Board Thread:Season 21 - Salvation/@comment-24626952-20141203232020/@comment-10697197-20141204033810

TJ,

My strategy going into this was pretty simple: go with the flow. Over the course of this game, I was on 4 different tribes, so I couldn’t stick to any one strategy. I had to be myself and see who I could trust and who I felt close to, and if I found that a majority of people were allied and want to keep me around, I’ll stick with that until I can’t. I never went to anyone thinking, I don’t like them but I want their vote, or I need to improve social relations with *fill-in-the-blank*, it’s just that both sides (the Sulur 3 and Perry & the Platypusssies) were both VERY warm towards me and I just had no choice but to take a back seat, ride with it and see how it goes. If I get a bad hand such as that, I’ll suck it up and pull it together, go with the flow until it wants me out or someone I’m close to out. If I have to be on one side due to how the numbers are, and I can trust them to keep me, that’s what I have to do. If I can choose, then I’ll choose who I feel I can trust the most, and time and time again, I chose you up until you tried to move with the Shield over TBD, which I have NOO issues with. That’s your strategic decision in the game and I respect it.

Although I took part in many, I only really personally orchestrated a few moves: Ivan, Matthew, Eden, Jino. Ivan, you told Liam and I to vote for each other, for Matthew it was NOTHING against him, just I wanted to help save Jino, Mitchell, TJ and Tyler bc I feel genuine friendships towards all of them, I don’t know if Jino shares those feelings but still. For Eden, EVERYONE else who was non-immune told me I was going to get evicted by TJ besides you, and I wanted to stay loyal to them. Jino, I’m sorry but I feel you would have crushed everyone in the final 3. 2 of those were to protect myself directly, one of those was to protect my friends, only 1 move was made personally by me that wasn’t to protect someone else.

The lies I told: I told James that Trace and then Jino were going but then I tried for that not to happen, I told Perry everything was fine because Tyler had already sealed Perry's fate and anyone who joined him, I told the Askjas that Eden was going in case one of them had an idol (imagine that), I agreed with Tyler that Mitchell needed to go falsely, I told Trace that Zane was going home because he could plead with Mitchell to give him another idol and blindside whoever, I told TJ that I was *still* on board with voting Zane even though he leaked that I'm going that tribal, and I told Jino that he was going when he wasn't secure, so he couldn't tell Steve or Zane that I wanted them out to make it tied.

I think that the player I think I have the most similarities to is Vecepia Towery, from Survivor: Marquesas. She ALWAYS started each of her tribes on the outs, whether by Hunter’s alliance, John’s alliance or the Rotu section of the outsiders. But she always kept her cool and stayed herself, she made a lot of friends because she genuinely enjoyed their company, and she ALWAYS found a group of people that would protect her, until they couldn’t or chose not to. I think she’s got the perfect underdog story on her belt, and I feel that my gameplay emulates hers in a lot of ways.

With Vecepia, you had something that I think I need to point out. With her and with myself, we made a lot of friends, talking around the campfires of our tribes. Did it help our games? Definitely. Was it done insincerely, in order to benefit our games? HELL NO! We truly had fun with the people we were playing with, we truly found that we liked a lot of people in the game, whether we could trust them or not. She was just as much friends with Hunter and John as any of the rest, but she found that strategically, she had to move forward with people she could trust, and those come in far fewer numbers than the people she liked personally, just by nature of who the cast was, sometimes it's the opposite. Being simply buddies with a lot of people, in my opinion, is not duplicitous behavior, because my friendship with Perry did not in ANY way degrade my friendship with Tyler, for example. Few of them were "instant buddies," as I at first had few friends here like Steve had. But once you get on the same tribe with someone, you start talking and either you like this person or you don't, there's no way to control that or hide that. I've lied strategically, but don't think for a SECOND that I intended to be "instant buddies" with everyone and that it was all a big fake master plan and that all of my friendship and bonds were fake. I don't have the patience nor the free time to do anything close to that.