Stranded in Tuamotus

This is Rocker's Final Tribal Council Thread.

All other Jurors should remain in their own threads. Final 3, remember... this is not for you to address each other, but to talk to Rocker. In-fighting amongst the Final 3 should be reserved for the Live Final Tribal Council on Sunday.

Rocker, you have until Saturday at 8c/9e to post your statements/questions to the Final 3. Remember not to take up too much of their time as they have 10 other jurors to get to. Please no listing or questions requiring novels for answers. You should post all of your statements/questions in your opening post in this thread. There is a live Final Council on Sunday where you will get to address everyone live about the statements they have made as well ask follow-ups.

https://youtu.be/b5rpAqfd35Q

Let’s get this out of the way, here’s my confessional power ranking of the new players on pink team 2. I think this was the day of the Hannah boot. I hope y’all see this as an opportunity more than anything.

Rocker wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:04:59 am Original pink team members slowly becoming more discernible. [...]

1.alexis
2. shamar
3. reynold
------------
4. sherri
5. michael
6. matt

BINGO BANGO YA BUNCH OF DWEEBS LETS GET INTO IT. I do hope to strike a lighter tone than most of the jury. Others will critique and dissect every decision from Final 9 on, I’m kind of interested in more macro takes on your entire experience. Also just a general shoutout to Pink Team 2, that’s maybe when I was having the most fun. Good tribe. Please don’t try to jerk me off

Mike:
Did you tell Missy she wasn’t a part of my plans moving forward on green team 3? Somebody did but idk who :( I always thought it was you

My real Q: Talk about some of your plans that DIDNT WORK. What were things you were trying to do that ultimately were kind of a waste of time? What do you look back on and realize was very unimportant and inconsequential? What is really funny to you about how this game went? What was your relationship with Missy like, in general?

Also voting Jess out is weird to me, I haven’t fully reckoned why you would do that. She was the no vote finalist IMO

Sherri:
Get some girl. Your answer on forgiveness makes me remember how genuine I felt you were about “reintegrating” after Reynold and Tai voteouts. I never had any chance myself at getting an idol or winning a challenge, so while those things are *badass*, it doesn’t actually do much for me as far as my vote goes. I’d like to know more about what risks you were able to take because you had “items” up your sleeve. Would also love to know about how you felt about your game standing during the days of pink team 2. Did you think you were performing well in the game?

And of course, what did you have the most fun with in all of Stranded? Winning would be great, but your fondest memories will come from the more personal moments. What/who made you laugh hardest?

PS you’ve acted like you are afraid to sit next to Matt rather than confident. That hasn’t been a great look.

Matt:
Hey Matt. You always seemed completely full of shit to me. I could have done better too I’m sure. I have however really enjoyed your answers and opening statements thus far.

I want to hear all about Missy from you. Missy was doing A LOT all over the place, and it’s kind of a strike of lightning she was voted out. How did you hope Missy fit (or didn’t fit) in your merge game?

Aurora’s all banged up about your “gamebot” comment to her. You seemed like the biggest “gamebot” to me. Same vibe as the other 2 but I’m hoping for the most from you: What was really fun about playing Stranded for you? Nobody on the jury thinks anyone played some mAsTErMinD game so I’d love to hear about the stuff that didn’t work for you. You specifically said at a recent TC that everything generally went your way, that’s not true of anyone.

I’d be happy to vote for any of you 3 and I think this season was great and ultra competitive.

May the victor go the spoils
-Johnny Rocks

I really appreciate you making this a bit lighter, some of these have been a bit heavy for me!

Did you tell Missy she wasn’t a part of my plans moving forward on green team 3? Somebody did but idk who :( I always thought it was you

Nope, I actually didn't talk to Missy that much! Sorry!

My real Q: Talk about some of your plans that DIDNT WORK. What were things you were trying to do that ultimately were kind of a waste of time? What do you look back on and realize was very unimportant and inconsequential? What is really funny to you about how this game went? What was your relationship with Missy like, in general?

Haha, I had a bunch of fun plans. I think my FAVORITE plan that never came to work was the secret wine code. When Matt had the idol, the idea was that if something change during tribal maybe I was given a whisper or something, I would comment something silly in the chat that'd be "Going to grab a bottle of ______" and the bottle I went for would correlate with whoever the new target was by the last letter of their name being the first letter of the wine. Here are some examples

michaeL= La Crescent
aurorA= Albarino
sherrI= Ice Wine
matT= Traminette
stephanniE=Everclear
shamaR= Riesling

It was so I could signal to him without any suspicion and we could still use the idol if needed. I thought it was a cute idea. :P

I think one thing I tried to do that was ultimately a waste of time was try to connect with Elizabeth over Tanzania as much as I did. While Jessica was very open to talking about it a lot, Elizabeth was a lot more focused on the here and now so it didn't work as well with her.


I think something that I find funny about the game went is how it's the little things that can really stick with you and how bigger events just fly right by you. While I remember big things like the Missy vote and the Aurora vote, things that stick with me more are just small moments like talking about drinks with Tai, having Hope give me lessons on weed, or just shooting the shit with Alexis.


As for my relationship with Missy, It was actually fairly minimal. I think we had a few good talks about self improvement and betterment, but I don't think I ever felt truly comfortable opening myself up around her. I don't know how she felt about me until the very end when I was part of her blindside.

Also voting Jess out is weird to me, I haven’t fully reckoned why you would do that. She was the no vote finalist IMO

This is actually answered in Jessica's section. It's a bit of a read but it's genuine and full of emotion. I'd suggest looking at that!



I hope that answers some of your questions!

thanks dude

Hey hey Big Rocker! Having those items up my sleeve (or in my bra as they were), certainly gave me that extra blanket of security. I think that I played my riskiest game during that last swap tribe before the merge and that was partly because of those idols. My original plan coming into this game was to be a bit more lowkey pre-merge and then burst onto the scene at the merge but that quickly changed. With two idols in my pocket, it made me feel I could try something that if it went wrong, I'd still be protected with an idol the next round.

That big risk there was definitely the Jed boot. I think the 'easiest' option that round was just going along with booting Wardog. Him and Liz were kind of going at it and I was only meeting him for the first time so I was definitely siding with Liz on that one. However, I was really growing to like Wardog and I had much less trust in Jed. I wanted him out of there but I knew it would be difficult because only Matt and I had really discussed it + he was Reynold's partner so I thought there was nooooo way we could feasibly make that work without burning absolutely everybody.

Once we lost that challenge, things obviously got crazy and it was me, Matt, Reynold and Steph in the heart of it. Reynold actually wanted to do Liz here and I feel like Steph was leaning that way too, yet Matt and I had discussed this and we tried to push for a Jed boot there. We knew Reynold was becoming more concerned with him and even though they were partners, we really pushed hard for them to vote for Jed instead of Liz. I did not want Liz to go there at all, but had I just followed along, Liz might have been the second 'easiest' option there. Instead, we went with Jed. It was riskier, trickier and more of a sell to the others, but we managed to do it. I thought at the time that if things go real south next round, at least I was protected. I did end up getting votes that next round but thankfully I didn't need to play my idol. Still, it definitely gave me the confidence to do exactly what I wanted, not always what my allies thought was best.

~

Now to my days on Pink 2, I thought that was a real great swap tribe for me! I ended up with 5/6 of the members of the main alliance I formed on my first tribe...I couldn't believe my luck there! And yes, these games sometimes come down to luck and I was really blessed with a super great group. I obviously had my buddy Reynold there too and I did feel like all of them had my back. We had our own group chat and we talked through everything and agreed to stick together. I'm not certain if all of them meant that had we lost more challenges, but I don't think I would have been in any danger had things turned around. I think by the end of the week I had really close relationships with Tai and Steph too, so I was confident I would have the numbers there with whatever happened.

And finally addressing your last comment regarding Matt. So, I'll try to go into this as much as I can without revealing any ID stuff, but some of it does come down to a former ORG experience. The simplest version is that I played a game and I made the end with my closest ally. We did everything together, were always swapped together, always voted together and both of us even won challenges. We had a really similar game yet I ended up losing and by quite a big margin. Some of the jurors thought it was stupid that I went to the end with him and said that had I gone with someone else, it would have been much easier to argue against since our games were much more different. Part of my decision to force the tie against Matt was some real bad flashbacks of that. It's not that I was totally afraid, but I was worried I would make a similar mistake and that would bite me again. Thankfully, I don't think the both of us being here has been bad for me at all and I think I've been proving I'm my own strong player.

Just to add to that too but part of that vote for me was not just against Matt but for Jessica. I mentioned this in someone else's answer, but I felt she made the most effort with me at the F4 and I think at least honouring that to vote with her or force a tie was important to me. Perhaps it was not the perfect game move but I don't regret it because I felt that it was the right thing to do at the time.

Thanks Rocker!

Oh whoops, I was way too focused on the other questions that I forgot about the fun one - that's coming now!

Okay so I did mention in my speech that I came in here to have fun, so I always made sure that I kept that theme going even during all the strategy stuff!

One of my most recurring fun moments was with Matt and we had created this whole world surrounding as. We called ourselves Matty and Sherri, and presented ourselves as some shitty radio talk hosts. We did a number of great shows including Matty and Sherri in the Mornings and the much more scandalous...Matt and Sherri after Dark! :O I don't think it got as steamy as your whispers to Hope, but it was still fun. We did live weather reports, community updates and just really got stupid with it all. I had very fond memories with all of that.

Obviously I loved any time I talked about food with people but I also found any excuse to talk about people's own pets. I know we talked about your rescues a bit and like I also heard about Steph's dogs and Reynold's....collection of family animals! But maybe the most fun was talking about Hope's cat because I actually got to see the most adorable pictures of him We love you Rodney!!

There was a bunch of random things too like Liz taking relaxing baths during the round and me imagining her kids bringing her food lol or Shamar and I becoming our personal reminders to each other so we keep drinking enough water. They're small moments that were over super quick, but it's all those small moments that come together in remembering how fun this all was.

Okay NOW I'm done lol.

Thanks Rocker.

Matt:
Hey Matt. You always seemed completely full of shit to me. I could have done better too I’m sure. I have however really enjoyed your answers and opening statements thus far.
Yeah it's no secret that we didn't click lol and going rounds of the merge without exchanging more than a couple one-line messages was an experience.

I want to hear all about Missy from you. Missy was doing A LOT all over the place, and it’s kind of a strike of lightning she was voted out. How did you hope Missy fit (or didn’t fit) in your merge game?
Good lord, being paired with Missy was an experience. Okay so my interpretation of Missy was that I didn't trust her at all and I was pissed we got paired together and I tried to just make small talk with her and yes her to death but I had no interest in working with her. Some of her questions to me and her commands for what I should do just like seemed really transparent and she was treating me like I lacked intelligence so I just did my own thing. The greatest evidence of this is that I had actually heard before the Missy vote-off from partner stuff on Pink 3.0 that Missy might be going home? I didn't ping her to tip her off and that council seemed crazy so it's not like me pinging her would've done anything but I basically didn't want her at merge? So I said nothing to her. And when she told me the vote was between Alexis and Shamar I was like oh yikes good luck!

On Pink 2.0 she told me Tai and Stephannie were threats and I did my own thing as you can see. On Pink 3.0 I gave her the idol clues I had because like I didn't care and she was talking to me more and more about putting this merge group together that included me, you, Aurora, Sherri, and I forget who else. It was basically all vets who I had no connection with at the time plus me and Sherri lmao. She was a hoot? I didn't hate her or anything but I didn't take her seriously and little troll comments I made to her (like about the Jed vote) seemingly took off and she ran with them. Would've been fun to try to make something work at merge but I was not realistically gonna be into that at all.

Aurora’s all banged up about your “gamebot” comment to her. You seemed like the biggest “gamebot” to me.
I addressed this in Allie's thread and will address to Aurora directly. I apologize if me calling Aurora a 'gamebot' offended you. I def was a gamebot in a lot of ways from beginning to end while also having real and genuine feelings about people. We signed up to play Survivor, not The Real World, and voting people out is a part of the process. I clearly fucked up in the way I voted people out and the way I turned on people. I think that's where the gamebot comes in for me.

Same vibe as the other 2 but I’m hoping for the most from you: What was really fun about playing Stranded for you?
God I had so much fun! At this point in my life I have a really rich off screen life so anything on screen that isn't work is just a cool thing for me. This ORG was one of a kind. What was really fun was the personal conversations I had with people. On my end those were really genuine.

Reynold: I loved talking to Reynold about weed and I loved his passion for the game. I'll remember that fondly.

Tai: I loved talking to Tai about our boyfriends, the gym, work, and so on. We just jived and he's someone I definitely could see myself in a bit.

Allie: I liked shooting the shit with her about random topics even though we rarely talked about game lol.

Liz: Omg. Okay so like I know Liz hates me as a player but I really enjoyed our personal conversations in the game. We would talk about everything from her kids, our boyfriends and in-laws, Canada, her art business from home, moisturizers, and a bunch of other stuff. Even when we were both high and drunk and fought after the Jed vote it was kind of fun? Like I think we were both kind of loling about it by the end?

Rocker: Talking to you was a drag (I know you didn't like talking to me either) but your run and bike routines made me exercise more so thank you.

Aurora: I really really enjoyed talking to Aurora about her personal life, her law school classes, and just general shooting the shit after the first couple merge rounds.

Shamar: My early game conversations with Shamar about our lives and backgrounds were super legit to me and I will remember those fondly.

Alexis: Alexis really hit the mark for me and I could talk to her effortlessly for days about really anything. We talked about so much personal stuff, from where we live to our boy experiences to food to books to taking a virtual walk to all sorts of things. I really enjoyed Alexis and will remember these aspects of our experience fondly.

Hope: Hope was another person I will remember really fondly. We had so much FUN at the merge together kind of taking control with Jessica as a threesome. Hope was in the middle of it because Jessica and I were skiddish with each other (at the least at my end), but Hope was just dynamite. I think I will remember the f6 round in the game where she blew everything up like forever. We went from being Adam/Hannah to being these two people against each other and I respected her for it but in the moment I was so mad and I was like this girl is so good!!! In any event, Hope was someone I also really invested in personally and liked. We talked about psychology a lot, our boyfriends, weed, and so many other random things. I also vented a lot to Hope about how I was feeling about the game and about everyone just like irritating me. Seems like this has been interpreted as 'mean' in the lodge and for that I apologize. I definitely got caught up in the moment of things and don't have ill will towards anyone.

Stephannie: My conversations with Steph were so genuine and insightful and I really missed her when she was gone even if for a bit. Steph always cared about me as a person and always asked how my interviews and work and everything were going and I just really respect her a whole lot. I felt really gross after booting her.

Jessica: We had like a very interesting arc but I'll always remember how we came together to make certain votes happen and how she gave me a tip to buy a Nespresso machine (hope yours is fixed now girl). I had the most fun just like rallying with her for mid-merge and late-merge rounds when it made sense to work together.

Michael: He was my minute one to minute done as we both say. Getting to meet him and having the experience we've had was so fun and so meaningful.

Sherri: She is my girl and I literally had so much fun laughing with her so many times this game. Our newscaster fanfic like she talked about and our reads on the game and people literally made me bark at times and my bf asked what was going on.

Nobody on the jury thinks anyone played some mAsTErMinD game so I’d love to hear about the stuff that didn’t work for you. You specifically said at a recent TC that everything generally went your way, that’s not true of anyone.
I should've clarified that by the time TC was starting and questions were getting posted each round, I felt like things went my way in the sense that I voted the right way (besides the Reynold vote). But absolutely agree, several things didn't go my way each round and there were certain ones like the f6 where I wasn't super sure on what would happen. I don't see myself as a mastermind. I tried to be a good UTR player with solid social and strategic connections that would allow me to stay well-positioned and manage my visibility level. By saying things went my way I'd like to note that I'm not trying to insinuate that I led tons of things. Like I mentioned in my OS I think there were a lot of team efforts this season for votes. Thanks for allowing me to address this.