- Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:55:45 pm
#28707
Posted something in the Ponderosa thread, but thanks all of you for the warm welcomes. Much more snuggly than I could've ever hoped for. Joaq, Cat, Love, I know you may all be thinking "I told you so," but I was pretty close in that last challenge and in my experience being threat #1 at Final 5 is not that bad a position to be in. Love, you're a challenge beast, so there's no guarantee you wouldn't have gotten to the end and overshadowed me after Joaq and Cat left. Plus, I don't think it made sense for Kim to target me or Cat over Steph, so I was expecting to be better positioned at F5. I also didn't know Jeff would be announcing that the idol expired at the F6 tribal and was planning on telling everyone it was the last round myself, then not playing it, then telling them F5 was actually the last round. Gah!
Joaq, I was cognizant of the Big Threats alliance as I threw out names. Like I told you going into the double tribal, my ideal was Russ --> Tammy, but once I started to sense Penner strongarming it I knew my best move was to just sit back. After that, once I knew the votes were there to get you out, I couldn't rock the boat too much.
Melinda, for what it's worth I don't think it was the right move for everyone to vote you unanimously. I also couldn't see why no one was worried that with a person as erratic as you that might actually have been a real idol play. I was the stray vote for Steph, and even though Penner/Kim/Yve did get around to whispering at me by the end I didn't see the point in giving up that contingency if you and Joaq had both played idols (or had them played on you). Also, Kim is not a goat and I will defend her to the end!! I can see the argument for Russ, too, but it's hard for me to come to terms with voting for him because 1) he tried to sabotage my game at the merge round for no apparent reason, and 2) he had been putting a target on his own back since premerge. The "chaos agent" strat only alienated him from, like, all of Fenrir. So if he's going for the underdog story, I'm not buying it. Plus Joaq and Cat are right about his indirectness. A lot of the time his lies are not some kind of clever sleight-of-hand, they're fear-driven and it's transparent. Still, Steph would really have to put in work proving that she somehow knew she was in this solid a position early on to get my vote, because in my eyes she was positioned by circumstance, not her own doing. And Yve has no coherent strategy, she's not getting the "sweetheart" sympathy vote from me.
ANYWAY, Val, I'm really glad you confronted me about our troubled past when you did, because taking the time to work through that was one of the most human moments I had this game and I felt like after that band-aid was ripped off I was able to realize why Poody considered you such an amazing social player. I hope you know that whatever I said about Allies to Alex was like throwing breadcrumbs to the pigeons because he was on the outs and I couldn't broach in-game strategy with him in too much detail, but I liked him and wanted him to feel like he had some personalized info from me.
Jeff, I remember you saying at the first or second tribal council that you were shy, and because of that I was unable to figure you out in the premerge (despite being 100% on board with the Core Four). But after the merge hit, you were the funniest fucking guy I've ever played with, and an amazing ally to have. Wish we could've played together longer and raised hell <3
Everyone else, I'll get to you, just addressing the posts in this thread for now. Thanks for making these past few weeks so entertaining~
