Board Thread:Survivor 40: Annihilation/@comment-5480706-20190802220306/@comment-5357455-20190803154623

'''Hi Joan, thank you for your comments and I will try to go one by one to address each of the questions that you had for me. '''

Dedication

'''I think that my dedication to this game is being completely undermined due to one challenge. I appreciated the work and effort that Nuno put into making this challenge because I know that it was no easy feat. Unfortunately for me, I did not have a laptop at this time, so I was unable to even view the mangas. I know I probably should have just submitted some names or the same name for everyone, but I knew that there was no possible way for me to complete the challenge. I think that my dedication can be seen in other areas of this game and I would like to highlight these instances.'''

'''The first night of this challenge, I had predetermined plans with friends that I had not seen in approximately one year. I was excited to hang out with them and catch up, but I knew that once the night hit, I needed to be zoned into this game. For this reason, I bought a portable charger so my phone would not die while I was out in the City, charged my phone at every place we went to, and left early so I can make better first impressions with my tribemates. '''

'''You mentioned that I did call with some people, and I do believe that this shows my dedication as well. For those of you who do not know, I work most weekdays 2 hours from home. So for about 4 hours a day, I am unable to text message you all. I know that it is harder to text, but because I was driving to work, I was physically unable to. If choosing to call people like Grace, Augusto, Drew, Mihai, And Linus instead of text messaging them at this time loses your vote, I will happily lose a vote for not risking my life. Also I would like to note that these calls did not just occur on my way home from work. I think that I completed about 2-3 calls a day for long periods of time, even on weekends when I was not at work. Even when I was at work, which was usually in the moments that led up to tribal council, I was still very dedicated. I was constantly checking my phone, replying to messages, and even pulled off the blindside at Final 6 while I was at work. When I was on vacation, I cut my vacation one day short to return back to this game and I was on my phone when I was supposed to be soaking up the sun.'''

'''One challenge that I think exemplifies my dedication is the Final 4 immunity challenge. For this challenge, we needed to post a phrase in our thread every half hour. My final score ended up being 31, which means that I did this challenge for 15 and a half hours straight. Sadly, at 3:00 a.m., I did not process what my alarm meant because I fell asleep, and was a minute late to post on this challenge. '''

'''I also want to note that I am fairly confident did not sit out from a single challenge in the pre-merge phase. I think that this part is overlooked because I compete in every single challenge in the pre-merge aspect as well. Even if I had a busy schedule, I was willing to dedicate the time to complete the challenge to the best of my ability. I was not a competition beast, but I only went to tribal twice, so I was at least of some value in challenges. '''

'''I think that my dedication to this game should not be undermined. I have shown that I was willing to give all out in endurance challenges, sacrifice time at work and on vacation to play this game, and (as I mentioned in Augusto’s response) elect to dedicate more time to this game than plans with my friends or my plans for my upcoming move. '''

Road Map

'''My opening statement was simply an opening statement. I do not believe that at this time is when you introduce all of your evidence because I believe that this portion should be thematic and the evidence is incorporated throughout the jury questions. This was not to get hints from the jury as to what answer they wanted. This was not out of laziness. This was because of how I believe opening statements ought to be done. I do understand how you are still curious about my story in this game, and I hope that the other responses for the other jury questions were able to provide some insight. I will also be providing a road map that shows my journey for this game.'''

Wanani 1.0- Rob, Dani, Tobi, Pory, Mihai, Augusto, Brian

'''When this tribe began, I started making social connections with practically everyone on this tribe. I think that the two that I connected with the least were Brian and Pory. However, Brian did not feel the same way. Him and Pory invited me and Tobi to be in a 4 person alliance with them. We initially did agree because we were literally placed in the chat and did not know what else to do. When the first tribal council approached, Pory was saying how he wanted to eliminate Mihai because he was less active than the rest of us. I was not a fan of this vote because Mihai was a close friend of mine who I saw as an ally down the road. Augusto and Dani were expressing concerns with the Mihai vote as well, so they decided to vote Brian. I spoke to Tobi about the formation of the alliance and how we were both not comfortable in it. Ultimately, our tribe decided to eliminate Brian in a 5-2 vote. '''

'''We did not go to another tribal council with the Wanani 1.0 tribe, but that does not mean we were not playing the game. I was still making strong bonds with my tribemates, with the exception of Pory, and I think this showed when Augusto revealed to me that he had the idol. I was the only other person in the game to know this and my close relationship with him allowed for him to share this information with me, which I successfully used down the line.'''

Wanani 2.0- Rob, Grace, Alex, Aromal, Tobi, Andrea, Pory, Drew

'''This tribe began with the division of 4 Yellows, 3 Pinks, and 1 Teal. I knew that with Augusto being on exile, it was highly likely that if we lost the first immunity challenge, a Pink had a strong probability of going home. This is why I started working on my social connections with the Yellows. Grace and I immediately hit if off. We did not just become close allies, but close friends as well. She was one of the people that I would call more often, and we create a strong personal relationship through that. Alex and I were not on the best terms going into this game, but we were able to reconcile our differences and saw one another as potential allies in this game. Andrea and I as well had a strong personal relationship. I feel horrible that she could not be as dedicated to this game because of external matters, but it was great getting to meet her. I think that these 3 connections proved crucial once our tribe lost the second challenge. Tobi and I were not on good terms with Pory and knew we could not trust him long-term. We wanted to align with the Yellows to eliminate someone who may have been on our original tribe, but someone who was not going to be good for our game. At tribal council, Pory was attempting to throw out everyone’s name, including myself. The connections that I had made with the Yellow members helped me survive this round because they saw Pory as sporadic and valued myself and Tobi as potential future allies over Pory. Ultimately, Pory was eliminated in a unanimous vote.'''

Moya 3.0- Rob, Alex, Linus, Zach, Joan, Aromal, Mihai

'''The strongest tribe this game had seen! But in all seriousness, I was very glad that this tribe did not have to attend tribal council. I saw that the lines began to be drawn based off of 2.0 tribes- Rob, Alex, Aromal v. Linus, Zach, Joan, Mihai. The two people who were positioned in the middle of this were Aromal and Mihai. Aromal had strong pre-existing connections to the other side. Mihai and I had a very strong bond and he told me how his tribe almost voted him out over Lex the previous round. I do not know what would have happened if we went to tribal council, but I wanted to make sure that the side with Zach, Joan, and Linus saw more value in me as a player moving forward if they had the numbers. For this reason, I openly exaggerated how distressed I was that Tobi was eliminated from this game. Of course, I was upset, but I wanted to show my current tribemates that I would be more willing to side with them in a merge than other players on our tribe. I know that this at least worked a little bit because Miahi informed me that their alliance chat was seeing more value in me. So ultimately, we did not have to go to tribal council and all reached the merge.'''

Final 11- Alex

'''Even though this tribal did not go as intended for me, I think that it showed that the allies I created in the pre-merge portion of this game were still strong. The Moya 6 planned on sticking together, but we all knew that was not true. Joan’s name was originally dropped by Nathan and Alex on their call to reconcile their differences. I did not have an issue with this because between Joan, Zach, and Linus, I had a stronger connection to both Linus and Zach. I began speaking to Drew about the vote because I knew that him and Nathan were close, and if Nathan was on board, Drew probably would be too. He told me that he had not heard about the vote as of then, but was willing to do it. This is also when I spoke to Augusto about the vote and clued him in on how half of the Moyas planned on teaming up with the Wanani 4 and he seemed willing to do the vote as well. We all kept on saying that we needed to keep this vote a secret. I knew that Joan had the idol through Alex and Grace. Well, someone ended up leaking to this group that Joan was the vote. Then, it got back to Grace through Linus that they planned on targeting Alex. For me, I really did not have an issue with this. I knew that Alex was a strong competitor, especially in challenges, and I knew that if he was out of this game, it allowed me to explore more options. Alex frantically put together three votes on Zach at this vote, which was successful. The part that was unsuccessful was the secrecy. Once again this plan got leaked. This merge tribal turned the game from 0 to 10000 real quick. A double idol play at the merge eliminated Alex from this game in a shocking way. At this time, I thought that “Moya Strong” was dead, and I had to explore more options with my individual connections as opposed to relying on sides.'''

Final 10- Drew

'''The reason this vote for me was difficult was due to my travels and my phone dying immediately before tribal council. I was driving throughout the course of that day for approximately 7 hours straight with a few people in the car. My phone died immediately before I got on the boat, but all I was able to see was that the Moyas were voting Drew and the Wananis were voting Joan. I did not think that at this time I had sufficient information to know what was in the best interest for me. I did not want to rely on the Moyas because we proved to be disloyal the previous tribal council and I did not want to burn the bridge with the Wananis. This is why right before the deadline, I messaged Aromal saying that we should extend the deadline, which we did by causing a tie. I wanted to give myself more time to gather enough information on everyone’s true intentions and create bonds on both sides that would get me further in this game. I did not want to betray Grace & Augusto or Mihai & Zach. At this time, I knew that there were 2 alliance chats, where neither included me. I knew that this is when I needed to play the middle and use my individual connections to my advantage in this game. Also, these were the people I wanted to go forward with in the game from a person and strategic standpoint because we had a strong sense of trust between us. Ultimately, I had to fold my hand in order to avoid rocks, and it seemed that the remaining Wananias were receptive to this. This was seen as my weak point in the game, but I turned it into an asset because it allowed me to play the middle, successfully, for the remainder of the game. '''

'''I think from here on out, I have previously explained in other jury answers my role in each tribal. To avoid redundancy, I will highlight my major role in each vote.'''

Final 9- Joan

'''The important role that I played in this vote was actually being a middle player. It allowed for players such as Aromal and Mihai to feel comfortable to approach me about voting with the Wananis this round. I am not claiming this as my move, but my positioning as a result of the previous tribal council enable other players to see me as an asset to help them make a move against a strong player and the biggest “shield” in this game.'''

Final 8- Aromal

'''As I mentioned, Aromal was my intended target for the previous round because we were playing a similar game. We were both playing the middle, but I thought that he was closer to people like Linus and Zach than I was. This is why I knew that Aromal needed to go and I was even able to side with Linus and Zach this round by reiterating how loyal I was to them.'''

Final 7- Nathan

'''At this time, everyone in the game knew that a Wanani needed to go. Due to my close relationships with Grace and Augusto, I knew that it had to be Nathan. I was an important member to this vote because I felt that I was connecting the three other votes against Nathan, Mihai, Grace, and Augusto. I was able to eliminate a huge threat to my game by connecting my three closest allies to enable this vote.'''

Final 6- Zach

'''I have extensively talked about this vote because I think that this vote clearly shows my agency in this game by obtaining all of the information. I was the only one to know about the double idol play and used the sole vote that counted this round to eliminate the last person that was not going to be as close to me as the other members in this game, which was Zach.'''

Final 5- Augusto

'''I think that this round I had to show Grace and Linus how loyal I was to them. I knew that I was positioned between two alliances of three and due to the circumstances of the merge idol being used on Grace, I had to side with The Nucleus over OG Pink. If the idol was not in play, I would have probably eliminated Grace from this game. This would not have been easy to do because she was someone that was willing to talk to me everyday about the game or whatever little things were going on in our lives, but she was a huge threat to win this game. I do think that not eliminating Grace at this time did help me when it came to the Final 4 and Final 3.'''

Final 4- Mihai

'''I think this vote I was able to position myself best in the Final 3 under the assumption that Linus was going to win immunity. I knew that if I was not able to beat him in a challenge, I had to use his challenge wins to my advantage. Linus revealed to me that he would have taken Mihai, myself, then Grace. So my goal- eliminate Mihai to position myself the best in the Final 3, which was successful'''

Final 3- Grace

'''This vote I know was gut wrenching for everyone involved, but I knew that Linus was going to be voting Grace out of the game. I knew that he saw me as less of a threat in this game from the previous round, so as sad as it was to see her leave, I knew that I positioned myself in this Final 3 for this exact scenario. Grace leaving was so sad on a personal note because of how much we had done for one another in the game and our close relationship, but it was the position I needed to be in that would optimize my chance of reaching the Final 2. '''

Confessionals

'''I know that I did not submit the most confessionals this season, but I made it my mission to make at least one every tribal I attended, ask the hosts if they had questions on my game, and provide very thorough explanations when I was writing my confessionals. I think that it would be unfair to say whether the hosts did or did not have a fair insight to my game because I was constantly talking in my thread as well about my moves, despite not making a formal confessional at the time. I hope that the previous section was able to show my story arc as it is just not what other shaped me to be. In regard to the messages in the tribe chat, I also did that in a way of having people think of me as less of a threat. It was a subtle thing, but I was thinking that if people know that I am not making multiple confessionals every tribal, then they will not think I was as zoned in. I think that this can easily be refuted by the fact that I voted correctly at nearly every tribal, I carried out plans that mainly helped me in this game, and I was able to reach the Final 2 with only 1 vote cast against me this entire season. '''

Respect

'''I do not believe I disrespected anyone in this game. I do understand that I had to vote some people off, like Mihai, who would have never put my name on a parchment, but these decisions had to be made to better myself in this game. I did not exploit my personal relationships to advance myself in this game, but I positioned myself in the Final 5 to be in a very strong position to reach the end. Every relationship that I made was genuine and every move that I made was strategic. If people do believe I acted disrespectfully, I would love to talk about that because my goal had never been nor would ever be to show disrespect to anyone because I respect the game each of you had played and your value as an individual.'''

'''I hope this was able to show that I created strong personal relationships that grew into strategic ones in the pre-merge and early merge phases, assisted and planned the eliminations of players that I knew were not going to be as close to me in the end-game, and set myself up for an ideal Final 5 where I was perfectly positioned between two three person alliances. My agency and social connections were crucial in these eliminations to show that I was a huge factor in the merge portion of this game. My game was fairly simple, create social and strategic connections with those across all sides, eliminate those who had other connections, and ensure that I positioned myself to earn and be deserving of a spot in the Final 2 and ultimately the title of Sole Survivor. None of this was done by luck or by anyone else’s decisions. I took this game into my own hands and I believe these answers showed that. '''