lol.
Hello jurors, sorry for the slight delay.
I came into this game knowing that I was thought of as quite a sneaky bitch by many in my season, and also fearful that Ant and I would automatically have targets on our heads for being a pair. I thus tried to keep communication lines open from the get-go with as many of you as possible. Teddy was an easy vote cause he seemed inactive and I had never spoken to him, but this game became complicated and hard almost immediately because I knew almost all of the players from some game or other, and thus votes felt far more personal this time.
Because Elm street kept losing from early on, our tribe banded together and voted for those ppl who seemed to be able to give the least in challenges, unfortunately many of these were potential allies, but keeping the tribe strong was my priority.
I went to the shop once, where Anna gave me a little bit of money and we tried to buy 6 extra votes to use throughout the game. I was then told that I could only buy one thing at a time, and alas I couldn't buy 6 votes in one go lol. I was tempted to buy myself an idol, but Anna had asked for her money back, and so I chose to be honest and give her her money back and buy just a single extra vote instead.
When merge came I had rather a large alliance of me, sid, anna, aidan, beth, anthony, tom, and laurie. Yes Laurie. For those of you who all thought I was using her, I wasn't, I rallied to keep Laurie in the tie breaker, and meant the promises I made to her.
The problem arose when I lost internet, self voted, was unable to strategise with her or anyone else, and she was voted out.
But I am getting side tracked. With this alliance, I didn't mind all that much at the time which of the people I had deals with came with me to final 3, as long as it was from this group. I try to only plan two or so tribals ahead, because this game can change so frequently, and wow it did. I explained some of my motivations in the Rites of Passage we did, so let me post that here:
Teddy - Never saw him in this game, so don't know anything about him.
HenDy - Know him from a few other games, he seemed to want to take control early on, but then went awol and I only found out later he had been sick.
Kate - Was actually hoping to work with Kate somewhat this game to try put our animosity behind us, but then....she quit, randomly.
Ray - Also know Ray from a few previous games, he just didn't seem to be putting as much effort into challenges, and at this stage I was focussed on trying to keep the strongest challenge players cause we kept losing. A great player.
Jennifer Check - Never spoke to her, didn't watch her season, not sure why she was voted.
Lawrence - A challenge beast in season 6, but he kind of vanished this time around.
Brenda - Love her, but she seemed to not be as active in tribal challenges, that's the only reason I voted her.
Erin - Seemed really awesome, but also just upped and quit, in the middle of a tribal, so didn't get to know her as much as I would have liked to.
Jill Tuck - Marnie from season 5, so not a lot of love lost between us. At this point it felt like it was either me or her.
Grandma - What a character. She needs to turn her caps lock off every now and then, but very entertaining.
Annie - I really liked my chats with Annie, even though we were on opposing alliances, I don't get why so many people quit this game...
Tom - Have some serious love for Tom, I questioned his loyalty early on though when he told Jill Tuck to play an idol if she had one (which would have sent me home). Wish things could have turned out differently though, think we would have made a cool team if we had had real trust.
Jennifer Tilly - Intense player, great at strategising, at persuading, a huge threat.
Laurie - We tend to have a love hate relationship, going back and forth, really wanted to work with her in this game but then I had no internet for 2 days, I think she panicked and switched to vote Ant, and ended up going herself.
Anthony - <3 Needs to work on his social game.
Aidan - I have some serious love for Aidan, but I just lost all trust for him after he flipped on my alliance twice.
Anna - Amazing player, super strategizer, needs her own Spy theme music. Really good at inducing paranoia in me, I kept thinking she wanted to vote me, but then I would trust her again, it was back and forth all game lol. <3
As a player I feel like I have proven myself to be strong socially, strategically and challenge wise. I had many extremely loyal allies who would not vote me out when asked to flip, even though they flipped on others, for example Aidan voting for Anthony. I won 2 immunity challenges, despite being the only player to be poisoned and have to unpoison myself and thus was forced to miss 2 challenges. I also won the tie breaker substantially to earn myself a place in this final.
In comparison to the other finalists, I honestly feel I have played the best game, although I have the utmost of respect for them.
I felt as though Sid's social game suffered this time around, and I also didn't see her doing a whole lot of challenge winning or strategising.
I think that Beth is a close second. Without her idol, I believe that Beth would have been voted out quite a few rounds back, but we were too scared to vote for her in fear of her idol, so finding it really helped her game. Overall however, I think that I am the stronger player socially, strategically and challenge wise (although she sure can hold a torch).
I had great fun playing this game, and whatever happens, happens.
I look forward to your questions
PS. I am 6 hours ahead, that means that many live challenges I was playing at anything from 1-5am, in case anyone feels like giving me some brownie points for that
