Board Thread:Season 34: Romania/@comment-31715181-20180825225532

Hey y'all! I'd like to take this opportunity to explain my game throughout the season. However, before we get into that, I would like to address something. I would like to address the two strikes that I had collected during the merge. The reason I had gotten these strikes was due to me needing to go on vacation. I sadly had a very little amount of Wi-Fi and the little amount I had was extremely unreliable. I was extremely busy during this vacation and whenever I had access to the internet, it would constantly disconnect and when it did connect, it would not allow me to send messages. Any other time than during that time, I made sure to abstain if I couldn't compete in the challenge and whenever I had working Wi-Fi, I made sure to abstain.



Moving on, I began the game on the Tadare tribe, and began to talk around the tribe. However, I didn't go headfirst into socializing with everyone and I took a slower approach. I still made sure to talk around the tribe and began to bond with everyone. Me and Nick were instantly close as we had known each other previously and we trusted each other implicitly. I also made sure to continually check in with everyone on the tribe to try and keep my name safe in the event we went to tribal. Thankfully, this didn't happen and we managed to escape ever going to a tribal council. I felt that Me Brian and Nick began to get closer after the bat catching challenge as we all put a lot of effort into that challenge to make sure we escaped tribal.

Once the tribe swap happened, I was located to the new Izolare tribe, and as Connor and Izzy were members of the original Tadare with me, I felt more trust to those two. Once we lost, it seemed the votes were between Connor or Dakota, yet both me and Izzy knew Connor didn’t have the votes to stay. However, on this occasion, I acted in retaliation as statements made correlated to me being the target so I voted in an act of retaliation. However just before the vote, Connor approached me telling me not to trust Izzy as she was working with the other side of the tribe. This ignited some suspicions that Izzy’s loyalties weren't truly with me. Once Connor was eliminated, I had to do some damage control to explain my vote and salvage relationships. This allowed me to get more chances of gaining information.

The remainder of my time on the Izolare tribe I spent sitting back and watching everyone else. I knew that Izzy had prior relationships with Rob and Anthony which made me extremely cautious of those three. I also listened to news of other relationships on the Izolare tribe that allowed me to discover and connect pieces of information that revealed certain relationships and how close some people were. I also made sure I put effort into every challenge and I made sure I kept my head down but my ears open. This allowed me to uncover certain bits of information as well as using this information to further my relationships with certain individuals, such as Anthony and Dakota.

Once merge arrived, I began rebuilding relationships from my original tribe, such as Nick and Brian, while building relationships with people I hadn't talked to at all. The first vote was straightforward as Austin made himself a huge target with throwing names around and being an overall wildcard. Throughout this though, I gained insight on what happened on the Razbunare tribe before merge came, noting who seemed to be close to who and how things unfolded from tribal councils. With Austin’s behaviour, he was too risky for anyone to work with so his vote was pretty straightforward. The next elimination I played a more strategic part in. The blindside of Izzy wouldn’t had been possible unless the votes were split. The group of me, Brian Nick Dakota and Maya all agreed on Izzy being a safe vote seeing as we didn’t think there was much chance of an idol use on her as she didn’t think she was in any danger. Using Nick and Brian as inside moles, I went around dropping Dakota’s name to the others, and when paired with Dakota telling them about her idol (which He didn’t have), we managed to scare the others into splitting the vote, allowing our plan to blindside Izzy to blossom.

At this point in the game, I began to lose my votes, as my alliance members were eliminated out in the following tribals. As I knew with each passing tribal, I would be targeted soon, I used my lack of challenge wins and “goat” status to my advantage. I made myself seem so little of a target that I convinced people that I was no danger to them whatsoever. Once I was the last remaining member of my alliance, I saw the cracks begin to form in the alliance of Rob, Morgan, Anthony, Maya and Julia. My status of little danger allowed me to build an alliance with Rob as we both knew Julia and Anthony were extremely big threats who would win jury hands down if they made it. Sadly, our alliance didn’t work out... yet me posing as no danger to anyone, worked out to my advantage as Rob was voted out. The following tribal, Morgan was coming to me, saying nearly the exact same things as Rob, except this time I knew I couldn’t fail in getting either Julia or Anthony out. I went to Maya and confronted her with the facts that unless she voted out Julia and Anthony, there was no chance of her winning at all. This managed to work out in the end as the next two tribal councils, Julia and Anthony were both voted out. Even I could admit that many times throughout the game I could have been eliminated and probably should have, yet I still managed to fight every time my name was thrown and I managed to deflect the vote off of me.

I can understand how some people could have seen me as a floater throughout this game. At the beginning, most people voted together as there were weak links on the tribes that people needed to be cut. However, once power alliances developed further in the game, everyone else should have been knocked out easily. With me downplaying myself and seeming like so little of a threat, I was not perceived as any danger whatsoever to the power alliance, which made them turn on each other. The main big move I made throughout this season was the Izzy blindside but as Nick and Brian were the strategists on our side, it easily got attributed to them, allowing me to sneak bye as looking at the jury, the people who risked big moves ended up soon in the jury. Sometimes the smaller and less noticeable moves are what go a long way into keeping yourself in the game.

Overall, while I may have not been the best at challenges or made huge moves, excluding the Izzy blindside, Survivor isn't about those entirely. I kept my mouth shut and my ears open constantly, rarely throwing names around and made sure when I could that I had the idea of where the votes were going. I literally had the votes stacked against me on a colossal scale coming into the final 6, yet I fought through it. I kept my head down and overcame the adversity I faced throughout the season, which I feel is what survivor is about. I worked through all the difficulties I had yet despite this, I managed to reach the final three. I feel like I have accomplished so much just by being here in the final three that even if I don’t win, I'll feel so proud knowing I tried my best and for everything I did this season.

Thank you to Sam, Alissa, James and Kyle for hosting such an incredible season. It was so amazing and enjoyable and you always made sure everyone was clear with anything and were extremely friendly to everyone! Thank you to all the Castaways in this season because it was such an amazing experience!  