors would agree that Hals would have been a killer threat at FTC and Roisin gave her the chance to be here with her. And considering Roisin explicitly told Vincent one of the reasons she was hesitant to vote me was because I could win a tiebreaker and “strengthen my case”, it’s interesting that she went to the exact opposite narrative in her speech and it undermines the confidence she “had” that I would have won.
 * And on the note of interesting parts about her speech. I find it really interesting that she expresses that SHE was AWARE of her own game, acknowledging her social limitations, yet she made no mention of her social game in her speech other than to say it was a foundation for strategic bonds? Was it? Because if it was - why didn’t Drew tell her about the idol? Why did Becky/Jordan consider her irrelevant? Why did Vincent, VINCENT, think SHE was on the outs? Why was her speech so concise about pre-merge? And if it was a weakness, SHE wasn’t aware, it was DAN who identified it to her and she quickly changed her principal weakness from “jury management” to “social game” when she realized members of the jury are leaning towards her. Yet she claims I lack awareness of my own weaknesses, when I’d only responded to THREE out of EIGHT jury speeches because I had my final show last night, couldn’t write all night between scenes, and intended to go into those flaws in Jack’s speech, which I DID. I think my response to Jack highlights the awareness I think she believes I don’t have. My weakness is the Drew blindside; I’ll admit it - I had no idea, but even with the Louise vote, I was aware something was up. Ask Hals about my voting confessional for her. So Roisin didn’t own a weakness SHE was aware of, but one that Dan pointed out to her, so that claim is v unfounded.
 * And considering I have brought receipts to literally every skeptical point, she knows riding on the “Jake is saying he did things he didn’t do” angle is just trying to exploit what’s left of that dying sentiment, because I have officially continued to bring receipts and details to both speeches that express skepticism (Dan/Jack) and intend to continue to do so in my next ones. If you, or any juror, wants a breakdown of why I feel so strongly about the strategic points and impacts I made in my speech, the responses I made to Jack’s “Key Role” question and Dan’s “Crucial Points” go into the specifics I was hesitant to in my speech (concise and all) so thank you to both of them for that critical opportunity. If anyone still has hesitations, please lmk because I am here to fight for your vote xoxo. And considering I messaged her yesterday expressing how it was getting me a little sad, it’s funny how quick she was to turn around and milk that angle because she’s running out of them.
 * Why is she running out of them? I think because she’s realizing this is a moment where the truth comes out and there are truths about her game and mine that are coming out because she pitched hers with an angle that blatantly ignored a follower mentality at several votes (F11/F10/F8(?)/F7/F5), strategic weaknesses in the swap, the unintentional or fearful abandonment of allies (you/Dovile), the failure to truly execute HER vision on several votes (F10/F7/F4) and instead switching to a bolder player’s plan by saying “i j wanna vote majority xX”

She received no votes across the game. Let’s keep that tradition up tonight.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to take the sentiments I’ve expressed so far in other speeches and really consolidate them into why I’m more deserving of your jury votes than Roisin! I also really appreciated getting a chance to clear up our dynamic and if you or any other juror, has any follow-up questions, please lmk.

I really love that you’re considering me for your vote for “strategy and beautiful performance”. It means a lot. Enough so that it sparked me to get really passionate in this speech. I hope my responses exemplified why you, and the other jurors, should for those reasons and for a winner who was more influential, bolder, more adaptive, and ultimately more understanding of this game and what it takes to win. Thanks fave and I know you said you’re not excited to talk, but I fucking am and can’t wait to say hi in a non-formal capacity. Ttyl! <3