Board Thread:Survivor 22: San Marcos/@comment-9755360-20170210182205

I know this isn't something usually done in FTCs, but I feel like I just need to do this. I ask all Jurors to please read this before they decide who to vote for, or actually just read it anyway, because I feel like this needs to be said.

Here's the thing. I feel like this FTC is such a big mess of misinformation. No, that's not the exact word I mean, but I can't find any better ways for it. The basis of it all boils down to the fact that so much of this FTC just is... Wrong. I don't really know how to start, and this will be a bit jumpy, because I'm just gonna let my thoughts out about everything that's been going on. It will probably just be random statements made by everyone, that I think are outright wrong, and I'm gonna end it with things that people seem to ignore completely.

First off, the claim that I'm bitter? This has been mentioned multiple times, and in all honesty, I'm just confused. When was I ever bitter? I mentioned Canada in my speech as a joke - I even posted it to people (aka the hosts) before posting it, with the ":P" I use when I try to joke. It's a thing I usually say to people I talk to, and I guess it's an inside joke, but it's because it hurt me a lot when it happened, but I'm over it. As for being a bitter Juror, have I ever been that? Yes. Two years ago, in my third ORG, I was blindsided as the final Juror by a person I trusted a lot. I said some quite bad things to him in my speech (granted, I wrote it pretty much almost immediately after being voted out), but in the end, I voted for him to win anyway. Why? He'd played the best game. Am I biased towards my friends as a Juror? Usually, yes, I suppose I am. I've been convinced to vote for others though, and I'd like to remind everyone of the fact that this was YEARS ago - I've played 5 ORGs the last year, and I haven't been a bitter Juror in a single one of them. Had I been voted out as the Final Juror this time, would I have voted Chris? Yes. But not because of bitterness, like Nick claims, but rather because I believe Chris played the best game out of everyone this season, like I've said all season long. Am I bitter in the way that I didn't wanna work with people that tried to vote me out? Well, I worked with Chris and Claudia despite that, and I didn't work with the Quetzals because it was obvious they didn't trust me, so doing that would've been stupid.

Now that that's over, let me get into the next thing. This isn't something anyone said, but it's something extremely overlooked - the pre-merge. It's no news to everyone that Catarina won the first 3 immunities, but why was that? Well, a big part of it that I feel is extremely overlooked this season is... Me. I took charge as a leader figure when it came to challenges on Original Catarina. I was the reason we were the only tribe to post who was doing what in that first challenge. I immediately asked who was good at what, kept a list active in the chat, made sure everyone got their say. I was the only person from Catarina to win a trial at that challenge too, not that that matters, but still. I think I was an important part in the pre-swap, as evidenced by the fact that our second challenge loss (the first was because Quetzal all somehow got amazing scores (really, guys, how did you do that? XD )) was because I was the only person who could do the challenge for sure, and the others were gonna discuss a sit-out, and that, despite the fact that I reminded them multiple times, the others didn't even discuss it overnight, and all went to sleep, and forgot to post a sit-out, leaving me to sitting out an dus to losing (we probably would've anyway, but I think that's worth noticing). "Even pre-merge on the original Catarina, people were always worried about Nathaniel because he came off sneaky." This was something Nick recently said too, in Renz' speech. I just wanted to point out that Brian and Hannah both had me as the person they were "liking" the most upon leaving (well, Brian had Hannah higher than me, but still), and I doubt Sim thought so since we were actually really close pre-swap (even though he might disagree with that now, since he and Nick have been super anti-me this whole FTC), so I think this is subtle manipulation of trying to make me look worse than I was.

Now, the swap. I think this part is HUGELY overlooked. The swap was supposed to be my doom. I was swapped into a tribe of 4 Quetzals, and 2 Tacanas. The others came straight into a majority - or well, at least Sim did. Nick, Austin and Rhi got Brandon to join, and good work on that from them, because I think doing the opposite might've been smarter for him in the long run, but seeing as how Nick almost was voted out that tribal, did he really connect that well with the Tacanas? I did mistakes too, but I at least owe up to them, while I think Nick has omitted this completely from his answers. Then we have Sim, who literally just jumped into a majority. Sure, he built good enough social bonds not to get Idoled out, same with Nick, but I don't think that was anything compared to what I had to do. Especially after the Ryan tribal, it made so much sense to vote me out. Especially with the anti-returnee thing going on, I should've been a goner. But I worked hard to build connections with people, to make them trust me, to have them not vote me out. People say my social game sucked, but if it did, how did I survive that tribal? I wasn't that good enough to be kept for my challenge strength, and with the merge coming soon, that should've actually been all the more reason to vote me out. I formed strong connections with people I'd never met before (other than Jenna, whom I had hosted once and said 10 words to or something, Chris, whom I had sent a "good luck" to when he was playing in main ORG's Sri Lanka, and Elmo, whom I had wished good luck to during the Wikia Wars challenge - because despite playing and making the FTC together with Renz before, I had never actually talked to him). I even talked to Andrew and got info about the Tacana things from him (which I got from Chris too), and I managed to get at least both Elmo and Shea to want to save me. I think I had to work a lot harder than both Nick and Sim did during the swap, and showed that I had a better social game than people have been saying all FTC, and I think it actually got me into a rather good position at the merge. I used things I learnt at the swap to my advantage at the merge - like the Catarina Idol. I knew someone from our original tribe had found it, and by warning Austin he’d go if he didn’t have the Idol, he revealed to us that he had found it. Hadn’t he done that, I’d’ve revealed my Idol and played it, but this way, I got to keep my own Idol for another round, and I think small, subtle things I did like that are completely overlooked in this FTC.

Another thing I think is overlooked is timezones, and the thing largely connected to it that is language. Playing as a European, or Asian for that matter, is hard. You’re always ahead of everything, you stay up late and lose sleep only to be able to hang onto the game, and it affects the social game a lot too. Elmo, Renz, Rhi, Claudia and I are the Jury/merge people that aren’t American (or Canadian). That’s 5/13. And amongst us, Renz is 8 hours or so away from me, and for my time to become Claudia’s, just change the A or P before the M to the opposite. And, well, Elmo and Rhi both went home before the F10, which means the closest people to me were 6 hours away. It’s a thing Americans can’t get (unless they play in Rockstar or something, where a majority of the players is from another part of the world), but it’s one that affects the game a lot. Of course I can’t talk to people as much as others did when I only have a span of 2 hours a day when it’s possible for me to. It also affected the game in a thing I noticed most rounds - challenges and tribals almost always happened around 3 AM my time, which meant I couldn’t do anything early on or late into rounds. The Austin vote for example. I was approached by CC to take out Austin. That happened while I was asleep, worrying about being voted off - that was the Renz vote, so I was sure I was going home when I went to sleep. Of course I couldn’t have been the one that approached them about it instead - I would’ve had to do that before tribal results were up for a tribal I was sure I was going home in. Speaking of the Austin vote, just wanted to mention a small thing about it that people seem to have overlooked. Nick (and Sim) claim the Jenna vote to be one of their biggest moves, and I agree that they took the right decision, but I think people forget how that vote was set up to happen by me, the tribal before. I could’ve easily voted off Chris with Shea and the Catarinas, but that would’ve put me in a 5-2 majority, and I probably would’ve been blindsided the vote after. Instead, I realised that Nick and Sim never would risk voting me off, risking a F6 with rocks as the best outcome, and one of them going home as the other one. That was a big part in my decision to get rid of Austin, but people just seem to glance that over. Back to topic. Another last thing regarding timezones - it was also a disadvantage in challenges. Mainly one - the “catch the star” one. Not complaining, but merely pointing out that of the stars posted, they were all spread out evenly, with the exception of a 7-hour pause where no were posted - during the sleeping time for EST people, which all hosts (except Felix) are. But yeah, that’s just an example of other times timezones can matter a lot more than it appears. As for language, do you have any idea how hard it is to talk your second language all the time? You forget words, and have to think before you say anything, and it’s so much easier to be misunderstood. Elmo and Renz I’m sure can confirm that even if you, like me, have been speaking (read as: typing) English for years, it’s still nothing compared to someone who has it as their mothertounge.

Also, speaking of Shea, I managed to get a person willing to quit for me. I love Shea, and I know a lot of you dislike him, but I think it says something when I had a player I knew would give up their game for mine, and managed to get them far. I knew I’d make the F3 already at the F6. Shea had already talked to me about quitting for my sake, and no way was Chris or Claudia making it to the end. And since, going back to the F8, I knew Nick and Sim couldn’t risk voting off Shea or myself at the F7, I put myself at the F8(!) in a place where the FTC was something extremely likely for me to make. Sim said  about me “He was the one watching things happen after Final 7.”, and I agree. I watched things happen, because from there they went down almost exactly how I expected them to (only with Shea getting 6th instead of 4th), so I had no reason to change anything. People don’t get how my mind was running all game, thinking about what others would do, how others would think, running hundreds of scenarios in my head all the time - in school, while walking, in the shower, while trying to sleep. I feel like my strategy hasn’t had a time to shine at all this FTC, and I know this may come off as whining or whatever, but that’s just how I feel.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:#3a3a3a;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Now to the next thing (and I’m gonna touch upon this when I answer Chris’ speech as well) - me being a villain. Did I ever “blow up” in the tribe chat? Yes, I did do that two times, once at the F4 because I couldn’t believe Nick and Sim were considering taking Chris to the end, and once at the final whatever (pretty sure it was F9), when I tried to make the Quetzals distrust CC, which obviously failed, but was worth a try. Does that make me a villain? No, I don’t think so. Especially not when you consider the people that played in this season. This cast has been so mean-spirited in a way. Always talking about people behind their backs, laughing at them, having fun saying bad things about people. I thought this was just Nick/Sim/Austin/Jenna, since those were the only ones I saw with my own eyes, but now I know at least Claudia did it too, and probably other people as well. And, personally, I think talking about others behind their backs is something more villainous than most things. The only people I talked about like that were Nick and Sim, to Claudia at the F5, because I was so frustrated that they wanted to allow Chris to get to the F4 (which, from what I thought, would be a flash game, an endurance thing, a creativity challenge, a luck-based one, a mind/strategy game, and possibly a puzzle - of those, the only one I was sure would come up that didn’t was the endurance, and had it been there, I think Chris would’ve won the FIC and with it the game, so I think my fears were justified), but other than that, I said my “XD”s and “Yeah”s, feeling bad inside for taking part in such a discussion - I hate talking bad about people, especially behind their backs, and in a season like this where everyone did that, I can’t see how me not doing it makes me a villain (note: I don’t think talking about others behind their backs as amusement is something wrong to do, I just feel bad doing it myself). Furthermore, I was loyal and honest to everyone that was loyal and honest to me, and the only person I turned on was Austin, and there I used the fact that CC told me he’d been after me for a while as a scapegoat to justify that reasoning. I worked hard to get my alliance to the end, and I think I got all of us there. Yes, Sim and Nick did do a lot of the late-merge decisions, but they couldn’t have done that if I didn’t help us get there with the Elmo and Brandon tribals (I think the Elmo tribal was the most influential one of the entire game, and shouldn’t be underestimated), and although I do have to give Sim credit for the messy Renz vote, I don’t think you can just dismiss all I did for our alliance. Also, I hated voting people out whereas others were happy doing so, and I don’t think villains feel bad for voting people out and heroes celebrate it (but that might be just me).

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:#3a3a3a;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Not much left now. However, I think something that needs to be said is how nobody wanted me at the end. Nick and Sim both said they didn’t really want to go with me to the end, yet I’m still here. I wanted to go with both SIm and Nick to the end (I really wanted Shea and Sim (I saw Sim and Nick as interchangeable, but I was closer to Sim), but I knew Shea wasn’t gonna get there, because he’d told me he didn’t wanna make the end since he feared people would just trash him if he did and he didn’t want that), and that happened. I voted correctly every single time but the F5, and even then, I think taking Chris to the FIC over Claudia was a risky move, although I agree that that is debatable. Furthermore, everyone wanted me out! Everyone wanted me gone, but I’ve survived despite that, and now I’m here - I think that deserves some credit.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:#3a3a3a;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I know you’re probably getting tired, so I’ll end it with this final thing: Nick and Sim saying I got here because I relied on others. Firstly, it is completely impossible to get to the end without relying on others unless you win every single immunity challenge/make up for the times not won by playing Idols every one of those times. Sim relied on Nick to get here. Nick relied on Sim to get here. We all three relied on Austin, and Rhi, and Shea, and others. I think that if anything, I was the one who got us into a majority position with my Idols, and although I don’t want my game to be seen as just that, I do think they played a significant role in all three of us getting here. Furthermore, I think getting Shea was something that mattered a lot too. Without me, it would’ve been Austin, Nick and Sim against 5 Quetzals and 3 Tacanas. That’s not too good odds. I think we all relied on others to get here, and I might’ve relied on the most people, but I think if anything that disproves my “bad social game” - why would people keep me around if I was so bad socially that nobody trusted me? Anyway, sorry for this long post. I hope you’ve read through it - and if you have, thank you. You can think whatever you want to after this - if you wanna vote Nick because you connected the best to him or Sim because you think he made good strategic decisions, be my guest, I won’t judge you. I just hope I’ve cleared up some misconceptions, and if I’ve made even one person look at things only somewhat differently, I’ll be happy. If anyone wants to reply to this with, well, anything, feel free to do so. I don’t wanna start a fight, and I hope things can be discussed in a calm way. Anyway, thanks again for reading through this, and I hope you all have a great day! <ac_metadata title="PSA"> </ac_metadata>