long consciousness of thought at 1 am listening to lofi gl <3
RIP Urshifu Psypsypsypsypsythe
- from Janzen over discord
ok so my initial biggest question was going to be simply just how much do you care about winning this game. But you have covered it in your speech and other answer to brandon. I'll drop my other two questions for you to answer at your leisure, and have one general question I'll drop in the thread. Fyi I'm gonna be driving home and may not see them or have follow up until tomorrow.
i think i mentioned this earlier, but in a gigantic game like this, pregame relationships were inevitable where a lot of people intrinsically know each other due to past games, past friendships, and other instances of interaction and meta knowledge. it was part of the game in the worst way possible but it’s not exactly something that you can dodge. that being said, i do feel like my strongest relationships (tommy, vooper, clouds) came from positional relativity [alone member who wasn’t part of s16/anti-eimm notions circulating on separatists by iirc dyo, the best reach out i got to a tribe member on the opposite side for game info, another person who was being set up as a big threat at the time of early-midmerge + we could effectively work/protect together for a few votes] and not entirely because it furnished because of such out of game relationships.
i will admit i think subliminally i did lean on it, but this is mainly due to the context of the game where this mattered a lot were legitimate game reasons i found allies in them and other close friends on discord that were in this game for me i would have voted out in a heartbeat (and have!)
that being said, psy was an incredible relationship for me because we had grown super close during separatists on the outs- while we floated in and out during merge they were able to confirm multiple things of what they were approached to do on certain votes (f15 flip approach in the same spot, f14 post flip telling me immediately, f12 when i learn they’re part of the vote on torin fairly early (and then i get let know before deadline that this isn’t happening)) allowing me to stay safe and after a disconnect over another ally (vooper, because we were planning a psy vote at 11 and it leaked) at 10 we end up planning a vote to save them and go for zoa, and at 9 end up voting together again (as clouds becomes overwhelmed by the amount of people telling him they’re voting torin LOL) - despite this disconnect and we gun for each other at 8, i would say we had a productive and solid ingame relationship throughout separatists (where i tried to convince the rest of the tribe thinking it was 7 making merge to include them too) to mid merge and did things that benefitted us both!
-despite this, and because of my high profile it was highly in my mind that there were other moments where i felt that people would vote with me or consider me as someone to keep around one way or another due to an ingame situation. im not going to talk about zach and tbz but i wasn’t really early allies with tbz in the merge and zach was more openly gunning for me - so im going to name individual moments
-on cyber, even after i fucked over his tribe on diplomats, brandon alerted me as soon as he could that Zoa was heavily considering putting me up for big brother and did his best to shut it down. this was something i could not have achieved if i wasn’t able to reconnect with him at that point after damaging him on an early tribe
-throughout cyber and separatists, i got close with ryo (and then i realized i needed to dissuade my game for other separatists would likely take credit moreso than prior) who alerted me about multiple alliances and groupings that would potentially form and dissuaded my fear of ranking 6th on that tribe originally. this would also lead him to leak important details such as a key VC that the S16 players used in separatists in order for me to realize what groupings i should expect and where to position myself on the onset of merge [and unrelated reassured me that i could push dyo + while i was very open about it to people such as brandon ryo and torin in the tribe other people seemed to want dyo anyway so it was irrelevant]
-torin, while we didn’t have the strongest relationship throughout the game, was able to reconcile for a few votes imo as we were realizing that we would be cut quite soon mid-late merge and keeping me around would be beneficial at that point.
-i was willing to vote w separatists on most early votes at merge, instead of flipping to the army alliance formed like 5 minutes in gg
of course not! so here’s a precursor you have to assume when reading their speeches and responses:
-separatists having a one number lead on loyalists was HUGE. this basically, and obviously, dictated the flow of the opening votes of merge and basically led to favorable situations for each of the separatists as boring shit happened constantly and pagonging happened yadda yadda. idt tbz is here currently (or might not even show up lol) but i would argue that in context of the early merge there was no reason for separatists to step out of their comfort box as the votes kept rolling in - especially for players such as ryo and tommy who had found nesting in a group and did not feel like they needed to think about the game more so than keeping people together in the early merge and going from there. the “shots” that anyone can claim from basically 15/14/12 were literally just set up by the tribe dynamics at the time, which is ridiculous to claim power for at the time.
but distinctly, i tried to take initiative by reaching out to set up for a later flip (as i think that not only the game would have been more interesting, but i was in a decent-good spot in seps but not exactly in the top where people with stronger connections would have immensely benefitted from especially with people growing concerned of me flipping to the other side bc they had approached me). this would lead me to get
new, secure information and most importantly,
options with the best information at hand, something neither of them had the pleasure to have
-what Tommy is doing at this FTC, and I’ll be answering that in Psy’s question later below!
The only major change to the status quo prior that could be made was the mat/clouds vote, because they wanted clouds but I wanted mat - and so i could literally go out there and say that tommy and ryo wanted clouds out as fuck at 12 whereas I wanted him in and that makes me the mastermind and they’re both my goats af (lol), but at the end of the day, nobody was even considering or rather being approached to flipping except for me, psy, and totter at any of these votes but one way or another (or bc 12 flopped) the status quo was what people felt best maintaining at the time. so like what shots are you even tying in as yours, cuz duh i was voting them too??
So for as much as they say “yeah I COULDVE taken out eli or did something to harm his game LOLLL” it’s kind of a ridiculous argument because I was the one getting approached to flip basically every fucking vote during the early merge and I stayed the course believing I made moves that best suited my game. There was no effort because people, plainly, didn’t try as hard as me to make a bridge between both tribes happen! Even if people were voting or making plans with Tommy or Ryo or whatever Sep on the other side they would always ask me first because I knew the information and I was always reaching out and correcting them if they were misled to believe someone else would flip early merge, because I knew where all the votes landed at pretty much every vote starting merge - and who exactly was lying about flipping, and who was flipping, and who was doing panic shit at the last minute that might’ve changed some votes such as “is it janzen or mat” at 14 and Psy/totter flipping/or if it’s mat or clouds/ last ditch efforts by others like Zoa/to save Torin at 12 in order to stay the course for votes I wanted. These were not agencies either Tommy or Ryo were entitled to, unless I would say it myself or the rare time either would be contacted for anything.
We also don’t really know how F11 goes due to Vooper quitting and it’s unfortunate, but I also don’t think both can really say that “eli’s social game was trashed!!” bc i ended up getting a pocket in loyalists anyway, learn about the advantages they hold to use for better so like that’s not the case right LOL like Tommy literally asked me “please can we work together before like nothing happened” and literallt everyone in 10 believed I was voting with them so i think i did a pretty good job of fixing that myself
F10 was my baby and call 100% and while tommy said he wanted to do it originally (as we both wanted to), he put no effort into making sure this happened other than saying he would, and that he wouldn’t vote with Ryo because that’s not ominous at all LMAO wtf as he claims Ryo was his ride or die. I made the alliance of Zoa voters and convinced them, I worked with clouds to make sure psy was never going and he flipped and the vote was a tie vote, and under the bs of the other side getting cagey, I convinced the other side, who thought I wasn’t flipping to not play their idol, and I convinced tommy to stop wavering and press the hammer on zoa. Even if Tommy argues he could have flipped - like okay LOL firstly he likely never ever did so as he thought it was a necessary evil, additionally the game changes to a point where the threats become different so it’s really hard to say how that would’ve impacted my game as survivor is a game of parallel universes - secondly if he was leading the vote zoa would likely have idoled because idt he had the quick thinking to realize zach was going insane that vote, which is why he was very insistent at taking totter out during the last hour but I kept saying “no, this vote will work listen to me”. guess what!! it did!!
if you want to talk about a vote such as 9, tommy initially wanted someone like zach or clouds (and i wanted Zach) but didn’t end up achieving this. Ryo somehow decides Totter is his best vote even after voting with him for like half the game so I’ll just leave that one for you guys to comment on. I don’t think the way it played out mattered (for reasons I will explain later) Unless clouds shows up and confirms otherwise (bc i did tell him that I was voting torin, which leads to maj on torin) I both do think flushing his idol was a group effort, nor do I think flushing his idol was exactly A BIG GAMECHANGING MOVE!!
because like literally, clouds had a known idol, and enough people wanted to vote him at the time so they could get away with splitting votes. I can’t say if I would’ve voted Clouds at the time of 8 or 7 currently but I could have considered it, and I believe everyone else barring Torin wanted him gone anyway so it’s not like they would have needed me regardless. So whether or not whoever wants to claim the idol flush for 9, the vote was kind of irrelevant when it came to the pace of the game and how much Ryo, Tommy, and TBZ wanted to stick together at that point to
make it to the end.
(I do admit that I was receiving major dental surgery an hour to deadline and this game decided to pick their votes an hour to deadline, so I was pretty ambivalent with the result but was OK with where I was voting at the time (especially because I was literally added to the chat where Tommy tbz and ryo were vcing and forming their F3 pact but could not call att))
additionally like, all these factors and more increased my threat level to the point where i arguably, really had just done more than either in merge at that point. i abused my connection to loyalists and separatists well to remain in good graces and people still like, trusted me LMAO when they probably really shouldn’t have?? I also ran an entire vote mostly by myself, which actually did have long term ramifications on the rest of the game while the only other major vote at the time was 9 which didn’t given the alternative situation that might have happened, based on what endgames most people were thinking of.
So here we reach the point where I get recognized as a big threat at the time - because clearly yes I’ve played a pretty killer game up to this point and people recognize I outplayed and set up 10 while also being able to convince people that I would work with them.
so of course when 8 rolls around people start thinking about their big threats right? im good with clouds, Tommy, maybe tbz by extension of ryo and tommy being close to each other, maybe Zach and psy, I just voted Torin and I think I’ve burned ryo enough to where he might not want me around.
firstly ryo certainly doesn’t want to make it to the end with me, and, well, for Tommy:
I’m going to take a segue to answer @Psypsypsypsypsythe’s question because I think it intrinsically ties to my response to Janzen’s question and it’s probably a good read regardless.
Tommy has a pretty solid game! I think that I would never say that the either had control over the other, because that would insinuate that there is blind willingness to follow each other and to trust in someone’s alllies no matter what. We both were fast allies on Separatists and tipped control a lot and worked together because he was in a spot that made it very convenient for us to become allies. Quite in fact, our biggest divot was when he felt after F12 I had abused his trust (and while he claims it’s because he was so generous and benevolent that I was in a good spot again, it is not that because literally everyone else in the game thought I was working with them the vote after LOLLLL)
From talking to Tommy he felt very unsafe in this game. It’s not that he wasn’t safe, but he kept parading that he hated making hard decisions and he was worried people would cut him, and that he felt way too loyal to people like Ryo, TBZ, and me to cut them. This of course, got out when he determined that his FTC of Ryo, Tommy, TBZ and me should reach the end - and people obviously started knowing about it because Ryo, Tommy, and TBZ were a very blatant trio starting F9/F8 (and all of them had individual connections that were good to each other that were known to the rest of the game).
This would then get sent into discussion that he was playing for someone in his F4 to win, which he would say multiple times to people and that would get out and people would recognize that he wasn’t playing for a him win, he was playing for someone else’s win. This would lead him to very likely making FTC because people assumed that he was just going to sleepwalk through this game and basically goat one of his allies for a W to be someone there. He’s expressed this multiple times in game.
But it’s not true. He wants to win. He’s just very okay with losing to any of us.
So as much as Tommy will tell you that this was his best shot and that I am his goat and parroted him or some shit (which I explained earlier) LOL this is not the case, and I think you can find it evident in what it seems like the other questions people are asking are.
Because here’s the thing about Tommy you should know: he’s pretty smart! He can do things that make sense. His positioning late game allowed him to make decisions that benefitted him and increased his shot in making the end, because if he shows up to some other FTC he likely gets the credit that I might
But again, Tommy is perfectly fine losing to any of us, because we were all pretty good to him and (knowing him personally) he really fucking hates making hard cuts, and in a game like Survivor He obviously wants to win, but you can just take a look and see ingame that Tommy’s easiest FTC becomes very quick and easy should he recognize to work with other floaters better such as Psy and Totter and Zach. This is obviously the angle he’s not playing up because it’s FTC, and he’s being heavily aggressive about it and claiming pregame or gaslighting or that I’ve done literally nothing or some shit because he’s trying to get people to not vote me as he figures that is his best shot and vote him because duh, who doesn’t want to win after 3 months of playing. Whereas ingame he never had the same reservations.
You also just get to that point where Tommy and I have literally talked about the fact that we might split votes because we were such a tight duo. Him being under the radar and pretending he didn’t care gave him a bit of agency because he was in a known trio of TBZ/Ryo and a duo in myself, yet some of that trio was basically guaranteed FTC at that point including him in the eyes of public perception. It makes sense for him to cut me at any point after 10 - 8 and 6 being particularly egregious, considering Ryo and TBZ wanted to take him to FTC and had an advantage to do so.
I do think we both had the opportunity to influence the another’s fate in the game. We were pretty good allies, and it’s really hard to cut someone like that. Additionally, it so ended up that we would likely make FTC together if we made it because my game basically around 10/9 was much flashier than his and I established more fiscal relationships with people that led them to approach me to flip at votes such as 15/14/12/9 and obtained tons of information, whereas he was comfortable sitting in the Separatists circle. The opportunities I had ended up having more instrumental decisions and result led my own fate and made sure I could decide my impact on a vote to vote basis. This is not inherently tied to his control in the game, because he was loyal to 3 people and was seen as someone people wanted at the end anyway.
So when u consider that yes, someone who is your ally but also a shield based on perceived resume, it’s also probably important to be thinking about how much they could beat u at FTC. Tommy and I felt that the others had votes that the other could siphon if the other was gone. And given his position of likelihood to make FTC he clearly could have cut me because I was more apparent at the time - but he didn’t want to.
Despite that, when you talk about votes such as 8 and 6, both Ryo and Tommy argue that their involvement in staying in the game was their own choice. Tommy insists he made the vote happen, but I don’t necessarily think that he made my survival happen. TBZ was more than willing to vote Torin both times, and Clouds and Torin recognized that it was likely that they would go next if I were to go at 8, no matter past history. The latter two could have flipped on me, entertaining my position in the game as a clear FTC threat and taking it to the end. This would’ve been the wrong choice for them, and I did my best to explain why letting me stay was the right one.
Ryo and Tommy keeping me - I feel at both times a was the wrong choice either way. You can’t really say they dictated my fate, but you’re already getting conflicting answers where Ryo owns up and says that my game wasn’t great so yeah me winning FIC is fine (despite this he didn’t want me at the end and openly thought he would lose to me), and Tommy says he convinced everyone to keep me so now I’m his goat or something (which isn’t true for reasons I’ve explained but also ??? What LOL). Because you have to either assume that one of them is just overplaying their game or flat out lying, and that if ANYONE flipped (TBZ, Clouds, or Torin included) yeah I was gone. I just did my best to convince them to keep me - and they all wanted me around. This is not a Tommy thing. This is a me thing.
Despite this, I think Tommy is going to start walking in with like “oh well I wanted you around because I could beat you” but like, if you cut me you probably just get votes that other people aren’t having to think of giving to me and you’ve played an utr either way but now at best we are splitting votes from your perspective?? At best we are a duo that do different things?? I cannot fathom for why the sake of Tommy’s ideal FTC it’s best to keep me, but I suppose I certainly convinced him to, because I set up my early-mid merge and position well to basically solo carry huge move at 10 and maintain a lot of relationships with the other tribe and be able to pitch myself to the other threats to stay. His insistence to keep this FTC (for what I really do gather is more personal reasons) and explain it as entirely game reasons in an effect to undermine my entire game and scream HES MY GOAT 20x over because he clearly didn’t have a bombass early-mid merge feels like, way more effort than if he just cut me earlier and takes one of the people he “decided he needed to vote earlier” bc people wanted him at the end to beat him and now he would only have to fight against Ryo, TBZ and probably someone else with a worse overall resume than I have.
Even in earlier parts of the game, I feel like I was a pretty key part in making sure he wasn’t an insta boot on separatists by grouping him with me to people on the outs like Psy and Blakers and also to others like Ryo who grew to love him. This made it easier for him to get integrated, and settle into a merge tribe where he stayed completely loyal to the Seps until I ended up pulling the Zoa vote myself and convincing him to not target Totter, who recently flipped off of seps LOL. At 9, Totter was an incidental play that was bad for Ryo and OK for Tommy, who was parading that he wanted to go to the end with me/Ryo/TBZ because he felt super bad cutting them, but the idol play didn’t really matter that much and wasn’t much as his as I personally felt as it was a bunch of pressure, which included from myself because to me it didn’t matter too much who went here given how the votes lied from my perspective (i was voting with TBZ and Psy again or i get to do what I did at 8)
With this lax, under the radar play in mind, and this visible trio sticking too loyal to themselves, Tommy was likely given FTC and as people who are likely given FTC do they have a certain amount of influence of taking people with them as the onus is on them to get the best fight for themselves. So I think I should’ve rightfully gone at 8 or 6, and Tommy was basically guaranteed FTC with that in mind. And now we have a more entertaining and probably harder FTC for him!
Distinctly, if you feel that is control that is on you, I think. I personally don’t see our relationship as tied to one upping the other, because the way we decided our votes and made our decisions did not intrinsically rely on the other goating for us. I do think Tommy had the luxury of being more likely to make FTC, but that is because he actively did less earlier in the game and downplayed his care in the game in order to be in such a spot. But if you’re in this position, I don’t get why for the sake of your FTC you don’t just cut the visible threats. I do think I was in a good spot and I actively convinced Tommy to do and say strong on things such as 10, where as the result of 9 was incidental, 8 was him deciding to keep me because he didn’t want to cut me, but also a factor of me pitching my ass off and so more people decided me around besides Zach and Psy (TBZ voted to save face) and 6 was due to more people wanting Torin anyway (but I had to personally pitch to TBZ and Ryo) - though they probably shouldn’t have because I would’ve been out at 5.
Despite it all, everybody but Tommy didn’t want me at FTC for whatever reasons you would like to believe and I likely would’ve been voted out if I didn’t win 5, whereas everyone past 8 basically recognized they would go with him and that they had a chance (or didn’t really care about who did, in the form of Clouds/Torin/myself)
(this ends my answer to psy)
I think I touched on F8/F6 already enough - F8 was a combination of me pitching and people individually deciding (Clouds and Torin knowing that we need each other as threats, Ryo and Tommy saying they kept me himself, and TBZ willing to vote Torin first beside me) they wanted to take other people out, then me first.
F7 I didn’t particularly mind who went as much as I wanted to keep clouds, and everyone in the game wanted Clouds gone, so, like yeah!
F5 was because Tommy and TBZ were loyal to Ryo. I did want Zach in, but I think Ryo blundered his game enough to where I felt that I had a good shot at the end anyway. But points to Ryo here I think!
Regardless, Ryo was in a good spot all things considered! He sat in a majority alliance with people ready to beckon him - but instead of siccing allies like zach and totter, who realized he was good enough to remain part of his game to get the votes they wanted he managed to sac them instead, and now finds himself at an FTC desperately telling people to vote Tommy over me because he’s better allies with Tommy and realized he made a bad choice by not fighting for a different last slot with the power he could have had. Ryo is a good player who had a good way of finding allies, but made bad choices, which ultimately led him to not getting what he wanted (me out)
(as an aside actually think Ryo and Tommy had more similar games and one is more likely to be the others goat because they linked up hella early into merge anyway, so consider that what you will!)
Meanwhile, I used all the hands I was dealt in a productive way that got me recognized as a large threat to remain in the end - and now I’m here when I really shouldn’t be despite me really should’ve being voted for two cycles.
and none of this is me saying either is MY goat because that’s… not true at all, i just think that with perception in mind it’s realistic that individual votes can’t be intrinsically tied to one personal player, and that my opportunities and seeds I had set for myself to SURVIVE were as a result of my actions in this game - nobody could individually carry me in this aspect
I just found out I can use these emojis I love this wtf
