[Jeff Probst]

Davie, Donathan and Sebastian.

Here you can leave your Opening Statements to the jury. You have 24 hours to post them here. You cannot add to or edit your opening speeches so please draft them up separately and copy/paste after edits.

Good luck!

[Sebastian]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury! I am glad to see the 9 of you still in one piece! I hope all of you are well, and before I start my speech I just want to say that it has been a pleasure to get to know all of you personally. And I don't say that because I want your jury vote, I want to talk to all of you even if you do not vote for me. At the end of this the hosts will reveal our disocrd/reddit/whatever they found you from and I would love to continue to get to know each and every one of you. Without further a do here we go

Backstabber. Liar. Deal-breaker. Villain. Heartless. These are some of the lighter terms I'm sure the jury has used to describe me. I have no illusions about the kind of game I played. I did lie, I did break final two deal after final two deal, I did use relationships in a way that probably made some people feel "icky" for lack of a better word. So my goal tonight is to prove to you that I did all of this for game reasons and that...

I AM NOT A MONSTER

My goal tonight will be to prove to you, the jury, that I did the things I did not to be an ass- not to be a brutal overplayer; but to keep me safe and to give me a dominant position all game.

So I will try and skim over most of the original tribes/swap, but I find them somewhat important to my story.

THE JELLAL CHRONICLES

I started on Jellal in a bit of a disadvantageous position. Almost immediately a majority alliance of 4 with Kellyn/Chelsea/Brendan/Chris formed called the cool kids. How did I learn about it? Chelsea told me. One thing you might know about Chelsea is that they are from The Philippines and they have a big difference in time zones. So after all her American allies formed their little group, I stayed up late hours into the night forming a real bond (not just using her for a number) with her. On the first night, at around 1 am EST was my very first final two. We named ourselves the SEAWEED (Because I'm SEAbass, and she is ChelSEA). She exposed that entire group and pledged her loyalty to me. All the while, I exposed this alliance to Donathan. I used this information to form a bond with Don and form a final two with him as well (we were the bottom dwellers since we were on the bottom). With these close bonds, and with Angela on the outs, the vote flipped and I took control of Jellal.

THE SWAP

I entered the swap in a bit of a messy situation. Four original Fenessa's, I felt a tad bit outnumbered. My first bond started with Mike, we hit it off pretty well and he had confided in me his disdain for Natalie. This is where my game truly came to light. I formed a serious friendship with Alec/Mike/Gabby/Don/Kellyn. I was invited to 2 seperate five person alliances with the group of four of Gabby/Mike/Kellyn/Me with Alec/Don as a fifth. During this time on the swap tribe I formed a final two with Kellyn (called bonnie and clyde) and Gabby (called the Jonas Brothers). I had a lot of influence over who went home and we went for outsiders- Nat, Ghandia- easy boots. I wanted unity and bonds in this tribe entering the merge.

DROP YOUR BUFFS
We merge with a 7-6 number advantage. Good start. But I knew tribe dynamics meant nothing. More importantly, I entered with four ride or dies of Kellyn, Gabby, Don, and Chelsea (Important that I had connections on both tribes), and I entered with two very large shields of Mike and Alec. Along with that, I had a major connection to the games other biggest shield in Chelsea. On night one of the merge also came the Public Immunity Idol. I am going to make a bold assumption that most of the jurors decided that attempting to take that idol would plant too big a target on your back. I saw it another way. If I had an idol that everyone knew about, it is more likely that you need to split votes on me as opposed to voting me out in a regular fashion. Because of this, you needed a super majority and not just a regular majority to take me out. So I assumed so long as I had at least one connection on the other side of the tribe, I would always know when to play my idol and it would always be extremely difficult to make a move against me.

I learned an important lesson early on in this game. Those who pop their head up too high, get a shot their way. This game is all about one thing, and I can not stress it enough- TIMING. Four final two deals does not give you the liberty to do whatever you want. It is timing and connections that get you where you need to go. On the first round, we saw Steph as an easy boot. If I pushed harder for steph to go, I assume she goes. But where does that leave me? It puts me in the position of the "shot caller" as soon as the first vote. That was not the position I wanted to be in. So when Gabby, and more loudly Mike, had suggested Kellyn- against my personal feelings I decided to go with the crowd. Allowing Mike to be this "leader" was an important part of my strategy. The next boot was steph, who had sworn loyalty but similar to Kellyn- if I stuck my neck out I was toast. So once again, I cut my losses and let things go the way they went. I think Kellyn and Steph were strategists and loyal allies that I didn't happily see go, but it all paid off at the final 11. Gabby had admitted to me she was extremely close to Alec and we had both admitted to each other that we were using Mike as a shield. The swap Fanessa tribe had been airing concerns about being in the minority and being worried they may be picked off. So ultimately, me and Gabby were offered a plan to betray Mike and we took it. I used this betrayal as a stepping stone to regain the trust of multiple people, and solidify my position as the dominant strategic force in this game. After Mike had left, Alec felt all alone in this game. I came to him immediately to apologize, acting as if I had no control- blaming it all on Gabby and Donathan. I made him feel comfortable with trusting me for a couple more votes. I think this distinction of "a couple more votes" is extremely important because I had no doubt that Alec wasn't dumb enough to want to go to the end with me. But I didn't need him to want to go to the end with me, I just needed him to want to go near the end with me. I used this rekindling of a relationship to vote out Pat. Chelsea had said she was voting for Pat no matter what, and I had seen Pat as closer to Gabby than me, and also he repetitively asked about my idol to people. So I used Chelsea, threw her under the bus while I campaigned for him to go. I even acted really upset about it but said "well, there is nothing we can do now!"

The final nine was the turning point of this game. This was the moment I took control. Robb was after me, I was after him. It was time to see who beat who. The answer would have been me, but clay unexpectedly quit after the results of immunity. This was the most exposed I was all game. I still trusted Chelsea, but Robb most likely had an idol. We needed an unexpected vote. I proposed Angela. I didn't think she would see it coming, and it protected my final two deal of Chelsea (along with that, Angela was a comp beast and no where near my end game plans). Now step in final 7 Robb wins immunity again like the beast he is. I know Alec isn't taking me to the end, I know Chelsea would. Chelsea is the worlds biggest shield, while Alec is starting to listen to less of my influence. Me, Chelsea, Donathan, and Robb all come together for one last blindside this season. It was sheer luck that he had an idol- I really had no idea. I had a feeling he had something because after I tipped him off that he might get votes, he repeatedly asked if he was in danger. But in all honesty, that was one of the luckiest points in my game.

We get to the final six and Gabby is hurt, Robb has an idol and immunity, and people weren't going to vote my way. I campaigned to Robb to save Chelsea for one more vote- get out Gabby. But it was to no avail, I knew it wouldn't work. I had also at this time solidified a final three deal with Robb in the event that he won immunities for the rest of the game. I had to vote out Chelsea to save face. I would have prefered Gabby 6th, Robb 5th, and Chelsea 4th. But unfortunately this did not happen how I had hoped because Robb had a lot of power left in the game. At final five the unluck I had at clay quitting at the final nine had been repaid. Robb missed the challenge, he missed the vote. It wasn't the fairest way to end the last bit of competition in my game, but it is how it happened. It isn't my proudest moment to have asked jeff repeatedly to speed up the challenge knowing what the results would be. Gabby was taking me to the end, Don was taking me to the end. Robb might have taken me to the end, but he had lied to me about having an idol after I had asked many times so I could not take his word. The final four happens and I talk to Davie "you look like Gabby's slave, she needs to be cut if we have a chance at jury." He agreed. Don was already on board to do it fifth but I was not compromising, this is my game not his. And with that, I cut the last of my final twos. Probably the hardest vote I had to do but easily the most necessary to prove to this jury I acted independently and could do whatever it took to win.

FINISHING THOUGHTS

So that is how I played the game from my perspective. I cut a lot of people, but I think the results show for themselves. I received no votes against me all game. I am the only one in the final three who always voted in the majority (even during the splitvote oddly enough but that was more luck of the draw). I had considerable influence during the middle and end of the game. I always knew what was going on. All of my final deals for the most part didn't know that the other deals existed (I would even joke to Gabby about not knowing who Davie or Don, pretending to forget their existence in the game). I played the most aggressive social game out of the three finalists. And I did not need a single competition to get here, nor did I need to correctly play my idol to get here.

Hopefully I can answer some questions, let you in on some aspects you guys are confused about. And I hope this speech wasn't too long, I am a bit of a rambler.

[Davie]

I'll keep this shorter because I don't want it to seem like I'm repeating myself when it comes to answering questions. Ok guys, so I'm not going to sit here and claim that I made “BIG MOVES” to get here or anything like that. I've been aware of my gameplay all throughout this game, and while I understand it might not've been the most flashy game, I do feel it was very consistent. I maintained an under-the-radar game, gathering information from everyone I could and constantly weighing my options. I was nearly always knew how a vote would go going into tribal, the only time I was truly blindsided was when Alec was voted out. Despite knowing how the votes would go, I'm one of the only players who wasn't afraid to write someone else's name down and break the monotony of the near-constant unanimous vote outs we had post-merge. In the second round of the merge, I voted for Clay even though I knew Stephanie was going home. Eventually, I realized that the unanimous votes were actually beneficial to me; the “big targets” ended up cannibalizing themselves and I was able to snag a final 3 spot way before we were even close to the end.
Everything I've done is this game has been calculated and thought through. I've worked constantly to maintain a small threat level and get to this seat. I made it here without ever winning individual immunity or having an idol, and I still only received two votes against me the whole time and was never in major danger. No matter what has been said, I was never anyone's minion, and ultimately I only had loyalty to myself. I'm ready to answer your guys' questions and prove that to you.

[Donathan]

Hi everyone!!!!! I’m so excited to finally get to talk to you all it’s literally been so weird coming on everyday and having one less person to talk to!! I feel like I’ve made so many new friends and we all have this amazing shared experience that no one else in our lives understand so this connection is for real and I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else...except maybe like someone who’s a rich elderly man who has no next of kin and is looking for someone to give all his money to but who knows maybe one of you will reveal that’s the case and we’ll live happily ever after!

Anyway let’s get down to it!! idk what kind of questions i might get if any so i’m probably just going to ramble on and over explain everything so this might be excessively long but please give me the benefit of the doubt and give me a chance to explain from my point of view and i’m going to do my best to make this legible and attempt to use punctuation but no promises!!!!

I am not made for this game. Nothing about me or who i am as a person points to the fact that i should be good at this game naturally... in fact on paper i probably sound like an easy first boot and it looked like that was a real possibility when my tribe went to the first tribal council…. I get overwhelmed easily, i’m shy, i’m awkward, and im the pinnacle of self doubt so when this game started going at 100 mph it felt like i was destined to fall behind….. What i have going for me is that i’m perceptive, I’m self aware, and I’m a bitch who won’t give up if there’s something i want. So i put into action the game that i know that i could play and that was making relationships with a few people that i could leverage and make it work for me…

sebastian and i immediately clicked on the first day but.when i saw that there was a majority of the tribe that didnt feel that way about me i needed another way in and instead of trying to stir the pot or make some big unnecessary move that would have blown up on me, i took the smarter approach and i went to chelsea and i just talked to her for 2 hours. Even if she didnt want to talk to me at the start of the conversation and was just trying to be polite i knew that by the end of that conversation she was going to know who i was and there was going to be a bond that would give me an inroad in this game. At the start of the day i was on the bottom of the tribe and by the end of it i was the tuareg, cancelled out brendans vote, voted in the majority and had people who were willing to work with me that set myself up for the rest of the game. It was deliberate and it was thought out it didn’t happen randomly I had a plan and i implemented it and it worked.

Fast forward and we swap and it’s time to do it all over again. Mike and I bonded over what it’s like being in long distance relationships and I used real human connections and my desire to get to know people beyond just this game that kept me from being on the outside of the tribe. Was i in the drivers seat? No i’m not delusional and i’m not trying to take credit for the moves that you all on the jury made but i found myself in the majority and i didnt just sit there and take orders. I used that safety in numbers to work on my relationships with people. When I found out that Kellyn and Mike were concerned that I would jump ship at merge and go over to work with chelsea and angela i didn’t start a fight, I went to them and I said hey let’s all go into our alliance chat and i played into the fact that we had to stick together and when kellyn was beating in the fact that “Five people together can take a group far” i knew what she was getting at and I was making sure that they thought i was being receptive. I also used that opportunity to fortify my relationships with one of my favorite moments in this game where Kellyn and Gabby and Mike and Sebastian we had a conversation about LGBT issues and I opened up about my life and let you see who I am as a person and Kellyn I came to you after and we talked about where you came from and how that shaped you as a person and it was real and raw and amazing and that’s what my game was...I wanted to fall in love with everyone and in return have you feel that love from me which would translate into game relationships.

Come merge a lot of you know that I had to step away from the game more than I would have liked but I set myself up with a foundation with the relationships that I made that allowed me to not be in any real danger even if I wasn’t able to be there as much as I wanted to be. Those were the cards that I were dealt so I had to play with what I got and I saw that all the players who were playing outspoken and big games like Kellyn, Steph and Mike were all leaving at the start of the merge so I played into the nonthreatening naivety role of “I’m just a chill stoney dude” (as robb once described me) and that is who i am but i hyped it up so that I could stay out of the spotlight and work on my style of gameplay without a target on me.

Okay….this is getting excessive so i’ll just try and go to highlights sorry lmao…. But im not really sorry because this means a lot to me and i want to win and i want you all to understand how much thought i put into this game because it might not have come across.. Anyway lmao highlights from now on lets go… f7 alec leaves with an idol which was huge..both alec and gabby were on high alert because robb told them that there was a fenassa vs jellal thing going on for the vote and that could have been terrible but i made sure to hammer in the fact that “robb can’t be trusted, i can be trusted, we have a relationship, i’m with you, we got this” and despite being a part of the mike blindside i had rebuilt my relationship with alec and i played my part in that vote out that led to alec feeling safe enough despite hearing otherwise to not play his idol and leave and i can’t take full credit for the move itself because there were 7 moving parts with everyone doing their part in pushing their own agenda and making shit happen but that was a highlight of my social maneuvering for sure………….

Final 5 is when according to the narrative that best suits sebastians game is that i “had an outburst because i didn’t get my way” but that is so far from what my truth of that situation was… i knew that robb was going because sebastian had told me he was locked in on that vote and i wasn’t mad about it because robb was a HUGE threat beyond just challenges i mean he was socially and strategically a force in this game so i wasn’t pissed that i was losing the opportunity to go against him in the finals but for so long my game was hidden and in private one on one conversations with people that i knew i needed to be heard and for my game to be seen. I didn’t throw a tantrum or be emotional about it i laid out the all the strategic reasons behind what i was saying and was pushing a narrative that i was an independent thinker and not a follower because thats just the tea baby! I knew that because sebastian and i worked so closely throughout the game and he was being seen as the bigger player of us two i needed to separate myself from that image even if the vote didn’t go “my way”.....I planted the seeds about the threat that was gabbys game and called out the fact that davie would be seen as an automatic vote for gabby so that he would feel compelled to want to do something to change that image in case i needed his vote and i made sure that i was heard which set me up for success going into the final 4 where i did my thing and got myself here to plead my case to you all…….

I know that the perception of my game might leave you saying who??? What he do??? But i know who you all are because i built relationships with you all (except steph and pat sorry!!!) and you know who i am too and that was the core of my game i don’t what else to say at this point so i’m open to hearing your questions i want you all to have the best and well rounded idea of my story so fire away but


PS here a fun smoking game take a hit everytime i said the word “relationship” in that rambling then reread it and maybe it will make more sense!