Board Thread:Survivor: Sumbawa (Season 19)/@comment-28989018-20160901040013

=Introduction=     Before I begin this speech, I would first like to thank all of the people who made this season worthwhile. Ash, CJ, Zakriah, Jordan, Aromal: you are all truly wonderful people and I feel very honored to have met you, and I hope to remain in contact with each of you for a very long time. This season was a very interesting experience, to put things mildly, and a large reason for that would be the three people sitting before me here at the final tribal council; the things you have said and done while in this game have not gone unnoticed. Now, let me first say that I consider the word "hate" to be a very powerful word; I tend to avoid using it in conversation for this very reason, that if I use the word “hate” too often, then it is stripped of all its significance and becomes just another mouth noise. Yet, today, I stand here before the three of you here at the Final Tribal Council, and between all the scornful attacks, delusions of grandeur, and unnecessary deceptions; I am unable to think of a word that describes the way I feel about you more than the word “hate”. So, let me tell you how much I have come to hate you over the past thirty-nine days.

 =Ty Fennessy=             Ty, do you know what the difference is between you and a pit bull? It’s legal to neuter a pit bull. I’ve never met anyone who was so openly hostile, volatile, and abrasive as you are, and yet, you don’t seem to be under the impression that these are your weaknesses in this game, you honestly come across as being proud of how much of a loser you are, openly attacking and mocking people in this game, but only once it won’t affect your gameplay. Your inability to own up to the comments you have said and the things you have done is where you fail, both in Survivor and as a human being. You play yourself up to be this big tough guy who isn’t afraid of everything, but really, you’re nothing more than a coward who only has the guts to talk shit about anyone when you don’t think anyone else will find out. You are as fake and pathetic as your desperate attempts to impress people: “Vernacular” is not synonymous with “education”. Next time you try to make yourself look smarter than you are, try using words that you actually understand and didn’t just find out of a thesaurus. Ultimately, your counterfeit nature and lust for chaos are things I cannot respect either on a personal level or on a political level.

 I also find it to be not just hypocritical, but downright offensive, that you have the gall to dismiss my criticisms of you both as a player and as a person, on the grounds of "someone may have a mental illness", when you were the one who threw the first stone in sending a clip intended to mock and attack a close friend of mine who does have mental illness; the fact that you brand yourself as a champion and advocate for something, then ridicule it with no remorse the moment it suits your fancy, should be the perfect demonstration to everyone as to the merciless, insensitive, degenerate who you truly are inside.

 So far, this speech has gone entirely without mentioning your gameplay, or perhaps more appropriately, your strategy of “I have three rocks”, because that pretty much seems to be the most complex thought you've been able to generate. You pawn yourself out to be some sort of mastermind, when your strategy for the entire game seemed to be "I have an idol, don't vote for me", as evidenced by your complete lack of any strategic gameplay, pulling out an idol or telling people you planned to use one at every single tribal council, and carelessness even to the point of throwing a challenge for no reason besides that you had an idol, thus permitting Linus's winning streak to continue - an event that was entirely avoidable. Your game can be summed up with “I’m safe, screw you”. The only reason you ever held any power in this game is because you managed to find people who were just as detestable and immoral as you are who were willing to bend to your every whim in this game because anyone – and I do mean anyone – could have defeated you at Final Tribal Council.

Once upon a time, I would have given you credit for at least being honest about how you come across to the jury, but it has become increasingly apparent that of all the negative qualities you possess, included among them is the complete absence of any self-awareness. You criticize me for writing a long, aggressive, and critical speech of you…. in a long, aggressive, and critical speech. Do you realize that’s literally the exact same thing? Do you realize that is exactly the kind of behavior that has caused the entire jury to loathe you: pettiness, false heroism, and hypocrisy? No, of course not, you’re delusional and still think that you’re the moral one, even though you were the one who made things personal to begin with: your attack against Ash after she was voted out was what turned your fellow castaways against you when you could have otherwise had a decent shot at winning, and as the number of people against you on the jury started to rise and grow, you did absolutely nothing except continue encouraging them to abhor you with an even greater intensity.

 When this game is over, I will be able to say that I never defended the use of slurs. I will be able to say that I never called anyone "cunt". I will be able to say that I did not cast the first attack. I will able to say that I can walk out of this game with no regrets of how I played or how I treated people. You will not be able to say any of those things. Do not think that I will not see you attack people and then pretend to be the victim, do not think that I will not notice your hypocrisy, and especially do not think that I will not call you out for your sins.

 =Brian Ruvolo= <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333">            Brian, do they know you’re a fraud? Do the people in your life know you’re nothing more than a disgusting pathological liar who would sell out your soul to the highest bidder? Do they know you’re an immoral parasite who would do anything in order to make himself look virtuous and heroic? Because I know, and all of my fellow jurors know. The more active a role you played in this game, the more apparent it became of your incredible ability to make yourself look even more like a douchebag every single time you opened your mouth.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in; line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333"> For some reason I couldn't possibly understand, you seem to see yourself as some sort of moral crusader, but the cold, hard truth is that you are as hypocritical and as morally bankrupt as a person can be within this game. You lie to people unnecessarily and betray them for no reason while brushing it off as “just playing the game”, and then you act like a poor, hapless victim when the same thing happens to you. You attack me for keeping secrets from people, and then turn around and do the exact same thing to the exact same people while desperately pointing fingers to keep the blame off of yourself. You attack me and call me a “disgrace to the LGBT community”, while then claiming that I was the one who made the insult towards you, and then continue to, once again, play the role of a pitiable, bullied victim. You also claimed in your jury speech that I accused you of being a “homophone” (maybe you should consider proofreading your speeches - just a suggestion) on the grounds that you were friends with Lex. If you had actually taken the time to read my original speech to you, you would have noticed that I not only never used the term “homophobe” (or “homophone”, for that matter), but I also never stated or even implied that your friendship with her made you one: my argument was that your justification for the use of slurs was especially disgusting considering that you, a closet gay man, should recognize why such words should be completely unacceptable within society. Your failure to understand what should be a very simple concept, either by ignorance or by choice, should be proof enough as to how unrealistic and manipulative you have been to people in this game.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in; line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333">The next flaw of yours to be placed onto the proverbial cutting board is your sense of entitlement and your delusions of grandeur. You seem to be under the impression that you are not, in fact, a goat, you are on good terms with the jury, and you have a chance of winning this game: all of these things could not have been more incorrect. Are you not aware of how delusional, out-of-touch, and to be quite frank, idiotic, you sound when you boast about your social game while obnoxiously sending someone off to join a jury who already despises you with an enormous intensity? Are you not aware of the fact that if you actively and openly plan to send someone to the jury, who, by your own admission, has considerable influence among the jury, that perhaps it would be in your best interest to make sure said individual does not hate you when she joins Ponderosa? Are you not aware of how you have ruined your game beyond any possible redemption when you have single-handedly created a jury that feels so strongly about you that the thing that bonds them together more than anything else is their unanimous disgust and contempt for you and everything about you. Your jury speech is the perfect example of how removed your understanding of the game is from that from reality. You take credit and claim responsibility for events that would have happened with or without your involvement. You insult Linus as being unable to pull off moves, yet the only move you managed to pull off without one of your precious auction items was voting out Jess while wasting your idol in the process, something I would not exactly consider to be a game changing moment. You claim that you are not a jury goat on the grounds that your game changing moves deserve respect; quite frankly, I don’t give a damn about your game changing moves, I care about the fact that you are nothing more than a tyrant who gets his way through harassment, intimidation, fear, and chaos.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in; line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333">Yet, now, after you realize that I am not going to put up with your lies, attacks, and hypocrisy: you say you want to mend ties with me, and that you want to be my friend. Well, too damn bad; those bridges were burned a long time ago, and you were the one who lit the match. You do not get to attack someone and mock their very existence and then say that everything is fine and dandy because you said so. I never want to see you again and I never want to hear the name Brian Ruvolo ever again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333"> =Linus Silversides= <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333">            Linus, this one hurts. Let me say first there is a reason why your speech is the longest out of the three even though I support you. This speech was also the hardest to write; as a matter of fact, I had to re-write this speech twice. I felt that it was that essential to me that I be able to clearly communicate my thoughts. Dealing with anger and putting it down into words is a very simple process; there is absolutely no question as to the way I feel about Ty or Brian. In comparison, it is significantly more difficult to refine and handle something when I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. On one side, you seem like a very interesting and respectful person who I can see myself being friends with for a very long time. On the other side, you’re a liar who stabbed the people who trusted you in the back. You were the first person I trusted in this game; the first person I seriously bonded with in this game, and now while I’m on the jury, I find out that you’ve been playing and lying and manipulating me for the entire time we’ve known each other. You’ve been very deceitful and two-faced, and that hurts. Linus, I’m going to be honest, I want to like you, our conversations together have been some of the best I’ve had not just in this game, but in a very long time overall. I want to trust you, and I want to be your friend. But you make it all so fucking hard.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            Before I continue, let me dispel any confusion by saying that I am not referring to the times you lied to me to solely to improve your position within the game itself: I have no qualms about you lying about how close you were with Brian, or Lex, or Dani. The events that I am referring to are the times where you claimed to be on my side while organizing my elimination, or the times where you claimed to be my friend while being unable to tell me even the most basic things. The times where I honestly have questioned whether you have actually have ever been real and honest to me for a single day in this game.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            The first time where you showed your true loyalties was on Day 10 (July 26). In the event that you have forgotten, let me remind you of the events of that day: That was the day that allegations began to emerge that I was in possession of the hidden immunity idol. You refused to acknowledge these accusations at first, and had no interest in letting me know I was in any sort of danger until I forced you to admit the fact that I was being targeted, despite you possessing the knowledge that I was not the owner of the hidden immunity idol. In hindsight, it should have been immediately obvious how insincere you had been to me in the game up to that point, but due to the state of panic I was in, and the desperation to avoid making myself the target, I decided to continue trusting you, a mistake which would cost my allies and I the game.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            The large mistake in trusting you came when the tribes had been merged. And then, only after I had long since been on the jury, had the truth finally came clean that you were the one who outed the existence of CJ’s auction item, something I told to you in confidence, and then used it to throw the vote towards CJ, someone who had completely trusted you and planned to take you to the end. You told me that the only reason you voted CJ out was because the numbers weren’t there to work with me, but you lied to me: the numbers were there and you knew it; not only did you toss someone who trusted you completely right in the middle of the road, you were the one who drove the bus right over him. Your cause was not helped by the fact that you completely ignored me after CJ was eliminated; you did not talk to me at all, and you did not attempt to defend me from the constant attacks against me until it had become clear to you that your reputation amongst the jurors was in jeopardy. You pretended to always be loyal to me, even though it was abundantly clear I had been on your radar since the very beginning of the game, and that your loyalties had always lied with Dani, Lexus, Brian, and the other side of the island. If you had merely owned up to the fact that you had been using me as a tool for this entire game, we may not be having this discussion, but no, you decided to try to keep stringing me along in your web of lies and deceit. Your betrayal still would have hurt had you come forward, but not nearly to the extent that it does right now.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            If you are still under the incorrect assumption that your lies are all justifiable as being part of your gameplay, let me bring to your attention several times where you blatantly lied to me even when it would not have affected anything even if you had told me the truth. You repeatedly changed the date of when you had first aligned yourself with the other side of the island. First, you told me it was only after you merged, then you told me it was way back during Anarchy, and another time you told me it was while you were at Alor. It should not need to be explained why I have come to distrust you when you cannot be bothered to tell me basic facts, let alone bother to keep your deceptions consistent. You also repeatedly denied having any ties to your eventual allies, even though it was fairly clear how tight you were even during the early stages of the game. Anyone who has gotten to know me at all over the course of this season knows that I am incredibly loyal to all of my allies over the course of this season, and for some reason, and at the time I was sent to Ponderosa, I thought you were included in that category. I was and have been completely loyal to you even when you have been deceiving me this whole season: I supported you, I campaigned for you at Ponderosa, I even intentionally designed my elimination speech to look like I didn’t support you, and to look like I had supported Dani instead. That is how loyal I was to you while I was in the game, and you had a gun pointed at my head the entire time.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            On a game level, I have massive respect for you. You outwitted and outplayed everyone here, won an unprecedented five consecutive immunity challenges, managed to go to the end of the game without a single vote against you, pulled off a massive blindside which not only took you from a Jury contender to a massive favorite but also killed three birds with one stone, and then took not one, but two jury goats with you to the end. As such, you will be rewarded with my vote for the title of Sole Survivor and I believe you will earn at least four more. On a personal level, I don't know how to feel about you; my emotions regarding you have wavered between forgiveness, acceptance, disappointment, and scorn too many times for me to count.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:-.75pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic"> =Conclusion= <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333;mso-bidi-font-style: italic">            I suppose the big question now was what was the whole point of this entire speech. With all the environment of Sumbawa behind me, and the allusions to Harlan Ellison aside, the answer would be so that I could finally express my emotions in a natural way, namely by getting them down into writing. The final tribal council expressed a perfect opportunity for me to express this. Brian and Ty, there is absolutely nothing left I want to say to either of you, and there is absolutely nothing left I want to hear from either of you.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in; line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333; mso-bidi-font-style:italic">Linus, I know you are probably hurt by the words I’ve said to you tonight, but I want to make sure you are aware that I am willing to amend our ties together if you believe that our friendship is worth it. I’ve greatly enjoyed playing and talking to you outside of the game, and I hope that our friendship can continue outside of the game. I want to be your friend, and I’m willing to keep what happened on the island from coming off the island, because you are a very charismatic and interesting person, and I really hope we remain in contact for a long time. <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:-.75pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in; line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#333333; mso-bidi-font-style:italic"> To end this speech, I would like to thank anyone and everyone who took the time to read my long, detailed, emotional, three-thousand-word novel of a speech. Josephine out. <ac_metadata title="Josephine&#039;s Jury Speech"> </ac_metadata>