Robb wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 11:06:35 am
Davie… I have no clue what your perception/opinion of me is, and I’m not sure I understand you as a person or player at all. Trying to give props to you over both Seb and Don feels like a big stretch, and I definitely see you as least likely to get my vote. The jury in general has surprised me, they’re not nearly as down on you as I expected, so if you actually start fighting for this and show us that you care, there might be some surprises in store. But do you care though?
The only people blindsided post-merge were Alec at F11, and Gabby/you at F7, if we don’t count the people getting voted out. The rest was either clear vote-outs, or unanimous votes, so I don’t think knowing what was happening is enough for me to vote you. Is it true you “worked constantly to maintain a small threat level”, or did you not working at all maintain that no-threat level?
Throughout this entire game, you employed what I call the 5-minute strategy. You’d come online right before a big event with your narrow-minded view of the state of the game, listen to someone that told you something worrisome, and run with it without trying to see the bigger picture.
First example of that – post-swap Fenassa and you taking that immunity due to some last-minute hearsay from Jed. You didn’t check in with anyone else to find out what the truth was (and well, it was never going to be you or Pat that night). Move on to F10, when you were in danger before it flipped on Pat. We tried getting a majority on Don, but it didn’t work. Next round, I came to you again, willing to work with you and saying I had been hearing your name a lot. I even admitted gunning for you over Pat, which was completely unnecessary for me to say, yet after that F10 you rejected any opportunity I gave you to change the direction of the game. Your 5-minute strategy was listening to whoever out of Alec/Gabby/Seb told you shit about me, and not even bothering to talk things through with me. You’d literally leave my messages on seen for 24-hour periods, and you didn’t send me a single message during the vote scramble at F7.
Please prove me wrong how any of that was savvy gameplay. Give me reason(s), individually for each of Seb and Don, why you should be crowned the winner over that person.
Robb, I felt that I was pretty upfront with you concerning my thoughts of you as a player, but I will gladly expand on them more. Coming into the merge, I was down to work with you; you had just lost your number one ally, Jed, on our tribe, and I felt pity for you on the way that ended. However, early in the merge I noticed a recurring pattern of information I told you coming back to me from other people. It occurred so often, I knew anytime I had to ask "Who told you that?" to someone that the answer would be "Robb." The final straw was after the Pat vote out, when I told you that I wanted Chelsea out. In a span of a few minutes, Chelsea came to me and said nearly word for word what I had told you about wanting her out. I played it off of course, but that was when I knew I had to cut you off (and I'll admit, it took a bit longer to decide on this than it should've). This is when I decided that no matter what I was thinking strategically, if you asked me about the game I would reply with a generic "PR" answer. I understand that this no doubt contributed to your view of me as a dunce, but I honestly feel that it's one of the things that kept me in the game. You had a reputation of spreading information, and it got to the point that I felt even if I wanted to make a "Big Move," it couldn't be done while you were still in the game because I knew you'd expose it.
Now, concerning your idea of the 5-minute strategy: 2 of the 5 nights we had challenges or tribal, I was at work, and I was very vocal about being at work during these, and still made it a point on these nights to participate as much as I possibly could. So yes, I will admit that on these nights I wasn't on as much as I wanted, just enough to get a general idea of the plan concerning the vote. But on the other nights, I made it a point to be online throughout the day, oftentimes hours before the challenge even began. I won't apologize for having a job and working to pay my rent and bills. I am, however, sorry that my participation in life outside this game has attributed to your view of me as an underserving player.
As far as my "narrow view of the game," is it possible you just think it's narrow because it didn't align with yours? Like I said, from early on I viewed you as an untrustworthy player. If you thought that coming to me and telling me you were gunning to vote me out should have made me decide to work with you going into Final 10 to "change the course of the game," then that's pretty silly. By this point you had already dug a pretty big hole for yourself, so any sort of attachment to you would've been just a bigger target for me, which is another reason why I avoided you. These are not opinions given to me by anyone, these are things I knew about you. I don't recall ever leaving you on read for more than 2-3 hours, but sorry about that.
Additionally, I will fully break down the Jed tribal council. Jed came to me moments before the challenge and said that even though I was in the bottom of the tribe, he liked me and wanted me around, so I needed to try my best to win. His words, not mine. So when the challenge was presented, I saw it as an excellent opportunity. The Fenassa tribe at that point was divided, with old Ahmar (yourself, Stephanie and Jed) as a strong alliance. At this point, I'd already made a good bond with Chelsea and viewed her as a good ally for pre-merge. So I knew that, in a situation where we lost, going to tribal council would be a gamble: either you guys were being truthful in saying I wasn't a target and Pat, Chelsea or Angela would get voted out, leaving me with one less possible number to go up against you guys; or you were lying to me and I was the target, and I would get voted out. So taking individual immunity and forcing our tribe to TC was an excellent way for me to guarantee safety for myself, plus I already had the perfect reason to do so in Jed's message. Presenting this decision as an emotional one rather than a strategic one allowed me to pin the target on Jed and break up your alliance, evening out the numbers on our tribe, plus we got to flush Stephanie's idol, and you even played the idol that none of us knew you had, and it overall put me in a much better position on the tribe than I was previously, whether I was the next target or not.
To answer your final question:
Donathan: I don't think you can diss me for having a "5-minute strategy" while not doing the same to Donathan, who literally showed up 5 minutes before tribal several times. I will admit that after Clay quit and Donathan was called the biggest goat, he became much more present, but I don't think that someone only playing the game for the last few rounds should deserve the win. I have been consistently playing the game the way I have, which is why I think I deserve a vote over Donathan.
Sebastian: I have already answered this somewhat, but basically, Sebastian's jury management method of being abrasive during tribals and then kissing up to whoever was voted out once the votes were read is dishonest. I don't think he's had as much of an impact on the game as he believes, whereas I have been very upfront about my awareness of my impact on the game and how it was done purposefully to maintain a small target and allow myself a spot in the final three.
Again, Robb, I've spent a lot of this game not trusting you. I'm sorry if that manifested itself in a way that made you feel I was ignoring or avoiding you, but I am a very non-confrontational person, so rather than calling you out for things I felt it was just easier to be short with you. I hope that this answer shows you how much thought and consideration I've put into this game, and you decide to give me your vote. But if not, I understand, and thanks for being a solid competitor.
