I had a good enough read on them immediately to know they liked me. And I heard they all liked Stephannie too. That checked out. Stephannie had some nice "good looking out" talks in that time period. So Aurora was fighting with you (Tai), and then Hannah was pissed at Aurora. So I knew it was one of those 3. I had recommended Aurora to save, and when I brought up the Hannah/Aurora stuff to Alexis she was pretty vehemently PRO Aurora. So I was always leaning Hannah even though I was working extremely well/close with Hannah through this. I tried to throw you (Tai) under the bus to try save Hannah for a few days. That's probably why I never really considered working with you after that Tai. I kinda shot across your bow first and figured it would get to you
As for the 5 person alliance I was just asking. 0p chance Jess/Stephanie would ever be in an alliance together but you seemed really confident about it. Like I definitely did not have access to much info, and I knew that couldnt be true. so wtf are you feeling that you think. I was just asking to see if you'd say something I didnt know
Shamar always voted correctly (Missy, Reynold, Tai, Allie) bc Alexis would tell him what to do. Apparently he's been wanting to do me in for a few rounds (according to Jess). IDK, it was kind of a hidden in plainsight alliance. Shamar clearly didnt dig it like I thought
Oh on that tribe, there was no wayyyy I was going LOL. If we didn't swap, Aurora was gonna be the next to go apparently. I was in good with Matt/Sherri/Reynold/Steph. I believe if we stayed, you would have been gone after Aurora. During Reynold's vote, Shamar and me were thinking about voting you and trying to get people for that, but they wanted Jess first and Aurora was backup. I think had we chosen you as the backup plan, it would have 7-7(Reynold could chime in here). LOL and Aurora wouldn't have hated me so much RIP
Tai wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:35:47 pm
Oh on that tribe, there was no wayyyy I was going LOL. If we didn't swap, Aurora was gonna be the next to go apparently. I was in good with Matt/Sherri/Reynold/Steph. I believe if we stayed, you would have been gone after Aurora. During Reynold's vote, Shamar and me were thinking about voting you and trying to get people for that, but they wanted Jess first and Aurora was backup. I think had we chosen you as the backup plan, it would have 7-7(Reynold could chime in here). LOL and Aurora wouldn't have hated me so much RIP
yeah lol and i was in good with alexis/shamar(DEFINITELY at this time I was)/Aurora./And Steph
decent enough with michael, reynold, sherri too
I'm not saying you're not right that Aurora goes before you, but it wasn't gunna be me either.
I dont even try in the challenges, I told a really small number of lies. generally "up for anything". weird to be a threat to anyone, shamar no less who I saved and thought was my F3. thanks again dude
The worse part of Ponderosa are these shoulda would couldas. We will find out if more people show up. You know they pooled together coins for me to get Steph/Me immunity because Missy told Matt I was in trouble?
@Allie btw I was pretty optimistic about us being on the same page post merge for awhile. Aurora mentioned AWHILE back on green team 2 she wanted to boot you as the merge vote, or v soon after. "no immunity is worth that" - I believe her exact quote
I had a hunch Alexis and a few others wanted to do you in so I wasn't surprised she went full force on the whisper for 2nd tribal. Liz didnt vote you but gave her blessing to take you out. I knew Aurora and Jess were on board, so that's like, all my allies going for you. I was intentionally lowkey and "buffoonish" in public so I wasn't about to do anything drastic to save you. Tough break, you're a psycho good@ this stuff (compliment)
Tai wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:41:30 pm
The worse part of Ponderosa are these shoulda would couldas. We will find out if more people show up. You know they pooled together coins for me to get Steph/Me immunity because Missy told Matt I was in trouble?
yeah I mean the coins came from somewhere. Missy was doing so much, I love it.
When did you guys figure out all the pairs? I think sometime around the Laura vote I had 8/11 for sure. I went to Alexis to compare notes and she already had 11/11 clocked correctly. I started assuming Hope must like me bc of the Hannah connection. Who knows, sounds like Hannah rubbed everyone the wrong way too
I also started more effort with Michael, being with Jess and all. He kinda morphed really quick for me into seeing him as a crazy good player. I didn't think he would take lil ole me out tho. I think max effort from me is still not gunna be good enough most of the time unfortunately
Joaquin Souberbielle wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:57:49 pm
Rocker, just wanna say way to continue on the tradition of people from Indo doing 100x better the next season.
Not sure when I figured them out. I think it was around Laura vote, or right after.
And Aurora wanting me gone from the moment we paired up is soo stupid! I don't get her strategic reason behind that, considering there were what, 20 people to go, and I mentionned my interest in working with her? And she would be obssessed over getting me out instead of looking at her whole tribe that was almost going to vote her out? God. I don't understand her game at all. Can't wait to see how this will end up like for her.
Allie wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 11:08:36 pm
Not sure when I figured them out. I think it was around Laura vote, or right after.
And Aurora wanting me gone from the moment we paired up is soo stupid! I don't get her strategic reason behind that, considering there were what, 20 people to go, and I mentionned my interest in working with her? And she would be obssessed over getting me out instead of looking at her whole tribe that was almost going to vote her out? God. I don't understand her game at all. Can't wait to see how this will end up like for her.
On the all vet tribe my only real alliance was with Jess/Aurora. I was also talking to Missy a lot, besides the point. But Aurora says to me "Hey, I love Hannah. lets work with her too"
I'm like great, yeah, hannah and I are going great. after the first swap Aurora comes to me with 2 paragrpahs about not being able to work with Hannah anymore. I am like...OK? The last 4 days I have been fully committed to her and being the best alliance member possible, sharing everything etc. And she votes me tonight
Well that is all the Stranded for me. Initial game autopsy results suggest I was vastly outmaneuvered by Hope & Michael in this game, I won’t have a problem living with that. In my ideal universe they would go 7-9th place so gg. Aurora and Shamar voting me was dumb, I was way with both of them. I touched on my frustrations with these 2 already. That’s not to say I couldn’t have managed these relationships way better.
I was really outmatched here from the jump. Jeff can confirm this, but I was pretty close to pulling myself off the season in the days leading up to the start bc of my grandpa’s passing. The funeral was in another state the morning after the start of the game (and the burial later in the week in PA). I had to deal w/ family stuff that Thursday night and wasn’t online and active until 10:30PM the first night. I never even got a chance to say hey to Liz (who I was siked to see playing) before she was swapped out. Jess was my only actual existing friendship on the cast, and it turns out she (I think) pregamed with a ton of people and made tons of plans and alliances that didn’t include me. I guess she thought I wasn’t playing bc I showed zero interest in ever talking about Stranded, or ORGs or w/e. A lot of my game turmoil and inability to find footing can probably be traced to us being completely off the same page so often.
Also I spent the first weekend of the game and the long merge weekend in NY, not really my ideal setup to be active all the time. I knew I was “low on the totem pole” amongst all the vets, so I jumped all over the chance to start fresh with the new players. It only took that initial friction on pink team 2 between hannah and aurora for me to completely sell out and want to go with Alexis/Shamar the whole way. I wrote this everyday but the new players are WAYYYY superior in game quality to the vets. I don’t count my first game as actually playing an ORG, and I didnt even bother lurking and following after I was voted out. So I am truly blind how to play an ORG. There are at least 10-12 players in this cast who are complete ORG freaks I think. I needed to align tight with at least 1 person who really understood how this works. I had high hopes for Hannah. Alexis had to fill that vacuum moving on.
I didn’t put in nearly the work I needed since the merge. Last weekend was tough for me. Also I am SO DRAINED socially. I’m sorry Matt/Sherri/Reynold etc. that our convos never went anyway but I am only have so much social in me. Talking to so many people is so tiring for me. I would come on Stranded and like 6 people would go “heyyy hows your day :)))”. Not sliding into a sarcastic troll character is so difficult for me. My game is a good example of “what if you put a shy introvert who is mostly outdoors into an unwinnable game”. If the game was talk to people for 5 minutes and try to make them laugh, I’m all over it. At times I really did excel socially I think, proud of that.
Nobody wanted to talk strat with me, not sure why that is. Anything I accomplished strategically at all I took initiative on. Well, Missy wanted to go with me. But cutting Missy’s throat was a move to hook up with Liz in the merge. I intentionally tried to slip into the background at the merge (knowing I couldnt be too active anyway). I guess it doesn’t matter since Sherri had an idol, but Shamar and/or Aurora not going with me significantly further was news. I talked a lot about not being able to place Hope, and having trepidation on her abilities but I was optimistic on her. She played me good tho. Allie and I actually had a chance at connecting strategically at the merge there. As mentioned my real allies wanted to go Allie so I wasn’t going to against that. I guess the perception I was with Jess (even though she was possibly more bad than good for me) scared everyone off. The John Rocker stuff turns people off. Kind of being an aloof dickhead scares people off. I gave max vulnerability out there though. I tried to be kinda “dumb” in public but really I don’t think my reads were THAT bad.
If you take a snapshot of the game at the Reynold boot I actually look to be in a good spot. If I had put in more work the last few days I did not have to be here now.
One last power rank, this time on who I’m rooting for
1. Alexis - champ
-----------------------------
2. Liz - Got on w/ Liz well, she wanted to go w/ me. Monday night Liz and I had a long talk about blindsiding Alexis/Michael at F9 or F10 lol. It looked like things were going our way and we didnt want to be on the outside of an Alexis/Shamar/Michael/MAtt/Hope end game. I always saw myself as being in the end game with a strong mix of those new players. I immediately ratted out that convo to Alexis the next morning. We had already talked about how Liz was maybe not best for Alexis long long term
3. Hope - Hope is sooooooo funny. Gg Hope. There were so many good new players I thought HOPE HAD TO be the one who was blowing in the wind. So wrong, she’s been slaying all along.
4. Aurora - I think you maybe played bad, we struggled to be on the same page despite being aligned. Goes both ways I’m sure. I do like Aurora a bit tho so gl hope you win
5. Michael - Cant deny he’s playing strong as heck. I underestimated him initially, and I knew he was too smart to know I did that. I tried to keep on as good of terms as possible, but same with many, it’s tough for me to hold conversations. I’m just not that good. Good guy, great player
6. Jess - It would make Jess super happy to win so I hope she does. It’ll take some time and examining but I’m prettyyyyy sure Jess was bad for my game at times
7. Stephannie - I like Stephannie. I doubt I was her ideal voteout here, but if the other option was Sherri or w/e I get where she’s playing from. Maybe the best player amongst all the vets. Her not wanting to share idol clues yesterday was the first tip off yesterday was going to be a badddd day for me.
8. Shamar - I really like Shamar. He never shared anything with me though so I guess we kind of fell off. I trusted Alexis had a stronghold on him. I guess gj voting me out, someone who was never going to vote you out. A lot of people might feel that way on him
9./10. Matt/Sherri - They’re both nice/cool but everyone knew I wasn’t going to go with them. I could have tried a lot more with them lately, but I was just soooooo burned out. I think these 2 like Brandon? Brandon was terrible to me. I tried so hard for hours with that guy
Thanks again for the opportunity. I think this was more work than fun, socially draining but wildly silly and interesting at the same time. Some cool peeps here and a few wieners
