"I had to think this game was fun to survive .. I had to lie to myself."
Hello finalists! It’s only right that I start this with a congratulations to you all, you girls have successfully outlasted 21 all-stars en route to making it to Day 39. Christine, this is your second time here, and Asa this is your third, and all three of you will be entering the Top 10 in days lasted in 703 after this, so good job on all of these accomplishments.
Anyways, I’ll preface this and say I won’t be in the clearest mindset or brightest mood while doing this. Maybe it’s just me, but when ‘unintentional X(((‘ outside interference cripples you and your closest ally’s games at a pivotal round, when that illegal information may have been twisted to further bury said games, and when a challenge is inexplicably changed to something other players directly suggested and have experience winning, then it’s certainly safe to say that I barely had a leg to stand on in a game I badly wanted to win. I had my flaws, I clearly could’ve hid my relationships with Christine and Sam better, maybe flipped a round later, but being handicapped in the way I was, along with my closest ally Alissa, still leaves a shitty taste in our mouths, and no revisionist history will convince us otherwise. Anyways, I know this will more than likely be brushed aside by biased agendas and blind enabling aka ORG politics 101, so allow me to move onto what’s important, and that’s which one of you is going to win, because this season is coming to a close.
ASA:
Asa, this one’s a little conflicting, because if we were gonna go off likability as a human being, you’d have a great shot, because oddly enough you can win over some juries by virtue of knowing their favorite ice cream flavor. Or if we were voting off statistics and not context, you would deserve a unanimous win, because any two-time finalist/former winner who gets to the end a third time must have done something spectacular to have made the end a third time .. right? Well I’ll try breaking this down.
Unfortunately, you just didn’t play a social game, to such an extent where even someone like me, Evan Manziel is taking notice. I suppose the concerning thing is, this wasn’t a case of you being unlikable/rude to other players, no, you just gave little to no effort when it came to developing relationships with me and most of this jury. It’s really confusing to me because you’re clearly nice, sweet, and talented, but as far as I’m concerned you only went at lengths to talk to Perry and Fitz. Had you been a little more friendly with the jury yet remained low in the game like you did, you could’ve been 703’s Sandra, but at this venture in the game it’ll be very hard pressed to cast a vote for you knowing your presence was barely detectable. This appears to be a recurring theme in your seasons - the first time it didn’t work out for you (Tucker if you’re reading this you’re losing Angel Falls), the second time it did, and now we’ll find out what happens your third.
Strategically, I don’t have a real grasp of what your plans were moving forward. As a positive, you were in the majority more often than Christine/Eva were, and found yourself in pivotal positions, but it appears you just went with the flow and took on Fitz’s lead. I felt like you two had a Ken/David relationship in MVGX, where Fitz carried most of the workload, only for you to make the rather obvious decision to cut him at the end. As far as the idol play is concerned, it was a nice play, but Fitz feels as if he was responsible for it in telling you where the votes were headed. This is where you can separate yourself, because as far as a lot of us were concerned, Fitz carried the work of your duo, but if you would like to respond and tell this jury otherwise, by all means I encourage this.
On a side note, while I’m never going to devalue someone’s game because of luck, I just need to point out that had Alissa not dealt with a 6 AM voting deadline, you would’ve been voted out at F8, and that you reluctantly won both an idol and immunity in an auction the round you were actually being targeted in. Honestly, I can’t even be mad about that lol
Anyways, tl;dr Asa, I’ll cut the formalities and say I don’t think I’ll be voting for you this FTC. You’re a really good person so this isn’t a slight against you personally, I simply believe your game doesn’t stack up for you to win over this jury, because it really feels disconnected compared to who you’re up against. On a brighter note, regardless of this result, you can flip off the ORG world and say “I went 3 for 3 in making FTC and you didn’t”, so have fun w/ that!
EVA:
I’m just going to give a warning on really short notice and say this isn’t going be pretty because I have issues with both your game and how you carried yourself throughout it. It feels like the jury’s wanted to almost butter this feud up and prepare you for some shitstorm, but I’m not gonna play into that noise, naturally grievances will be aired, but we’re adults and we can either mutually talk this out or just agree to disagree and go our separate ways, so let’s fire away. While your ROP made me consider absolving all of what I’m about to say, I’d only be fooling myself if a written assignment whose direct objective is to pander to the booted players would magically make me forgive and forget.
I’ve actually had most of this written since Final 6, as there wasn’t a single conceivable scenario in my mind where you would be voted out, but your speech opened some doors. By theory, your strategy and attitude this season was an excellent method to reach Day 39, as you had a blueprint, you executed it, and now you’re here. Now, was it a winning plan …? Nein. Because behind that mask, there actually had to be substance, like strings being pulled, people being worked over, a long term strategy, however I can’t find any of that. Your speech felt like an explanation for your behavior, which that and the intentions behind it will be the crux of my speech, yet you mentioned little of your strategy. So in this scenario, yes, a 5 page essay on your game may have turned some heads, because we all want to see what went on behind the curtains.
So let’s jump into the big picture, that being your whole attitude throughout the season, whether it be the research papers your wrote for tribal answers, or the vindictive callouts in the tribe chat, a lot of which came off as shitty to myself, jurors sitting here, and, if I’m being frank, sometimes even your closest allies. If I had to centralize everything, I’d describe it as both hypocritical and entitled, which I’ll expand upon later.
I get it, surpriiiiise, it was an act. As to how much of it was though? I don’t know, I really don’t, so let’s find out. You wanted to play some sort of game with all the tribal answers you provided, right? Then allow me to play it as well and give my counterargument on the points you made. Whether said quote was part of an act or a genuine feeling, I don’t know, but I’m going to address them regardless.
“Also one other issue I have is I feel the first three votes indicated an overall lack of respect for the bootees.” “Sidenote @ Gongsang: How nice for y'all to vote Annabelle out unanimously, have fun following her because one of you are about to. BAAAAA”
So were you actually.. on the other tribes? Hey I get it, you wanted a default link-up with a League friend come a swap, but masking that dissatisfaction with the act of a righteous player with all-knowing judgement regarding who does and doesn’t deserve to go wasn’t the stealthiest method to go about it.
“One thing that DOES scare me in this game is people's potential desire to do random shit just for the sake of 'it's Legends!!1!'”
Yeah, random shit like telling Sam, who was clearly on her way out with no items in hand, that you wanted to save her with your idol only for you to renege on the deal.
“My relationships with Fitz, Sam, Asa, Tori, and Jessy are squared away (as far as they've told me) and I've told them at length how I feel bad about my words if they truly hurt them."
I’m covering Alissa and I’s flip later but this was nonsensical and quite frankly blasphemous. You literally apologized to everyone but the people you lashed out at, which remains one of the bigger logical disconnects I’ve witnessed and just about the entire jury is still dumbfounded by that. Don’t get the rationale, don’t think I ever will.
“And what will I get for it? More lies, more backstabbing, and if I do somehow make it to the end, a nice hearty 'not good enough' from the people on the jury who certainly weren't good enough themselves but feel quite superior and pleased with themselves.” “If I have to deal with the outcome of your tantrums either when I'm voted out or as a finalist, I really don't care so keep your feelings to yourselves. or take what I've said and apply some perspective. xoxo gossip girl”
This is the richest one, and while I can elaborate a hell of a lot farther, you should probably consider how you’ve acted during your previous voteoffs where you pronounce the remaining players as complete shit and awful people, yet when the roles reverse, the narratives magically do as well. I’m no moralist, but you and I both know Survivor doesn’t work like that, and quite frankly, neither does life. If you want to dish it out, you better be able to take it, and there’s no skating around that.
What’s interesting is that you clearly were still in the game during these responses, yet, it’s as if you felt this intrinsic need to address a jury you haven’t communicated with, and to have this sudden gut feeling that they’re already going to be upset with you. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that if you’re taking those premature shots at the jury, there had to be some internal discontent with how your game was shaping up, and a need to bring out a defense mechanism because of that by pointing your finger to the jury and saying “Hey, you know what, you guys are flawed too, look in the mirror”. Well .. yeah. Clearly we all did something wrong to have been voted out, some more so than others, but no one here’s going to be simple-minded enough to void you of criticism, because oddly enough, there is a concept named accountability that does exist.
To carry on from this, I’d say a major theme I picked up with your game is projection. You projected the other tribes as lazy, non-contributing, disrespectful, etc. when you were losing pre-merge challenges and you projected the jury as bitter and irrational when you started losing your allies and as your game broke down. It’s as if whenever adversity struck, you took the easy route by pointing the finger and placing blame on everyone else but yourself. You’re right when you say no one made it unscathed, as every single one of us had our hardships, and not one person skated through this season start to finish with total control. The difference is, when the rest of us were put into difficult situations, we believed in ourselves and fought for our positioning and survival, and we certainly never went the aforementioned alternate route.
Now I’m going to address the incident regarding Chris B’s voteout, where apparently me and Alissa were "vile and the scum of the earth" over a vote best for our games. No, while that didn’t make me lose sleep at night, I’m certainly going to choose not to forget that while I’m casting my vote. I understand that you felt some inherent moral obligation to defend your close friends, I do, because a lot of what I’m speaking up for isn’t only for myself, it’s for Alissa as well, who, because of this vote, dealt with illegal repercussions that completely fucked her game from Final 9 on, and no hot takes or narratives can change that.
You felt justified in your words after the vote because us flipping hurt your allies on an emotional level. Understood, but if you thought that was our intention, if you think we’re genuinely shitty people whose sole objective was to break people with our votes, instead of advancing ourselves in a game, then I just don’t think you know who we are. Actions in Survivor can be misinterpreted, after all, we constantly try to walk the fine line between the decisions best for our individual games and the personal relationships we form. It’s a line that, however many years or however many games you play, I don’t think anyone has a precise answer or explanation for, and anyone that thinks they have the answer is lying to themselves.
Alissa and I didn’t go out of our way to try to know Chris’ deepest secrets and exploit them, as anything personal we shared came naturally, not out of request. He wasn’t voted out through malice. The auction stacked him with power, and your decision to use my name as a vote to the outcasts at Final 13 painted a clear picture that in the alliance of 5 that I was the first being thrown to the wolves when push comes to shove. So naturally, me being 5 was confirmed by Chris on his way out, I gained additional confirmation from the jury that there was plotting against me ever since the NL vote, Torsa told me after the vote she respected and understood the move.. I don’t need to go on. Trust me when I say I’m not a sociopathic assassin that derives pleasure from emotionally inflicting pain on others, I’m sorta kindaaaa just out here to play Survivor, but if that’s your read on who I am, then unfortunately there will be no resolution.
Now while actions can be difficult to analyze, I find that words are easier to interpret, because they’re direct and straightforward. There was a clear intent to degrade Alissa and myself, and therefore it’s an intent that I’m taking into account with my decision tonight. I was ready to be held accountable for my flip and the potential loss of a few jury votes with one fell swoop, so naturally it’ll be tit for tat when you wanted to insert your take in the tribe chat. It was ill-advised, rash, and at this point, any apples to oranges spiel comparing a logical vote to a direct outburst is a bullshit narrative.
On a side note, your personal feud with Christine still baffles me and everyone else. As for announcing your innocence in starting the feud and calling it two-sided, that’s not going to work at all. First off no, no one is treating the situation like you killed her family or cat, Fitz literally said it, it was just petty and vindictive. He doesn’t need to have a “stan-boner” for Christine on the jury to see that it was over the top and contrived. When I asked you what the beef was early merge you said that she was “greedy” and “it comes from the fact that I hate her”. Shocking development here, it’s almost as if .. Survivor itself is a greedy game? You two went your separate ways at the second swap, and you chose to isolate her and not anyone else who didn’t vote with you. So sure, hold the vendetta against her in the game, go for it, but to say it’s two-sided is completely off-base considering she only started firing back long after you went at her. That being said, for all the dialogue you threw at her, she’s here now, you were at her mercy during the Final 4 tribal, and she chose to bring you here against some of the very people you wanted to belittle and the exact people she formed strong relationships with, so yeah, it really is great to see how the stories write themselves out.
Anyways, if I’m going to look at your game which you didn’t want to detail, I’ll try myself. You’ve voted in the minority a few times, and ultimately you never had much influence over the votes, but then again, oh well, neither did Christine or Asa. While I understood your method of wanting to be open and honest as a means of advancing, you should know that’s not an immediate guarantee of finding a stable position. Rather, you need to constantly be strategizing, exploiting relationships, aligning the chess pieces, all that fun stuff.
As a side note, immediately closing the door whenever someone opposed you felt like a painfully poor one-dimensional strategy considering that every round presents a new opportunity. If someone fucks you over, it’s not that difficult to at least bluff a degree of understanding instead of being consumed by what felt like excessive pride. There were numerous occasions for you to rebuild bridges, but instead you rendered yourself devoid of any potential allies and openings, only for you to publicly question why that was the case. Everyone lies in Survivor, and the fact that I even have to explain this is absurd. You had no problem toying with Sam’s trust on a couple occasions, yet the world appeared to be falling whenever someone did it to you. We literally all signed up for this game filled with suspicion and betrayal, and I felt like had you embraced that ideal, you could’ve had a sizable shot at the end.
I will say that you had big moves in mind, they just never panned out, so while I can appreciate the thought, I can’t reward the execution. Also, concerning the “I tried my hardest and it won’t be rewarded” tangent during one tribal answer, I can’t give you any points there, because a lot of us wanted to win just as badly as you did - no one’s more deserving than the other by pure effort, especially in this twisted game we paly. So while your intentional goating was a good idea to get you to the end, the question remains now what – you still needed people you can beat, you still needed some relationships formed outside the ones you burned, and those remain difficult to find.
This was a lot but if there’s an opportunity to say what’s on my mind, yeah, I’m gonna take it. You said you were willing to talk 1 on 1 to anyone to address any issue at hand, let’s see if we can when this is all said and done. While I truly hope what I read from your ROP were your true feelings and that what I witnessed in the game was predeterminant, in a critical time like this, I simply refuse to blindly assume anymore.
I’m not giving you any questions because I’m personally not a fan of baiting my jury vote and asking nonsensical questions like “compare each jury member to a fictional character XDDD” or “tell me why I should vote for you after .. all you did to me))))):“ because that’s unnecessary, I can't vote for you and I'm glad you already understand that.
CHRISTINE:
I’m really glad to see you’ve made it to this point and I want to say congratulations for making it to Day 39 again. As your friend and ally I feel indebted to root you on this FTC, but for now I’ll try to remain somewhat objective in my analysis.
Your game was nothing short of a roller coaster, you started off being in an extremely vulnerable position dating all the way back to Day 6, but a swap gave you new life, and it made you head into the merge with numbers and connections. The numbers fell out of your control again, and you voted in the minority multiple times. You never had a safe position like Asa/Eva did for spouts, and you were generally quiet and reserved for so long, something that’s buried you in previous FTC’s and something that may be fatal this season.
…Fatal if you were at FTC with anyone else, but you’re not, and that’s why I’m telling you that you have a phenomenal shot at taking this entire thing. For some odd reason, people failed to realize that while you were staying in the minority, you were close with the jury that was piling up in Ponderosa - Eddie, Chris NL, me, Alissa, the list goes on. When the spotlight finally shined on you and the crosshairs were locked on, you turned up the heat and won the crucial immunities you needed to. This is a classic underdog tale, and while it’s not anything groundbreaking or revolutionary, it’s more than effective, and you made it here and I’m proud. It actually parallels (hold on I hope I don’t vomit) .. Michele Fitzgerald, however like Alissa said, there are no Aubry’s at the end with you.
I always wondered why you never, I suppose .. took more of a lead while playing, or in Evan terms, why you were such a beta, but, I’ve realized that Survivor and the method in which you play, more times than not, is representative of who you are. Asa was still shy, I was an alpha, Chris NL lied for the sake of lying, Yousef’s probably still scrambling for votes, Samantha still sounds like a chipmunk, you get the idea. Anyways, I guess what I’m getting at is that I went from questioning the method you played by to being accepting of it, you don’t have to be this loud outspoken player if that’s not who you are, rather you should just maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses to the best of your ability, which I feel like you did this season.
Also, I’d like to speak up for anyone that doubted your effort this season, because I’ll point to two things. First, when your life was presumably on the line during the triple tribal, you blew everyone out of the water in the challenge and carried your tribe, and next, I’m still blown away by you going 46 whole hours for the endurance in the final 4 immunity. That’s passion, that’s dedication, and it’s not going unnoticed, trust me.
I’ll try to put a bow on this, soo, strategically, you get a tie with Eva and trail Asa a little, none of you obtained total control of the season, much less glimpses of it, and you were all labeled goats at points in the game. However, Christine, you separated yourself from the pack physically and socially, as here you are with 4 immunity wins on your belt (a couple by circumstance but anyways ..), no votes against you, and a lot of people rooting for you on this jury. You weren’t absent and detached like Asa was and you never went on the tirades Eva did, you stayed true to yourself, and now the win is within sight.
That’s why I’ll end this by saying in a season plagued by the controversies it was, you broke out of your shell and shined bright in what became a pretty dark place. You never wavered, you kept the faith, and when the opportunity presented itself, you seized it and took control of your own fate. That’s why I’m casting my vote for you to win and I hope you receive a few more. I’m really proud of you and want to say thank you for being my friend and ally this season.
3000+ words later, I’ll reiterate that I really don’t have any direct questions for you girls, rather responses if you feel a need to do so. Legends was an experience, and at this point, I’m fucking spent, I’m sure you all are too, so let’s get this thing over with because I want to hightail out of here.
PS CAST ALISSA GRAF AND I FOR THE AMAZING RACE DO IT FOR THE CULTURE
ANYWAYS, thank you 703 for the memories, and it’s been a pleasure.
-Evan
