Day 27 - Final Tribal Council

Welcome everyone,

Let's now bring in our jury, 9 people you had a hand in voting off: Wendy Jo, Ted, Chase, Holly, Jill, Russell, Jolanda, Dan and Tyrone voted off at hte last Tribal Council.

Final 3, Ken, Jake and Yve, you have gone as far as you can in this game on your own, it is now up to the jury to decide who is deserving of the title as the last person to be Stranded in Patagonia.

In a moment, the jury will have time to ask question and gather as much information as possible to make an informed decision, but first you three have the opportunity to address them.

I am going into this with realistic expectations. I know I am not the favourite among the jury. I am also not going to apologise for lying to any of you. We all lied. It’s a game. Deal with it. In fact, I was lied to by a lot of you as well.

I started off this game making an alliance with Jake before he was even here. It was awfully presumptuous of me, but clearly it worked. I had approached Ted about forming a Greece alliance with Jake, even though Jake had not shown up yet, Ted said he would be good with that. I just knew in my gut I would be able to trust Jake completely. If I could get in good with people I knew would not want to get rid of me, then I knew I had a good shot at getting to the final 3. Here I am what feel like an eternity later with Jake at my side. That is exactly how I played this game. I made early bonds, and I did whatever it took to keep those bonds intact.

On Palena 1.0 I had also gotten really close with Chase, who unfortunately fell on the wrong side of the numbers. Luckily, on Atacama 2.0, I made a new friend. None other than Chase’s partner Yve. We clicked right away. I knew I was going to work well with Yve from the moment we first started talking. Yve was someone I just had random conversations with about James Cameron, Waterworld, and the illuminati. Our random conversations sort of stopped later on in the game when we started to get a little more serious about our strategy, but I still adored her presence in the game. There were certain times she doubted my loyalty because people would constantly tell her I was targeting her, but this was simply not true. Sure we exchanged votes one time, and then there was the Holly boot in which she voted for me again, but after that we had a good talk about loyalty, trust, friendship, and getting revenge for Chase.

This is when I also sought out an alliance with Holly. I knew I was never going to be 100% loyal to her, as I am sure she knew she was not going to be loyal to me either. We both had allies that we were much closer with and had always intended on going to the end with. Losing all of those challenges on Atacama 2.0 was a blessing. I was able to get rid of people that would have been power for Holly to use later on. Jane was actually completely serious about wanting to work with Holly, but Holly told me she did not feel like she could trust Jane at all. I completely exaggerated about Jane’s plans of an alliance with Holly, Jane, Fabio and I with 2 mystery people to be named later. I sat back and let Holly make a huge mistake in getting rid of Jane. Then there was the boot for Brook. Yve and I both wanted him gone over Jill, but neither of us wanted to aggressively target him, so Holly being the gift that keeps on giving, proposes we get rid of Brook. None of the vets would have been able to trust him at all, and he would have likely eventually flipped on us like he did in his previous season. So thanks for that. Probably the biggest move against Holly made pre merge, though, has to be getting rid of Jimmy, her pocket vote. John was already gung ho on getting rid of Jimmy, Fabio was always good with whatever, and Jake was on the fence about it. I knew if I could pull in Jake to keep Jill around, it was a done deal. Eventually a completely frustrated Holly gave in and just let Jimmy go.

Then tragedy happened. We had another swap and I was separated from my 2 close allies in Yve and Jake. To make matter worse, I was told by several people on Palena 3.0 that if we lost, it would be me who gets voted out. They tied to back track a bit and tell me it was going to switch to Tyrone, but based on how they protected him at the merge, I have no doubt this was just lip service to keep me loyal. Oddly enough, the one person I did not think I could trust on Palena 3.0, Wendy Jo, turned out to be quite the opposite. She was the only one who was honest with me about my true position, and so we flipped to Atacama to try and gain back the numbers. The votes did not seem to be there at all, so I bit the bullet and just voted Ted. Little did I know, Holly had recklessly tried to flip things to Chase last minute, thus creating a 4-4-4 tie. Yve and I flip our votes to Tyrone, all the chase votes go to Ted, and the rest is history.

After all that nonsense, I started campaigning hard for one of Jolanda or Holly to go. They were an extremely tight pair and had Tyrone by the balls. They were dangerous. No one seemed to want to go against them and this frustrated me to no end. I genuinely reached out to Tyrone to see if he would work with me, if for no other reason than to get the immunity talismans. He was a good little soldier and ratted me out. Luckily his antics did not spook out Dan, Jill and Russell from voting Holly. They tried to play to Jake and I that we would be a new alliance of 5 and completely control the game, but I did not trust them one bit and decided to stick with my original allies in Yve and Jake.

The 3 of us sticking close together since the boot of Jill is what brought us here to the final 3. We worked amazingly as a team and I could not be happier being here with these 2 people. We overcame a lot and had to fight very hard to get here. The 3 of us all needed each other to stay in this. It seemed like all they did was try and protect me, but that is because I am the only person you would ever target. We were all willing to protect one another. If any one of the 3 of us had been taken out then I would suspect that the other 2 would have followed soon after. Each member of this group of 3 was a vital part in moving forward. I lied to everyone in the game except for these 2 with me right now. We proved that if you had a tight 3 based on complete trust and loyalty, you can make it to the final 3. There was no one person that was any more important than the other in this alliance. We were all vital to each and every plan that went down from final 7 up until now.

I am going to be completely honest with your questions. I am not going to cop out of any lie I told by just giving the classic Brian Heidik line of “I never lied, I just changed my mind” Of course I lied, we all did.

yay I was able to be here. Imma have to leave the house soon tho so we'll see how much I can do on my phone.

Hello, everyone! I'm going to try and make this as short as possible, because I'm sure most of what you want to know will be in your questions, and no one likes walls of text. It's just a synopsis of how I played the game from my point of view.

You all have a right to hear how I played this game from my perspective. I started this game on a team of new, masked, players. From what I saw, it looked like Dan and Holly were in control of the tribe, with Jill and I tagging along and Wendy Jo/Marty as our fifth. It was a pretty solid alliance with a very solid boot strategy, and I felt very comfortable in it. I loved all of the conversations I shared with Holly, all of the plans I had with Jill, the getting-to-know-yous I had with Dan, and all the scheming Wendo Jo and I did. But it all ended pretty abruptly when Atacama became:

Jill, Holly, Yve, Fabio, Jake, Ken, John, Brook, Jimmy J, Jane

Let me back up a bit. As soon as the partner twist was revealed to me, I decided to go full-throttle into it. There was no way I wasn't taking advantage of having a close friend on the other tribe to share stories with, and eventually work together! Because of my genuine closeness to Chase, I was able to build relationships with Fabio, Brook, John and Ken. Holly/Jill/and I all cemented our alliance at that time, too. Holly and I vowed to protect Jill, and we did all the way until the second swap. Jimmy J and Jane were pretty easy boots. Brook, too. I was pretty safe because of my closeness with Holly, and my relationships through Chase with the vets.

Then the second swap hit us, and the tribe became:
Marty, John, Fabio, Yve, Jake, Chase, and Ted

Even though I was the only 'newbie' on a tribe full of vets (and Marty), I was in a very safe position. After Brook left, I got closer with John (so he didn't flip to Palena at the merge). For some reason, Fabio left the game. I feel like John was making a power play at the last minute, and no one really knew how to react. Fabio leaving gave me an in with Jake, though. And him and I finally bonded and teamed up after rounds and rounds of just voting together and liking each other. It was magic. You all know what happened next, John lost his mind and was voted out. Marty lost the challenge for us, and we voted him out next. Only Jake, myself, Chase and Ted remained. Thank god for Chase, too. He protected me along with his partner, Ted. I really wish I had more time to connect with Ted through the game, but we were robbed of that opportunity pretty quickly.

Merge happens.
Tyrone, Dan, Jolanda, Yve, Russell, Jake, Jill, Ken, Holly, Chase, Ted, Wendy Jo were left in the game. Twelve people, lots of private messages.

I learned very fast that Atacama was going to be booted one right after the other. I had been blessed with previous relationships to build off of from all the people who came in and out of Atacama, so I wasn't going to be the first out. Apparently Chase and Ted were being targeted because of their social and challenge skills. Up to this point, I had kept my strength in challenges. Always proving that I was worthy of staying another round because I would be useful in them. My social skills were okay, but I was friends with a lot of people. So I made an active decision to remain quiet and bad at challenges. I would not win a challenge, and I would not send more PMs than I needed to. No sense in sticking out in a tribe about to be decimated.

That plan worked through the Wendy Jo, Ted, and Chase votes. But after I saw what was happening, I decided that my best option was to pick a side and stick with it. I chose Holly's side. And Jolanda's, and Russell's. What I thought was forming was a four-person alliance between me/Jolanda/Holly/Russell with Tyrone as a fifth. I decided that this was the alliance that I was going to stick to, because these were the people I genuinely liked and could also get me to the end with them. I figured Holly would fight to save me over Russell in the end, because we had been through so much. Apparently, Russell saw the same thing. I underestimated how smart he was at picking up social clues, and it cost Holly the game.

A coup was formed without my (or Jolanda's) involvement. Holly was blindsided, and so was I. I had heard about the vote from Jake and Ken, and even Russell. But since Russell had promised to stick with us, I decided to stay with the group. Immediately after I was blindsided, the group then decided to vote me out 4-3-1. Thank god I had an idol. Jill, the vote against you wasn't personal. It was because that's who Jake was targeting. But you all saw every bit of my thinking during that tribal council, when I publicly asked who to vote for. Fun stuff.

At this point, I decided to step up my game. My previous strategy of laying low was obviously not working anymore, because it almost got me voted out of the game. I spoke to people a LOT more (especially Jolanda, Tyrone, Ken, and Jake), and worked my ass off in challenges that I needed to win.

Final seven, and I had two options. Stick with Jolanda/Tyrone or Jake/Ken. Because Jake/Ken were in the bottom 3, against the powerful foursome of Jolanda/Tyrone/Russell/Dan, I decided to stay with Jolanda. It was either the same day, or the night before, when Jake came to me saying that he had an idol. Because of this, my game shifted dramatically. Ken and Jake's first choice for a boot was Jolanda, but she won immunity. The next person in line was Russell, and he was idol'd out of the game by Jake. Jeff gave us the clue to a new idol, and I found it immediately. I didn't need it, though. With Dan gone, the votes to get rid of one of Jolanda or Tyrone were there. And because Tyrone used the talisman on himself, Jolanda was the only choice to make.

At the last moment, I thought of using the idol on Jolanda and booting Dan. But I figured that my position with Jolanda was fragile after voting out her ally, Russell, and that she may work together with Jake and Ken (who would be mad at me for saving her) and boot me fifth. So, I decided to give it to Ken instead. So that he would feel better about keeping me at the final five (thanks Jeff, for rubbing that into him during that tribal council. Never writing a confessional again).

Dan and Tyrone approached me for a final three deal. They said that I wouldn't be able to beat two vets in a tribal council, because the jury was partial to a vet winning. I really considered switching to them, but not because of the vet thing. But unfortunately, before I could put any real thought into it, I started getting messages from Jake and (especially) Ken about how I was Dan/Tyrone's target. If I was to flip now, they would have the proof they needed to grab Ken. Then they wouldn't need my vote at all. And besides, if I had booted Dan it would have been a tie at the final four, and I wasn't going to risk my game for that.

As soon as I won the final immunity challenge, I went to Tyrone saying "Vote for Ken." I thought Ken would definitely be voting for Tyrone, so I wanted to force a tie to save him. Tyrone wanted to be in the final three more than anyone. Jake and I decided around the time of Jolanda's boot that we would boot Ken at the final four. And so I thought the votes were Jake/Tyrone - Ken, and Ken- Tyrone, that I would throw another Tyrone vote in there. Most final four ties are determined by a challenge. They both deserved to go to the end, so I wanted to help give them that shot! But Jake switched his vote too, so here we are.

So that's my game described as briefly as I could do it. I know I promised short... oops!

I've truly enjoyed playing with you all, and I can't wait to hear all of your questions for me!

You're all totally free to skim my opening statement/game summary. I tried to make it shorter, but I also didn't want to cut anything out.

Hey guys Here is my FTC speech that I ended up having to write in a short period of time on my phone during work lol. I’m going to try to keep it 'to the point' because I know you all don’t want to read a wall of text, and I def. don’t want to write one.

To preface this I would like to say that I’m sure some of you are mad at me. Some of you may think that I don’t deserve to be here. But if you can read this speech with an open mind and understand where I was coming from this entire game- then I think I can change some of your feelings towards me. Even as someone who never had a majority (until the final 5) post-merge, I think I was still able to do what I needed to do- and was still able to make sure that I survived each round.

Premerge- (Yve &) I undoubtedly had the roughest time, premerge. We were stuck on the doomed Atacama tribe, being spared from tribal council just once, and continuously losing every single challenge after the first one. Sometimes it was a fluke, other times we completely failed, and six people were voted our of our tribe before we were. My strategy premerge was to just have friendly relationships with as many people as I could, so that even if I missed/messed up challenges or tribal- my tribe would still keep me

Premerge I also used the partner twist as best as I could. I had a very strong relationship (especially much better than other pairs that I heard about) with Wendy Jo, and I was able to give her information during the first or second vote so that she could get Jolanda on her side. Then I got Holly onto my tribe and the four of us created a pretty strong cross-tribal alliance that I was still able to keep up with after the second-swap due to my relationship with Wendy.
Losing the very first merge vote, I thought originally that the other five of us were doomed. Especially when after that Ted & Chase left simultaneously. Our entire side was being wiped out, and I had to make sure that I was eliminated along with them by distancing myself from them as much as I could. My loyalties to them never went away, but whenever I spoke with Palena I would make sure I talked about how much the other Atacamas needed to go and that I was on their side.

Whatever I thought you thought it what I would say to you. It worked fairly well and I’m sure mostly everyone believed that I wanted what they wanted. However I made a few mistakes along the way. For one, I completely misjudged Jolanda’s & Russell’s relationship. I didn’t think they were close at all, so I would talk to Russell about getting Jolanda out only to find out later that round that he went back and told Jolanda &Holly all about it. Despite screwing Jolanda over many times, she still wanted to work with me and it all goes back to the relationship that I formed with her when I told Wendy how to get her on Wendy's side. When the rest of Atacama & their allies were falling around me I was personally in a much better position because I was able to fall back on that alliance with them, and after Wendy left I brought in Yve to replace her.

Did I lie a lot to people? Yes, I lied a fuck ton to almost the entire post-merge Palena tribe, but for me it was necessary to do.
Despite lying a lot, my loyalties were always in the right spot, and I was willing to stick out my neck to try and help allies survive, like I did with Yve at the final 8 when she was a target. I didn't know that she had an idol, for the record, and so my potentially game-sinking actions were what I felt was necessary to get people on our side. I knew if Yve did not survive that vote then I would be gone soon.

The final 7 was a real turning point for me & my alliance- and by using my idol when and how I did, we were able to get a majority for once in the game. I had to keep up appearances with Jolanda and make sure that the target was firmly on Ken so the idol wouldn't go to waste- and at the end of that double boot I was finally in the majority, and it felt good .

Perhaps people think that I wasn't in control or that I wasn't really aware of what was going on. Now I did not play a very forward or aggressive game because I could not afford to post-merge with the shaky position that my tribe was in. So I played a very 'behind-the-scenes' game, in which my approach was to just talk with everyone, lie to them a lot and tell them things that they wanted to hear. I would act as naive as possible (considering I was slightly naive, it wasn't hard) and used a thousand emotes every message and just tried to be as friendly as possible. I wanted people to think that they could use me, and I said in my confessional many times that I especially wanted Ho/Jo to think they could use me because they were in a power position. And if I was safe with them I would be safe for a long time.

I am the only person (besides Wendy Jo of course ) to never be targeted at a TC and to never receive a vote post-merge. You can make up any reasons you want for that, but it was all my own doing, the relationships I had with people and the way I made myself appear. Despite screwing many people over, I think I was still able to appear as a person you could and wanted to trust.

k whatever this ended up being longer than I anticipated. I still was not able to tell you guys everything that I wanted so ask me whatever and I will answer honestly. All I ask is for you to give me a chance to prove myself as worthy.

Jake, post what you can tonight, ill make it so that voting isnt due until tomorrow so you can go back and answer questions later tonight or \early tomorrow before that voting window closes.

You're all totally free to skim my opening statement/game summary. I tried to make it shorter, but I also didn't want to cut anything out.

ikr. i had the same problem I also ended up writing it straight through with no editing in like 20 mins lol sorry if it is bad.

Thank you final 3. Now the power shifts to the jury.


As the jury reads over the opening statements. Wendy Jo, have you prepared anything for us? If so, please go now.

Jake, post what you can tonight, ill make it so that voting isnt due until tomorrow so you can go back and answer questions later tonight or \early tomorrow before that voting window closes.

tysm

(Can we skip Wendy Jo?)

quick edit:

I had booted Ken it would have been a tie at the final four, and I wasn't going to risk my game for that.

Sorry guys was at work, posted that and left so I could get home thinking you would be preoccupied with questions...

I'll post Wendy Jo's questions now.

So congrats r in order. This F3 imo is STELLAR! I love and respect you guys so much. But I want to see the claws!

I need you guys to tell me why your opponents should lose. Pick there game apart if u must. Ridicule them!! You want my vote? Fight for it.

Jill annoys me. I actually want to slap the shit out of her. She doesn't know this but now she does. Plz write me a passage explaining how and why she sucks. The nastier you r the better ur chances are at receiving my vote.

Finally. Did you guys honor the deals we had together? THow far would you have allowed me to go had it not been fot the rock?

Good luck

*Gonna expect a cat fight soon with Wendy and Jill*

This all stems from when I cheated on Wendy ith Jill on palena 3.0