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Shadoweh
- Posts:
- 134
- Group:
- Floridian
- Member
- #23
- Joined:
- Jul 3, 2016
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Hello for one last time! I thought this would be brief when I started. I mentioned my thoughts take a long time to focus. Having had a lot of time to think, I have a lot of things left to say. First off, thank you to everyone who was involved. I had a blast and there could not have been a cast of more diverse and fun people to experience partying with. Including the mods, who endured my screaming at them about the Wheel of Immunity with happy troll faces, and my fellow finalist who has been an excellent companion throughout the game. I still miss every one of you knowing we'll be talking in a few days again.
I've talked a lot about myself these last two days. I regret that there are so many things I've done that I'm surprised you didn't know. The nature of my personality is to keep my intentions hidden from the public eye and let others assume what they want while forming private bonds. This is the part where you should know what my thoughts were on the way. The theme of your questioning has coalesced around a few subjects. First, why was I dead-set on staying loyal to Bella? Second, what did I, Shadoweh, do in this game besides pair with Bella? Finally, what about those things I did makes I, Shadoweh, more qualified to win then Haschel? I would not be satisfied if I could not answer these questions for you. So allow me this time to make my answers clear.
First, Bella was not a danger to me. If Bella were here, I thought she'd win. I thought this game could be different, but the way she talked while Lambda was eliminated made me realize it would be the same. She's just too darn likeable. I knew the kind of game she was playing because I played this third place game as Wasabi. I'm aware how frustrating it was when you wanted to stop her but I wouldn't vote her. Because I already knew she wouldn't win. You can't win as a popular threat unless someone is willing to give up everything for you. This is why I believed Bella would not eliminate me, because it seemed like I would. It was not in my best interests to eliminate what I saw as the perfect shield, except at the last second. Really, my biggest motivation for taking her would have been not wanting to give the other finalist a sliver of a chance of winning at all.
Second, I played to my agenda of not striking first. I had plans. I affected not having an agenda while influencing how eliminations went. I also believe in comparison I did this better then Haschel. My plan was not to seek out reasons to fight, but let them come to me and retaliate. I try to play like a willow that bends but never breaks when you try to snap it. My patience allows me to only do things I have reason for and to explain clearly why I want others to do the same. I believe it benefitted me throughout the game.
Rory voted with me effectively to save my partner over his after Coup when he didn't have to and Haschel didn't want it. Jason wanted New Orleans to vote each other and I told Drench and Hiplop where the confusion was coming from. Daniel was more a casualty of tribal war, I asked about votes to save him but determined there wasn't enough motivation compared to working with the girls. Cody was the choice of least resistance and the boys were too worried to argue for him. Rory was quietly divorcing me for other people and I argued for those two nominations to happen, more on that later.
Jess and Dan together were threatening to me, but apart Dan was closest to me and I felt Jess might act the same. By not betraying them when they had done nothing to me, a long-term threat was eliminated with Hiplop's blame falling on Haschel and Bella, not me.
Lambda had told me her no-nomination promise with Haschel. I suspected if she stayed it could become Lia/LLD/Hash vs Shadow/Dan. Bella would continue working with me regardless. I regret that this happened the most because out of everyone Lambda had done the least to me.
I probably overreacted with Dan. But this was the third time something had happened. First was when he shot at Saratoga during Space Ranger without telling me. Second was when he told me Jess was strongarmed and upset over Coronado's decisions to vote xofelf and send Saratoga to TC when she wasn't. Continuing to deceive me to keep his options open meant he wanted an option that wasn't me. You are such a clever troublemaker and I think it would have looked bad on me if I let you get away with it.
Bernkastel already told me she'd vote Haschel and voted me instead once. If that hadn't happened I might have considered she would take me. I wouldn't have minded that. Instead we talked a lot about it. And in the end Bella made the argument she shouldn't go to FTC herself.
The only changes I would have made to what happened are Bernkastel not lasting so darn long and Jess lasting longer. The Wheel was not good to me, but I worked around it and was involved in every round in a way that benefited me going forward while Haschel was doing things that benefited me, in my opinion more then him at times, and playing the part I wanted him to.
Finally, I was not afraid to fight for what I wanted while Haschel played it safe.
Kelly is a nice person. But I do not want him to win this game. He talked about how he found a new partner in Rory, went out of his way to make peace with Lia and LLD, made up with Dan, and wanted to steal my partner from me. What he has to show for those bonds is he voted every single one of you out over me when he didn't have to. It's ridiculously easy to stay in the majority because it's giving in to what everyone else wants to do. Mechanical and safe. Where I struck back at those who struck me, my perception of Hash was someone who would only strike if his playbook told him to. There were numerous times I fought for what I believed in and he didn't.
Early on I made sure Haschel wasn't picked as the solo to slay, despite him not talking to LLD/Lia. This wasn't particularily hard because Bella, Hiplop and I combined agreed not to agree to it. Drench's elimination snapped back into place solidly for basically this reason.
Lambda told me she wanted to nominate Bella and Rory and I immediately pushed hard for her to nominate her own partner for betraying her instead, as did Hiplop. I wasn't willing to let my partner leave the game over someone else's drama nonsense. I even argued for Jess to be the replacement over Bella so she couldn't be blindsided. Haschel was assured he was safe by LLD and looking at his size-up of this round, I don't know if it occured to him to tell her Rory had no idea what was going on to try and keep him safe as well, he just took safety and dropped his 'new partner'. You can argue it wouldn't have worked but before that round began I wouldn't have thought LLD would nominate Lia either, and she voted Jess next anyways. He didn't feel the need to try.
I helped Haschel win immunity in Ghost! In a way that unambiguously told Lambda I'd chosen her over him. And boy was she upset with me for it. I meant what I said about wanting to win, but also if he won the pairs couldn't 'compromise'. I'm disappointed I wasn't able to shenanigan in challenges more, it's my favorite thing.
Haschel and Lambda told me they wanted Jess out for being Hiplop's second vote. I knew Bella was upset with Jess for putting her in danger. I still said no. I told them I wanted Lia in no uncertain terms and we could get Jess later. If there was a chance that someone who hadn't wronged me could survive the round over someone openly plotting against me, I wasn't going to miss it just because it'd be safer to agree. I don't regret trying.
I don't agree with Haschel that betraying Lambda over me was better for him, but it was also tactless. After she'd made a pact to keep him safe and voted out his enemy, I expected him to want to return the favor. On my part, well. Lia asked me why I was willing to sacrifice myself for my partner. The question I wanted to ask back was, why did you think I would just die? I keep my sarcasm hidden for a reason. <3
Haschel also didn't have to put on a show for me. I had no choice but to work with him because he was immune. From the jury that behaviour from my allies annoys me the most. It clearly didn't work at the time either.
I've already said my piece on Dan, but if he hadn't done that I wouldn't have been willing to vote him. Either Bella would vote with me or we'd split the vote and see what happened.
I don't think Kelly would have tied the F4 for anyone, because he was too afraid of not having immunity and being targetted for voting 'wrong'. Kelly told me during the F6 he wouldn't chance fire-making because he didn't like things he couldn't control.
In conclusion, for all his playbook safe play Kelly was in an F3 with someone who had the Final Immunity Advantage and hadn't told him whereas I knew she had it from the F6 on. In a position to have a pair that never acted against each other other then to vote other people's partners be expected to choose him over each other. Feeling safe in that position is probably the greatest folly of all.
Conclusion
In a game about personalities, bonding and a lot of heart, and about following your dreams to ~*~Disneyland!~*~ I hope you don't vote for someone who said this game had no big moves at all. We all experienced tense votes, stress for dayz, highs and lows and a lot of fun. I hope these answer your questions and aren't the answers you expected. I tried to make it worth the wait. Thank you for reading this. Except Hiplop, I know you probably opened this first to tl;dr'd to the end, at least ctrl+f your name. I'll see you all soon. <3 I love you all, even you Kelly, my favorite Terminator.
Edited by Shadow, Sep 3 2016, 06:25 AM.
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