(warning, this is ~really fucking long~. Just scroll to the bottom for the questions if you wish)

Before I launch into my ridiculous rant: good luck to both of you, and no hard feelings regardless of the outcome.



Austin... oh, Austin.



You and I are polar opposites, at least as far as this game goes. As much as I liked you while we were playing together, it's obvious to me now that you are Gamebot Incarnate - you are very much a "game first, friendships second" kinda guy. My philosophy is the inverse of yours. It’s totally okay that we’re different, though. I respect your drive to win. I respect that some people play much harder than I do. I appreciate that being deceptive is sometimes a necessity if you want to further yourself in the game. What I cannot appreciate nor respect is unnecessary lying or taking obscene amounts of joy in deceiving others. That isn’t cute. A part of me is so disappointed in how you turned out to be that I feel as if I can’t even be bothered writing anything here, but I’m going to try.

Let me clarify something for you first, though - I was not and am not mad about losing the game. I mean, I wasn’t even slightly mad at you for voting me out. I appreciated your honesty. None of what you did in my boot round “pissed me off”. I didn’t dislike you for making the decision to go against me. Was I sad about it? Sure, but that’s the game. I knew I was a threat and that you were just playing to win. What DID upset me was your absolutely TRANSPARENT attempt to jury manage me during that round. It was at that point that I realized how fake you had been and were being towards me, when I had been nothing but genuine towards you for the entirety of the game. That soured me big time, and that’s why my parchment was the way it was. I care less about winning than a lot of the people that play these games, to the point where I won’t ruthlessly cut someone I consider a friend just for the sake of potentially furthering myself. I absolutely don’t expect this from others, because I understand most people DO play hard to win, but I do expect common courtesy (i.e. to not be treated like an idiot on my way out).

Honestly, I’m not even sure where to start with you, but I guess your perception of me is as good a place as any. You seem unable to comprehend the idea that other people might not be as sociopathic as you seem to be. I did not ever intentionally deceive you. I don’t recall ever saying that I didn’t trust you after the Kim boot (I wrote a confessional saying that you coming clean to me about it made me trust you MORE, in fact). Yes, I did mention to Yve that I was wary about telling you everything, but you were relatively closed off with me and I was wary with bloody everyone anyway, including Yve, who everyone here knows I adored both in the context of the game and out of it. The only reason I went to her before you and laid all my cards out was because we had bonded over our auction prizes. I trusted you just as much as I did her. This should've been obvious.

It really seems to me that you spent the game deflecting your own issues and less desirable qualities onto others in an attempt to justify everything you were doing. As mentioned above, you being cagey with me and yet saying *I* was the one who was less open with you is a good example of this. Contrary to your supposed beliefs, I was more open with you than ever post-merge - I approached you at F10 (or F9, whatever) truly wanting to make F4 with you solely because I liked you, Yve and Erik so much that I wanted to see some combination of you three in the final two if I couldn’t get there. That was all there was to it. There was no sneaky strategic reasoning behind it. Everything I told you was true, and my intentions were honest. Even after Erik was gone, I had no intention of double-crossing you or Yve. You seem to assume that because you placed no stake in the relationships you formed in this game, everyone else is the same. Newsflash: that isn't how it works. Not everyone is like you. It's a shame you missed that, because simply realizing that everybody is different and playing in accordance with that could have saved you a lot of time and at least a couple of jury votes.

You posted in the TC15 thread that Monica helped protect you from the “Sierra/Garrett/Kelley/Erik thing that was going on”. You brag about how much information you collected/had access to, but you still protest that I had some secret deal with those three. I didn't. That wasn’t even a thing, and really, I'm pretty sure you know that. I told you multiple times that I didn’t intend to take Garrett to the end and I willingly let Kelley go at the double tribal because my true allegiance still lay with you and Yve. It really was that simple. I didn’t ever even CONSIDER getting rid of you until we hit F5. I actually agonized for 24 hours over the prospect of trying to blindside you and how bad the mere thought of it made me feel, only to find out later that my going out at that point had been a foregone conclusion for like, 5 rounds. Imagine how stupid I felt after that! I do, however, admit that my elimination from the game was entirely my own fault. We are at opposite ends of the spectrum – you’re cold as fuck, and I’m bubbling over with all this affection and emotion. I absolutely allowed myself to get swept up in my feelings. I own that, and I am not bitter about my loss because I know my own blunders lead to it. For you to act like I was shady with you at any point in the game, though, really pisses me off, because I never gave you any reason to believe as such (quite the contrary).

While we’re on the subject of being fake… let’s talk about the Katie boot. Reading our conversation logs from that night makes me feel a little ill. To me, it seems like lying is as easy as breathing to you. I know now that you knew exactly what was going to happen, but you still pretended to commiserate with me extensively and act utterly shocked by the whole thing. That was one of the instances in which I feel you went TOO FAR with your deception. A lot of the things you said around that time were just plain unnecessary. You oversold your feelings and your reaction to what was going on, and this became a recurring theme for you throughout the game. I’m sure you had a great time “making fun of how clueless people were” about the Katie boot, among other things. People trusted you. It’s one thing to betray them in the name of the game – it’s another to laugh about it behind their backs. Have some fucking decorum, man.

Speaking of… what you did to Yve really soured any leftover positive feelings I had towards you. That’s yet another thing you took TOO FAR in this game. You unabashedly and knowingly lead Yve to the slaughter and tossed her aside like she was nothing when you didn't need her anymore, and you did that knowing all along how much of her heart and soul she invests into everything. SO. UNNECESSARY. I won’t go into too much detail, but the fact that you continued to lie to her EVEN AFTER you unceremoniously booted her (and without the same courteous warning that you gave me) was the last straw. I can't believe that you couldn't afford honesty for someone who transparently had your best interests at heart in literally everything they did, especially after you brutally backstabbed them. Come off it. That’s fucked up.

I was naïve, I admit it. I never questioned you because I didn’t believe that anyone could be that much of a bullshit artist. I’ve been referred to as “myopic” multiple times in the last couple of weeks, but I actually think that descriptor fits you MUCH better than it does me. Like Monica said in her OS, you clearly had your gameplan set. You did not look far enough ahead. You were fixated on making this pipe dream ending happen, and you didn’t think about the bridges you were burning along the way. I always thought that your vague and non-committal way of speaking was an actively employed strategy, but now I think it’s just part of how insipid and gamebotty you are. I am AMAZED at how effortless it seems for you to be so false all the time. Monica’s game may have been messy and obnoxious, but “cold and calculating” aren’t always positive qualities next to those things, and especially not in this case. Strategically, the majority of what you did was sound (obviously, because it got you here) – but your social game absolutely fucking sucked. Like I’ve said a million times already, you just went TOO FAR. There were other ways for you to get here that didn’t involve you being a fake, pretentious asshole that stomped all over other people, but you chose this path and clearly revelled in strolling down it, shooting all your """allies""" in cold blood along the way.

All of this isn't to say that you can't still get my vote. It all depends on what I see happen at this FTC. I won't hold any negative feelings towards you after this game, and honestly, I'd probably still happily be your friend after it's all over. It is just a game, after all. The fact that you seem to lack self-awareness entirely DOES bother me a lot, but there's very little I can do about that. At this point, I can only hope you'll pay fitting consequences for your actions as far as this game goes.1





Monica. Your game was just as strong strategically as Austin’s was, and I think it was decidedly more impressive.

Austin risked little in the course of the game, because he insisted upon playing both sides. You were almost constantly in the ostensible minority and always managed to keep yourself in the game. While the way you interacted with other people had its flaws, you never adopted lying as a second language like Austin did. If your relationship with me was anything like the relationships you had with others, I can only hope that they can appreciate how much stronger your social game was. Yes, you were grating sometimes, and you could be obnoxious, but you didn’t treat people with the simpering false kindness that Austin did. You are unapologetically yourself, real in a way that your co-finalist never was. I dig that.

I, personally, expected nothing from you on a game-related level, despite how often we talked and how much enjoyment I got out of our conversations. I grew to like you without either of us ever making even IMPLICATIONS of loyalty to each other. You have a life and personality about you that Austin does not, and I imagine that’s what lead to most of his relationships seemingly being based on (what turned out to be) meaningless chatter and vague strategic discussions that solidified little, but implied an awful lot. You didn’t bullshit and stomp all over people just because you could, and you managed to build working relationships with people without making empty promises. Yes, you were a massive troll, you certainly can be super condescending (see Erik & Kelley’s boots and a lot of your recent posts), and you obviously found messing with people amusing, but that was obvious to everyone, and you totally own it in a way that Austin does not own his pathological lying and people-discarding. I appreciate that. Regardless of what Austin said in his OS, I was never “offended” by your trolling, and I don’t think you went too far (with me, anyway). I certainly found it hard to deal with at times and I find you calling me “mean-spirited” when you took so much pleasure in messing with others kind of hypocritical, but I was never upset by it. The only time I did feel legitimately upset with you was when you let me talk at you for hours at F5 only to reveal you had no intention of sticking with me, but that’s been cleared up now, and I understand why you had to do what you did (and for the record, I never thought you were stupid, either). Austin might think he played a cleaner game than you because he was more calculating and exact in his moves, but he’s the one here tonight with blood all over his hands. I daresay that YOU were the one who played the cleaner game, even if his was more well thought-out.

I’ll keep your bit short. In summation, like you said in your opening statement, you had a much tougher go of things than Austin did in this game, and yet you’re still here completely against the odds (and without so much human carnage behind you). That’s amazing to me, and for all your mistakes, I think you played incredibly well. You are the truest definition of a dark horse. I’m sure none of us saw any of this coming, and that makes your play all the more remarkable.

TL;DR: AUSTIN… THIS HURTS ME. WE HAVE NOTHING… IN COMMON. DID YOU GET TO THE RIGHT PLACE… BY BEHAVING THE WRONG WAY? I’VE NEVER BEEN IN A SITUATION WHERE THAT WAS THE CASE. ARROGANCE. DELUSIONAL ENTITLEMENT. etc etc
MONICA… MAYBE THE PERSON WHO THINKS SHE’S THE ~MOST~ DESERVING OF THE TITLE OF SOLE SURVIVOR… REALLY ACTUALLY IS THE MOST DESERVING.
(sry but let's be real, monica obviously isn't as HUMBLE as ratalie)




NOW FOR THE ACTUAL QUESTIONS:


- Assign each juror a Taylor Swift song and explain why you chose each one.

- If Austin hadn’t had your back for the duration of this game, do you think you would have made it this far? What would your game plan have been?

- What’s the biggest lie you told in this game, and how did you manage to get away with it? You say you didn’t lie to people’s faces, but I’m sure that’s not true. I have no doubt you completely bullshitted someone at LEAST once.

- I know you have a lot of conflicting thoughts about me and how I played the game. I’m aware you think that I seemed cocky, mean-spirited and self-satisfied. As far as I'm concerned, anything that made me seem that way was just a side effect of me trying to protect the people I liked. Like Caryn said, you played games with people for the fun of it, knowing you had the power and lording it over them. Further to this, don’t you think that those adjectives more aptly describe your actions within the game than they do mine?



- Do you really think you played a “clean game”? Are you proud of the path you took to get to this point? If you could play the game over, would you do anything differently? Why or why not?

- If you could go back change the outcome of one round in this game, which would it be and why?

- What do you feel was your biggest challenge in this game? Monica had to deal with being in the minority and constantly being targeted – you didn’t. What was the hardest part of playing this game for you?

- Do you REALLY think I was pissed at you because you voted me out, or were you just trying to save face and make yourself look like less of a wanker? You got to know me pretty well, and yet you somehow seem to have got my motives completely wrong. Whether this is because yours were in such opposition to mine or not, I'm not sure. Be honest with me. How fake were you with me? Was any of our friendship or our "alliance" real, or was it all engineered for the purpose of furthering yourself in the game?