Board Thread:Survivor 26: Chaos/@comment-26056991-20170826200701/@comment-31555005-20170826214732



Thank you so much Wendy for the warm words!

Before replying to your paragraph about independent successful/unsuccessful moves, I'd just like to clarify the Aras vote-out a bit. I did trust Aras, and I know he trusted me back - I considered other options at the time, such as the possibility of an Elias vote, which still would have only kept Aras for one more vote barring an immunity win, however I also had to consider that Aras was indeed the biggest challenge player left in the game. And while I doubt he would have turned on me, I took part in the move for two reasons - firstly, there was a general perception in the game about how I was the "beta to Aras's alpha", and secondly, I saw myself as being in a much better position to win immunities with him out of the game. By taking part in the Aras vote, I wanted to present myself as more of an individual rather than Aras's "subordinate" (perception which would have, in my opinion, caused my loss if I found myself sitting with Aras at the end), and I also set out to make myself have a better shot in the final two challenges by taking out a very strong competitor.

Moving on to your request! I'm going to start with the independent move I made that was a mistake - as the independent move I made that did benefit me which I'm going to talk about here is more or less a follow-up to my "mistake". After the unmerge twist and your vote-out, which I didn't really expect to come at the Final 9, I was left in a position where I needed to gauge where the game would go moving forward. Kyle was the only member of the "Spice Girls" left in the game - and he was clearly on the bottom.

Kyle had gotten involved in fights with Aras after your vote-out, which eventually put him in the position where Alex and I became his closest allies. Everybody knew that if Kyle's tribe lost the endurance challenge, he'd have been the prime target for a vote-out. Kyle presented me with a choice - I could attempt to throw the challenge, thus resulting in Kyle and his tribe winning immunity and in Elias, Alex, Aras and I going to tribal, case in which, Elias would have went home. I was open to the suggestion - I saw Elias as somebody who could more or less slip through the endgame with David/Aras and potentially Alex all being perceived as challenge threats or as jury threats, while Kyle only really had Alex and I as people he could actually trust.

However, two things prevented me from throwing to save Kyle - one of them was the very real possibility of a merge idol coming into play (with four people voting, absolutely anything could happen), and the other one was talks of the four of us in the Moana tribe forming an alliance of four.

I ended up trying hard in the immunity, eventually winning it, and Kyle went home. I found myself in a Final 7 in which David/Aras's challenge or jury prowess were perceived to be leagues above everybody else's, and I more or less expected that the Final 5 would be Elias, Jake, Emily, Alex and I barring one of Aras/David winning a challenge at the Final 6, which didn't really happen due to the Message in a Bottle twist - how the mistake played in within this Final 5 is that, with the playing field being pretty evened out after David/Aras were booted, there was a real possibility I could have went home. I needed to find a way to keep myself safe within that five even if I lost a challenge.

And this is the part where I focus on the independent move I made for myself which benefitted me - which, as an added bonus, also ties in to how I learned from my previous mistake. At some point between the David and Aras vote-outs, I pre-emptively started talking to Jake about the formation of a Final 3 between myself, him, and Emily (I approached Jake first about it because we had talked more at the time). This Final 3 was ideal - if brought to fruition, it put me in a Final 3 with somebody who played an under the radar game similar to mine (Emily) and with a chaotic player who had pissed off a fair amount of players (Jake).

Not only did it allow me to have a shot at the win, but it was also a big safety net that pretty much guaranteed the David/Aras vote-outs and it also put me in a pretty good spot within a Final 5 I was previously worried about. While I did expect Elias to attempt to form a similar alliance with the two of them, I expected the Final 3 to get me into the Final 4 at least, as Alex found himself on the outside of both of the F3's. It was optimal for me to win the final challenge to assure my spot here, but even so, I was pretty optimistic about my chances at making it here if anybody except for Elias won the final immunity.

This is because of possibly the most important positive aspect to come out of this Final 3 - it allowed me to grow closer with Emily. She's somebody I really enjoyed talking with, regardless of the topic being in-game stuff or outside of game stuff, and I'd say the Final 3 allowed us to get even a tiny bit closer together in the game.