Board Thread:Season 55 - Nakuru/@comment-37911756-20191025154641/@comment-24277959-20191026183408

Hi NataliAD,

Thank you so very much for saying that it’s nothing but love, and I immediately want to start this with saying that the friendship we made was as real for me as it was you and that’s not going anywhere, no matter how this turns out. AD and Bron forever



I’m actually going to do your two personal questions in reverse order because the second one will be a little short/sweeter and can transition into the first one.

“ Why did you choose Chris over me? “

I covered this a lot in my other speeches but to reconfirm, a lot of my game was rooted in having camouflage and flexibility to be able to blend in and not stick out as target numero uno. So at the Final 7 juncture, I figured that keeping in Chris was better for me because I had prepared it so that if one of us were going to take the fall, it was going to be him over me, and I did this by forming an incredibly tight relationship with Nicole who had the idol to protect me if ever need be.

I’m not going to lie and say I wanted us at the end unconditionally no matter what, but what I will say confidently that if the cards were on the table for that, it was going to happen. The way I see it, going to the end with someone isn’t just rooted in just how much mutual trust is there, but also on extraneous factors like varying threat levels, any items/idols present, and how the other players perceive the two. So for me, as I said before, between me and Chris, I always felt he was a bigger target than me, where as between you and me, you had the perfect blend of likability while not sticking out as a big target like I was.

On top of that, when it came to the ‘sides’, or at least potential sides for that, I did feel like I had closer bonds and/or more fluid strategic conversations with Chris/Nicole/Jack, than I did Cali/Nora at the time, people I presume you wanted to move forward with. So that was the shitty and unfortunate extraneous factor that had to lead me to vote you out over Chris.

I want you to know too that I didn’t make this decision with no remorse like some sociopathic assassin, I was genuinely upset about having to vote for you, and even vented to Chris and Nicole leading up to the vote .. which isn’t exactly strategically sound -- but sometimes I do wear my emotions on my sleeve and it was because the time we had in the game was coming to an end.

“I'd like you to address this, lmk why you chose to say it this way on that parchment, and also tell me why I personally should want to vote for you when it seems the only person you stayed true to was someone else?”

So I need to come clean on this one and say it with absolute truth that my parchment for the Cali vote was incredibly near-sighted and insensitive. I had a suspicion it would come off as such and I want to thank you for bringing this to light, so it’s only right that I explain my thought process leading up to that one.

As we all know at the Final 5, it was essentially a public reality that I was the next one up for the guillotine had I not won immunity. Nicole and I had only very briefly mentioned her idoling me, and actually at that point in time she was giving off more of a “you better win that immunity” vibe than “I’m playing it on you no matter what”. The entire day of the final 5 challenge, I prepared mentally for it, did random counting exercises, thought of strategic methods, the whole shabang. I cleared my mind back and forth to unnerve and performed the challenge right up to the deadline, and as we all knew I lost. This will actually be a part of my response to Alex’s question but that was easily the lowest moment of my game and I was certain that then and there, my game was over and I was going to be unanimously thrown off the island. This was confirmed to me in a way when results came out and I told Nicole I planned on giving her my pitch to idol me, the response I got was “yeah let me see and I’ll think about it”, which I THOUGHT was survivor code for “absolutely not”.

I actually ended up sending an approximately 10 minute or so video confessional saying that my time was done and that I really only had one last chance in being idoled by Nicole, because there was just no way I’d get 2 other votes straight up. So fast forwarding to what we all know ended up happening that round, I never really experienced a true 180 degree turn in terms of emotion and belief and willpower I had for the game. Nicole idoling me had felt like a full court buzzer beater, if you will. So when that happened, I became a little too strong with my emotional convictions and was ready to ride it out with Nicole to the end because she had my life in the game and directly saved me when I needed it the most. I won the final 4 immunity challenge off pure adrenaline of having been idoled the prior round, and when it came to writing down my parchment for Cali, I became incredibly linear-minded because of my emotions at the time and wanted to make this big and bold statement on my parchment – i.e. Nicole saved me, and for that I’m fulfilling my promise on her to keep her. Obviously, in being so fueled and passionate, I completely lost sight of the fact that I previously broke prior promises to some jurors in ponderosa, and that was genuinely fucked up on my end. When I was fueled by my emotion like that, I lost sight of the big picture and instead only focused on what had just happened and what was in the present, which was Nicole idoling me and me wanting to repay her.

That’s my true and genuine explanation as to why I put that on my Cali parchment, and I can’t and will not say sorry enough for that because that came off as incredibly hypocritical to plenty of you jurors. Going back to what I said in Trent about old habits dying hard, this was another one for me in that I go the extra mile on my parchments when I let my emotions fuel me instead of retaining a clear mind.

I understand how this charade can come off as one promise holding more weight than the other, or me valuing Nicole and I’s relationship more than ours, but I want to say that isn’t the case. All my decisions are based off game progression and always making my best move for my position, so the ultimate reason I did wind up having Nicole in the end here with me, is that because she did have the idol in the game as a form of power, and that when I was able to convince her to use that form of power to protect me at the endgame, I had to pay it back. But this wasn’t a matter of, oh I value Nicole as a person more than you or anyone else.. had the roles and situation reversed so would have the results. I do trust in my ability to separate game from emotion, an ability I’m not exactly proud to have but know I need to perform well, as I would never let my relationship with someone be the outweighing factor as to why I cast a certain vote over what the game circumstances tell me.

I have nothing but respect and love for you guys, and I truly apologize for letting my emotions influence me in making a parchment that would make it come off as otherwise.

NEXT for the mutual questions! The first one is a little black and white because there can be blends of heroes and villains, I myself wanted to be edgy and be like har har har I’m an anti-hero in my jury speech, but I won’t pussy out and just label everyone as one or the other lol

1) Trent was a hero because of his underdog position post-swap, he had to scrap by through kidnappings and never really did anyone truly dirty, even when people didn’t believe him on the knife item he got he immediately used it to confirm he was telling the truth

2) Alex was a hero as well because he was on the outs from the start being lowly ranked during the first tribe ranking and being a later draft pick during the second swap. His video confessional leaked from the challenge showed that he had true intentions in wanting to talk to people but it wasn’t being reciprocated.

3) Will’s a villain and he’ll gladly embrace that, and I think that’s rooted in his cutthroat style in playing the game. While he has a great social game with the people he talks to, he’s able to very fluidly compartmentalize game and personal and make the best decision for him every round, bond or not. And he even gladly explained in his jury speech that people’s stupidity enabled my game to advance lol

4) I think Jino’s a hero, while during some votes he was often scrambling and going all over the place to people, that was usually because of the fact of his timezone being less than ideal and/or because he was a target. Jino was incredibly easy going to talk to from a personal level and I can see him having that heroic arc of fighting for his 100 days to the very end.

5) I’ll say hero for you Natalia! While on surface level I can see something like, you leaking to Chris and I Jino’s plan to vote steal as villainous, with context it's known that you had a reason to do so because you weren’t being filled in and were just being asked to roll with the plan. You also were a part of the Kikuyu minority trio with you/Trent/Cali, and weren’t afraid to make big splashes to better your position every single round.

6) Chris is a villain, this one barely even needs an explanation, he’s outspoken as shit, loves his confrontations and will never back away from it. AND he even dickteased me in his jury speech by almost writing a 3k word essay to me feigning emotional vulnerability so yea fuck you Chris for that but villain 100% LOL

7) Kinda like how Will is a villain I’ll also say Nora’s a villain too. While I know my arc with her comes off as her being the underdog hero, and I'd definitely understand that there, there’s also the fact that Nora is incredibly perceptive and stealthy as a player and wasn’t afraid to get close with minority alliance members while still having intentions to cut them off sooner or later. Imo Nora loves thriving in chaos and keeping everyone on their toes so she can be a villain

8) Cali is pretty much the living embodiment of a hero, she was an underdog for most of her 37 days, never confronted or blew up at anyone, and played with her heart on her sleeve the whole way through while remaining her loud goofy self

9)I’d say Jack’s a hero as well for much of the same reasons as Alex was, being a low draft pick, being picked last in the draft, but rising up from that and reforming his game for the better to make an incredibly close run to FTC.

AS FOR THE MEMES!

1) Trent every time he used the get the fuck out of Kikuyu card and was kidnapped --

          

2) Alex in his leaked video confessional:      <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\>

3) Me and Will during the revote:

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4) Jino if he goes 5 minutes without saying he's worried after the tribal council post comes out:

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5) Natalia trying to navigate to safety every ORG (you know I had to do it for you ily)

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6) Chris when you told him Jino/Ashlee were targeting him (or Chris finding out he's being targeted pretty much every single round for that matter)

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7) Nora in everyone's PMs looking for information

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8) Cali after Chris' final words

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9) Jack when everyone was calling him inactive (idk how to embed this one HELP)

https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1137749636100345856?lang=en

10) "Nicole what's happening for this tribal???" <br\> "Nicole did you really say this about me???" <br\> "Nicole can I trust you on this vote??" <br\> "Nicole why did you make this alliance chat when you had no intent on working with it?????" <br\> "Nicole why did you idol Evan?????" <br\>

Nicole: <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\>

AND may as well drop this image for the world to see!

<br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> <br\> 11) Finally, me after getting my shit kicked in at FTC, spending hours and hours on responses, and realizing there's still 3 speeches left to go.

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Thank you again for everything Natalia and I hope this answered your questions!