- Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:54:42 am
#10220
Coming into the merge you were in a similar position as Yul and, to a lesser extent, Ozzy, but, unlike them, you managed to evade being targeted. The line you kept feeding me was, "I'm not in danger because I have relationships with other people, but I gotta look out for my boys!" Whether that was true or something you repeated until it became true, I can't say. But you had an impeccable gauge on which relationships you let others in on, and which you hid from them.
For example, I didn't realize at the time that the Katie boot made you distrust me. That's because you knew to downplay your relationship with her to me. I heard from others that you may object to her going, but when I asked you about it myself you really convinced me that you didn't mind and that you were placing a lot of trust in me with that vote. Later, when we were part of the fivesome, you knew the exact amount of negativity toward the other four that you had to share with the rest of us to convince us that you were invested in that group long-term, or at least for a few more rounds.
Ultimately, that reputation--of being the underdog who was never really in danger because of his connections--caught up with you. By the time of Survey Says, I had already started having conversations with everyone but Yul about how you were a threat to win (and apparently Ozzy had talked about that with Yul too). So when the challenge came, that was a label that you wouldn't be able to shed. Talking to me about using each other as a shield was probably the correct play for you. The problem was that I had shields in Ozzy and Andrea also, and even though you may have thought I was a bigger threat than them to win, the others hadn't quite caught on.
If I wanted to be poetic, I could say that your best qualities were also your worst qualities. You sort of crescendoed the amount of information you were willing to share as the merge progressed, so that by the time of the Vytas blindside, Andrea and I both fully trusted you. You knew to hold your tongue at the Wigles boot and the Katie boot, or else I, who admitted to you that I was playing the middle, would never fulfill my promise of pulling something off with you eventually. You knew to tell Yul about your qualms with me because he wouldn't tell me, you knew to tell me positive things about Andrea and Brenda because even though I didn't explicitly say so you gathered from everyone else that I had a good relationship with them, and you knew to express your loyalty to Yul and Ozzy to me even at the expense of appearing "too close" so that you could telegraph to me that you were good to have as an ally. This ability to gauge whom to tell what information when helped you to a certain point, but unfortunately other people started to sense that you were positioning yourself well for the endgame, while also keeping your cards a bit too close to your chest, and the game had become more transparent by then.
In terms of personality, I got no qualms. I liked when you subtly slipped in something like, "Anyway, how was your weekend? If we're gonna work together I should know something about you." That way you were implying we'd work together long-term while also changing the subject so a rejection would be out of the question for me. Anyway, after those gears were greased, I loved talking about your boyfriend, referencing RiRi, and discussing cozy towns. My conversations with you were usually more game-oriented, but I felt like that was due to a mutual recognition of similar approaches to strategy.
If I were you, I probably would've flipped with Yul at F7. I told Andrea and Ozzy that if we voted you out at F7 Yul couldn't flip at F6 without forcing a tie, whereas if we waited it could be 4-2. I'm not sure if Yul would've gone for that, though. It was certainly a tough position to be in when you were branded Most Likely to Win.
That was exactly the answer you should have given me. I hope the jury looks at that and sees your growth in this game and realizes that you played harder than what they are giving you credit for. Wishing you good luck. 
