HI EVERYONE

Haven't really done one of these before but I'll start by thanking Abi for hosting, his co-hosts for "helping out" ;) , and of course the THIRTY of you players who participated in this game who ended up being voted out. Obviously none of this game, and me being here, would have happened without you.

If you are reading this then somehow I was able to appease the ORG gods (and Jerri and Erik) enough to shoo away my traditional final juror curse and finally land myself in an FTC. Well guess what??? The ORG gods STILL hate me because I'm going camping for the weekend and probably won't have Internet access, so I'm writing all of this Saturday night on my iPad in my new dorm room while my roommate is unpacking (and by the time I finish this will be sleeping).

I'm going to try my best to keep this as short as possible (but because it's me it won't be short at all). Coming into an AS-esc game I knew coming off as a threat early on (or even at all) would essentially be a death sentence. I figured I would have to play more into the shadows than usual to avoid having my name come up, and I would probably need allies to act almost as shields so I would never be the first name brought up. Weirdly enough being away towards the end of the pre-merge portion of the game helped me with that strategy? While I was as social as possible beforehand forming pretty good social bonds with everyone on my initial tribe and acted as a big challenge competitor (doing well in practically every tribal challenge I was able to participate in and winning the ambassadors prize puzzle), I do recognize being away helped take a LOT of heat off me and focus it on people I was aligned with, particularly Kim and Eric. In the grand scheme of things I didn't miss a whole lot (while away I was lucky enough to only really have to attend 1 or 2 TCs), but of course it was a portion of the game and I'm sure I'll have to address that more as your questions roll around.

What my game boiled down to, like many other games, was the post-merge. I went into it looking for an additional close ally I can have when I noticed my closest allies (Kim and Eric) had at least one additional person they were extremely close to (Zmanda and Ronnie). That person ended up being Jeremiah and out relationship ended up being a big part of what happened down the road at the merge.

The primary alliance I came into the merge with (Mike, Eric, Kim, Monica, Ronnie) ended up taking several hits due to the numbers disadvantage we were put at. To adapt, Kim and I had formed an alliance with Zmanda, Sierra, and Jeremiah. This would take the heat off of us and hopefully protect us when that alliance with Eric was seemingly destined to fail. However I still tried my best to maintain good social relations at the least with both sides. I had even tried my best to talk to Heather and Jerri, who I hadn't spoken to much because of my trip. I ended up forming at least decent bonds with them considering I was never their first target.

A LOT of my game was based on not being someone's first target. I was slightly forced into this role but I tried to embrace it. Jerri and Heather were targeting Kim, Eric and Mike were targeting Zmanda/Sierra/Jeremiah, and Zmanda/Sierra (and sorta Jeremiah) had their sights set on Eric (and to an extent Heather/Jerri). I was in a pretty alright spot.

Mike was targeted and eliminated after a blindside put together by Sierra in what seemed like a matter of minutes. Jeremiah had told me ahead of time what was going to happen, but Mike's sketchy relationship with Heather and the fact he and Eric were trying to take out Jeremiah, someone who I trusted more than Mike, told me to let the events roll out. If anything this helped HUGELY because I was able to target Sierra the next round. I was one of the main forces behind that vote off. The next round when Eric went I had no control and essentially had to save myself by agreeing to an F3 Kim and Zmanda had brought forward to me. By agreeing to that F3 I was able to make it one more round where I was able to lead the vote off of a dear friend but huge threat in the game. Kim.

At that point my relationship with Jerri was pretty great. After I won the fan fiction challenge and showed my dedication to the game, Jerri had told me she wanted to do whatever she could to get me to this point and reach my first FTC. She even gave me her immunity necklace the next round.

The next round saw Jeremiah go. I WISH we split the vote but the reason why we didn't was because we didn't trust Kim and Erik to not-throw their votes away like they had done in the Kim round. So Jeremiah, an ally but also a big threat, was eliminated instead.

Zmanda was the biggest threat left in the game, and luckily at this point I had built good enough relationships with everyone left to have them vote for her over me.

Finally for this round, I SHOULD have went after I lost immunity. I am Jerri's biggest competition in this FTC and I'm sure she knows that, yet she decided to take me instead of 2 total goats with her to the end. I am thankful for the opportunity and to be perfectly honest had I won immunity I probably wouldn't have given Jerri the same chance (sorry, but I gave up truly playing emotionally a few rounds ago).

So by the end of all this, I had successfully been able to go back and forth between alliances, watched many allies fall (sometimes because of me), and still make it to this point.

Here are some TL;DR highlights:

-I was able to play pretty UTR while still being a big factor in taking out huge threats. I started the chain of events that got us to this point by being a main force behind taking out Sierra who was followed by the biggest threats of the entire merge game one my one.

-socially I had the ability to rub people the write way so they would help me later in the game. I had great relationships with the people I starred the game with, and as the game went on I made great relationships with people like Jeremiah and Jerri that got me to where I am.

-while I didn't win every challenge it can't be argued I wasn't a physical threat throughout the entire game (except when away obviously) and I was still never really targeted for it. I was a major participant in tribal challenges, won the ambassadors puzzle, won the Fan Fiction challenge, and came in second in (what I feel like is every but in reality is probably just several) individual challenges at the merge.

Have I played a perfect game? No. Was I perceived as a huge threat to win this game the entire time? Not at all. But as a wise man once said (and another friend has said MANY times after) "Perception is not reality. REALITY is reality." The reality is, while I didn't play a hugely public game, I still played a very good all-around one. I did well socially, strategically, and physically. Coming into an AS type game, being seen as a threat early in can screw people over. I would say that screwed over almost everyone of you on the jury. I didn't want to come off as a big threat, and I didn't. While imperfect, I made the moves I needed to in order to get to this point. I made the moves I HAD to make in order to have a chance to win, like eliminating Sierra and Kim.

So vote for me, or vote for whomever you'd like. This is my first FTC and I don't expect an easy one. I plan to continue fighting, just like I have all game.