(Prepare for a long post, I put a TL;DR on the bottom for you)
Hello Everyone.
To begin, I want to say it’s an honor to have made it to the final three. Everyone has dreams of making it to the end, but with 24 players and only 3 spots at the end, we all know how difficult of a task it actually is to make it here. I want to thank every player pre merge, juror, and the finalists beside me for playing this game with me and making this experience so unique and wild. All of us played a part in the story of the season and we all have added our own touch to how the story played out. I am proud to call you all my Tuamotus family, no matter how dysfunctional we can be.
Before I even applied for the season I took a day to really consider if this was something I wanted to do. A few of you know that I’m an “old school” ORG player. I started playing ORGs when I was a preteen back in 2002 and then I stopped playing in 2006 when I was entering my senior year of high school and getting ready for college. Meaning that I had very little actual experience with hidden immunity idols or new school gameplay. But what I
DID know what the level of commitment that would need to be made to play Stranded. I asked a lot of questions prior to applying and once I decided that I was going to apply, I jumped in full force and studied everything about Stranded that I could. I listened to podcasts, researched past players, and studied how the previous winners of Stranded like Michelle and Aaron had played before and wanted to know what I could take away from that.
What I learned from my research is that to play Stranded- to play it well- you need to not be afraid to stand up for yourself. But what is most important is that you never resign yourself to being a passive player and always try to maintain your own agency.
When I started the season, I felt so overwhelmed about everything with having 24 players and a newbie vs returning player season. There was so much going on and when the first twist of the Elizabeth and Eddie swap happened I was even more overwhelmed. But I was able to pull myself together and I decided that being a prepared newbie gave me an advantage over the returning players. I had information. I had listened to the Tanzania, Kuril Islands, and Morocco podcasts because I wanted to give myself as much information as possible and learn not only about Stranded, but learn about the returning players as well. If the returning players were going to come into the game with the advantage of experience, I wanted to have the advantage of intel. I learned a lot about the dynamics between Missy, Liz, and Jessica. I figured out the relationship history between Jed and Stephanie. I studied on who Aurora and Wardog were as people as well. I wanted to know what I was dealing with and how I could best handle my situation.
I considered myself an old school player when the game started, and as an old school player I wanted to make connections. My first night in the game I made three of my four most important connections. Matt, Alexis, and Erik.
You might think that the whole Erik bit is a joke, but I’m actually very serious about it. I think he was the person that I connected to the most on the first night and I felt like we would go far together. But once Liz came over and Erik was on at different hours than everyone else, he became a target. I was lucky enough to find myself in an early majority ‘The Buffett’, but when Erik’s name was the first to go around…I couldn’t stop it. Erik leaving that night was surprisingly emotional to me. His boot is what brought about a complete change in how I wanted to approach the game. A pure ‘Old School’ style could never win on its own. I was the one who needed to adapt. I was the one who needed to change my play style. I was the one who had to come up with the Erik Motivation for my new game play.
I needed to make a unique blend of old school and new school. I needed to find a new style to play and adapt myself to the new era. I needed to hold my own agency and I needed to come up with ways to use my skills to my advantage. I bonded with Alexis and Matt who were very open with information with me, telling me about another chat made with Liz and Hope that Elizabeth didn’t want me to know about. I knew that we’d become each other’s eyes and ears whenever possible. I came up with
“The Chelsea Strategy” where I was throwing Missy under the bus to Alexis and Matt to bond us to a common enemy. I also used it to try and fuel the fire with Liz and Jessica and also to try to make them think of me as an ally. I used the partner’s twist to my advantage, paying for what I thought would be Jessica’s Dossier because I knew a lot about her already. It was as the swap happened that I truly became the player that I am today. Always looking at these three things when deciding on what my next move was:
1. Self preservation
2. Friendship and Loyalty
3. Thinking forward
On the first swap Jessica asked me to save Aurora and to get to know her. Jessica told me that Aurora was someone I could trust, and as Jessica was my partner, if Jessica trusted Aurora…I also trusted Aurora. My proudest moment of that first swap was when I was able to flip the vote from Aurora to Hannah. Saving Aurora because not only would she be a good ally, I liked talking to her as a person.
As the game moved forward, I wanted to move forward with those who showed loyalty and friendship back to me. Alexis, Aurora, and Matt had all shown their friendship and loyalty to me, and while entering the merge I wanted to reflect the same back onto them.
At the second swap to Te Poto, I wanted to stick strong with those around me. Those who I felt I could trust the most. By this time Jessica and I had worked on our relationship and built a little bit of trust. At the Missy Tribal Council, Jessica and Aurora were afraid of Missy’s idol so they didn’t want to vote for her. They wanted to vote out Alexis or Shamar. I was upset because I wasn’t going to be afraid of someone’s idol and let that fear take out one of my closest friends in Alexis. I was able to cause enough chaos at that tribal to make sure that Missy would receive the most amounts of votes, in my worst case scenario, I would lose Alexis but still get rid of Missy’s idol. In my best case scenario and the reality, Missy would leave and my
“Chelsea Strategy” would have bonded us all closer together.
It was here though that I knew that Jessica wasn’t completely honest or with me. She didn’t have any trust in me and didn’t flip her vote, and ignored my request for her to ask Aurora to flip her vote to Missy as well. This was a huge strain on my relationship with my partner.
When we hit the merge I became overwhelmed again. With 14 people, who wouldn’t be? I used my connections with Alexis and Matt to help map out our cast, and with this information I would always know everyone’s position in the game. Matt and I made an effort to stay on opposite sides and work together and keep each other in the loop. We told each other everything that we knew.
After the Allie vote, I had to take a step back and reassess where we were as a tribe and our complete set of dynamics. Alexis’s target had become insanely large because while I played a strong supporting role in the Reynold and the Allie boot, she was seen as the leader. Alexis also had people who were always going to be a lot more loyal with her and come end game, they would turn on me in a heartbeat. I knew it was time that I thinned out Alexis’s Army which is why we had the Rocker vote. I followed it up for similar reasons with Elizabeth next, but with Elizabeth we were opposed as the last two sets of partners and I didn’t have any real game connection with Elizabeth. I knew the further we went on as two partner pairs the bigger our target would be and the larger of the temptation Elizabeth would have to take me out for the partner idols. Removing Liz was supposed to break the pressure off of Alexis and Jess due to the partner twist, but also show that I had some say in what was going on in the game. When Liz left I felt like it really opened up the possibilities.
That next morning, Matt told me that Jessica, Hope, and Alexis were after me. Which I was really hurt by. Everything I had done in game was to protect and move forward with Jessica and Alexis. Now they were both against me, and lying to my face about it. I knew I was in trouble that day way before the immunity challenge happened and I had to do everything that I could to win it and save my partner idol. It’s true, I promised to give my idol to Aurora if I won the challenge. But right before Tribal Council it was leaked to me that Aurora was in on the plan as well. Even though I knew she was the planned boot, I considered using my idol on her up until the last moment, but decided that I needed it for self-preservation and to be able to buy myself time to shake up the game in my favor. Aurora was clearly against me now and I knew she’d be the one to go home. Even so, I voted for Alexis, purely out of emotion.
At the point the only person who had ever been truly loyal and a friend to me was Matt. Since minute one, he and I had a very strong working relationship and genuine friendship.
I worked on trying to repair my relationships with those who betrayed me, betrayal is a part of Stranded, and we all experience it in the game. But I know that if you want to do well, you need to be able to let down your own ego and open yourself up to rebuilding relationships that you had lost. I worked hard with Jessica and Alexis to try and repair the damage that had been made before. I learned a lot from Aurora leaving, that it was important to show a bit more of yourself to those you surround yourself with. If you never let down your guard, people will think you’re hiding something from them. Aurora, I was never hiding anything from you.
Moving forward I knew that I would have to do two things to make it to the end, I’d have to try and hide in the background for a few rounds to let my target go down and I would have to work harder than anyone else to make sure I could setup a plan. Playing up how disliked I was made me look weaker as well. Convincing the remaining players that I wasn’t a real threat while still being able to freely move in the game is a fine line that I think I handled well. I knew Shamar didn’t want me in the game much longer, so I convinced Stephannie and Jessica that he was going to be going after vets. I made sure to get him out as he was one of the more vocal people against me at this time. Turning the vote on him was important as I knew he had no plans for me.
The next round was very difficult for me as well. I had completely repaired my relationship with Alexis and I wanted to take her to the final 4 with me. But everyone was still afraid of her. Alexis going out was very painful. I wasn’t a fan of it at all.
Final six was perhaps the craziest round for me. I knew through Matt, Stephannie, and Sherri that Jessica and Hope were trying to play me. Once again, Jessica decided that it was okay to backstab me and break our friendship. They wanted to take Matt’s idol out- an idol I helped him find and knew about the whole time he had it. But Jessica was ready and willing to take me out here due to how big of a threat I was. The four of us came together to blindside Hope and Jessica.
Before this point I had never done anything to Jessica to betray or do something that wasn’t in our best interest. But Jessica had now plotted to backstab or vote me out twice. I was mad, even yelled at her about how she was the one who messed up our relationship over and over. At this point, I was her friend but it was very hard to trust her.
But we were able to come together for the Stephannie vote and to get us one step closer to the end, to the final four.
I’m sure a lot of people wonder what happened for the final four vote. Why did I choose to tie the vote instead of voting out Matt. The answer is easy for me. While I played a new school cut throat game, at my core I’m loyal to those that are loyal to me and that have proven their friendship and loyalty. I wouldn’t feel right with myself if I didn’t give my biggest friend and ally throughout the game a fighting chance to making it to the finals.
TL;DR- I have played this game hard. I came prepared, I was able to adapt to every change, play from the top, play with adversity, and rise from the bottom. I always was aware of what was going on in the game, even when things were not going my way. I was never blindsided throughout the game and I always made sure that I was looking towards the future. Ultimately I played this game being loyal and true to those who always gave it to me. I forgave, but I didn’t forget.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my "short" little jury speech. I’ve truncated a lot of this and I’m ready to answer any and all questions you have honestly and as detailed as possible. Good luck to Sherri and Matt, you’re both wonderful people.
) found the other, we claimed the official partner idol! Idols are obviously crucial in this game and I’m so proud that I managed to find not just one, but two of them! Even if they ultimately did not change anything when I played them, just making sure that someone else didn’t have them potentially changes everything. Had someone else found either of them, then myself or one of my allies could have been idolled out. Thankfully, I didn’t need to play them on myself either time, but that in itself speaks to my game too.
