The reason why I wish to talk about the qualities of a winner is because I believe that this is actually what final tribal council is a measure of. This is a game after all, and games have many purposes, but two spring to mind. The first is well, to entertain and have fun, however, this is something hard to measure and argue about (I'm sure it'd be really funny for me to try to convince you that yes, you really did or really didn't have a lot of fun in this game) and while it will likely factor into your decision, I will not really talk about or analyze it in this speech. The second purpose of games is to put our skills to the test and measure them. Games like chess measure foresight and strategic thinking, games like tennis measure athletic ability, games like cards against humanity measure wit and ability to be funny, and games like monopoly measure how strong your friendships really are. And typically in these games, the person who has the strongest affinity for those skills will usually win (though not all the time). But with survivor, this is pretty different, there is no scoreboard, there is no points system. You can't just add up number of immunity wins, idols found and multiply the number of times you voted in the majority and get a winner.

      Instead, we have the people we played the game with decide who won, people who have different experiences with each of us and different paths to get where they are. Survivor is about judgement, it is not about the moves you made, or how big they were, rather it is about what you did says about you in the eyes of the jury. After all in any other game, a lucky streak could reward a strategy that usually shouldn't win, but in survivor this is avoided (well at the very end anyway, rng can still fuck you before then). Being sole survivor is not something that is simply done, it is awarded. As such, I think it's clear that we should focus on the type of person and qualities that we think should thrive in a setting like this, because when you cast your jury vote, you are saying that this is the person you think deserves to win this game So don't let people get away with saying "I had control of this game" or "I eliminated this person" think about why that actually matters and what that says about them and their game.

      So anyway, what kind of person should win this game? Well, I have a few qualities that I believe fit and reasons to go with them, and all are related to being able to actually survive and get further in any social setting, not just in a forum game. These qualities are:

1. Safety: In order to not just survive, but thrive, you need to be safe and secure, without this you may grow desperate and do actions that will hurt your goodwill with other people. Not to mention if you are not safe, that means you may go home. An ideal winner would likely have never been in a position where they might get voted out of the game. Furthermore I think this relates more to social positioning in the game that something like winning immunity or finding idols, after all in the real world you can't pull out a hidden immunity idol to avoid layoffs, and someone else could have easily found that idol or won that specific challenge. In the long run the latter are not strong enough deterrents to count on.

2. Awareness: Knowledge is power, and it comes in two forms. The first is knowledge of others and what motivates them. With this you should be able to craft arguments and influence these people in order to survive, and know what you can get around with. Failing this you are at least able to predict future outcomes and be prepared for them. The second is self awareness, of both your abilities and the perception of you. If you know the former you are able to think of ways to cover where you are weak, and with the latter you are able to know what has to be done to either keep the perception of you to be positive or change it from being negative.

3. Adaptability:  Survivor is a game of constantly changing situations, if one is to survive, you must be able to deal with completely new environments and be able to bring them to your advantage. If you are unable to adapt, you will die the moment the situation does not favor you, baring extreme luck. Secondarily this also relates to the execution of covering your weaknesses. After all if you have a huge blind spot and are not able to adapt to either mitigate it or turn it into a strength, well, you too are likely to fall off, whether in the game or the real world.

4. Respectability: Of the aspects of a winner, this is the most subjective, but the way I see it, in order to win, you should play a game that other people can respect, and that you can be proud of. This does not mean never be deceiving, but rather I feel doing nothing unnecessarily. Underhandedness is one thing (and should be done in moderation), but senseless underhandedness is ridiculous. Also, a strong survivor is understood by both his allies and his enemies, as without understanding, how can you form a strong opinion? 

5. Agency: All this means is having control over your actions. Basically it means you didn't just follow the crowd or listen to others, you had control over your own actions. You were not pressured into something you didn't want and anything you did you had reason to. Without this I don't think you can be a SOLE survivor. 

6. Friendliness: Survivor is a social game. This gets said again and again, and I think it matters a lot. People want to work with people they like, people that are friendly and approachable, and people also feel worse when they betray someone they like, making it harder for that person to get voted out. Kindness and such can sometimes allow you to be taken advantage of, but the people who are kind are also those who approach new heights when people remember them. Meanwhile the unfriendly will find themselves approached less and end up isolated in the end.

7. Individuality: I have mentioned this before, but this game is about awarding a SOLE survivor. You must not just be able to survive the game, but be able to survive the game with your own ability. While you will need alliances and friendship to make it far, you must be able to do without them and not be too dependent on one person or group of people. 

This covers most of the qualities I think are essential to being a good winner of survivor, as with them, survival comes easy, without them, it becomes hard. Some are linked closely (and perhaps I could call some the same thing) and others are quite different. I implore you to look at the game for these qualities in each of our speeches and instead of just thinking about this game, think about what would happen if this game happened 9 or 10 times over, and how each of us would have done, after all, if you don't, then you are essentially deciding the game on what may be lucky breaks, and that feels a bit wrong to me. 

Anyway, time to discuss the next part:

     Ever since I saw who made merge I knew to a majority of people my game was a mystery, or at least more so than others' games, so this will try to be detailed. I will also try to only state my role in moves. I will not be saying "this was my move", this is not because I think I was not a significant force in them, but rather because in the end it still requires a majority to vote someone out, so no move truly belongs to any one person. To pretend otherwise is very egotistical.

    I came into this game with a certain plan in mind, don't get voted out. More specifically, I knew that while I am good at assessing strategic situations, it's easy for me to get burnt out socially and end up giving short responses. I resolved that the best way to rectify this was to find someone who was very good at being social, and earn their heart, securing an ally that would go far for and with me. Whether or not I would go to the end with them would have to be a matter of context. I also decided to be relatively upfront with people, while I would not be above deception, I would be good to my allies and respect my enemies, as I feel this would enable me to always have options no matter what situation befell me. These two combined made getting to the end rather easy for me, but I will start at the beginning.

First Tribe

On my first tribe I met Kyoko, Celeste and Keebo. The last of which did not speak to me very much.

     In order to make a strong impression I created a character called Gerard, the space accountant, to make them find me to be fun and enjoyable, and we joked a lot (i'll give those posts their own section). Kyoko and I were more game and challenge focused, with some talk of taking over the world, this relationship would continue through most of the game. She was a good ally, straightforward and likable, even if they were more game focused. With Celeste I was social, and flirty and we talked about so many things. I left the tribe with 330 PMs with her (we would end with 1919 PMs) and a final 2 deal. She was an ideal partner for this game, social and lovable, but also was more than willing to listen to my advice, while having good ideas herself.

     The other thing that was done was we used the first challenge to set up a cross tribal alliance for the next couple rounds using Kyoko's clique with Makoto and Kirumi. We also were going to try to approach the leaders in order to create a 4 way alliance for the first round, but Keebo never posted about it in his clique with Akane and Ibuki. The challenge went off and we lost. Keebo was the logical choice, so we voted for him, but I decided to tell him I was voting him and we shared music before he left, it was nice. He left in a 3 - 1 vote, the one vote was for Kyoko.

Second Tribe

     The Masterminds was a simple tribe. I was left without a partner from my original tribe, so I devoted myself to making new connections. I put in a tremendous effort in our first challenge (I wrote the Emmett Entry which almost won us the challenge on it's own, and edited the others) and with it I formed a bond with Gonta (who did a lot of the detective work for our tribe and wrote the two other entries). With Gonta came a bond with Sayaka (who I felt had a good taste in music), and with the first challenge alliance came a bond with both Makoto and Leon. Bringing in Koreikiyo, there were 6 of us who agree to work together on that tribe, and both Sayaka and I had a sizable role in talking to people to make it official. I was incredibly safe on this tribe.

Third Tribe
     My third tribe I swapped with Makoto and Leon from my first tribe, and met Chiaki from Kingpins, and Chihiro from Mediators. This tribe could have been a  certifiable mess for me. Chiaki and Chihiro were in a clique together, and Leon and Makoto knew Chihiro on their first tribe. It could easily turn into a situation where Makoto, Leon and Chihiro decide to stick together  and vote me out. Instead what happened was that my bonds with Leon and Makoto intensified (I managed to have a fun time just sending the song Despacito to Leon over and over, and Makoto and I shared some dank history memes). With Chihiro we talked about Veggietales and dinosaur comics, and all sorts of things. We got really close and hopefully we still are. Meanwhile Chiaki was fun to talk to but we did not connect on the same level as I did with everyone else, and Chihiro was willing to part with her. When we lost the vote was tough, but it was still 4 -1. The one vote was for Makoto.

     Afterward the rest of us were unified, Chihiro and Makoto still had some small issues, but were very workable. We all enjoyed each other and tried ridiculously hard to win the next challenge, which we barely won. We agreed to help each other out in case of a tribe swap. What was originally a chaotic relationship diagram was a now a unified alliance. And then, the last swap happened.

Future Foundation

      The tribe swap was tense as I was ripped away from Makoto and Leon, but I was fortunately swapped with Celeste and Kyoko, who I knew from grey tribe, Chihiro from my last tribe, Sayaka and TeruTeru, from masterminds, and lastly Shuichi and Nagito, who I never been on a tribe with but I knew had a clique together. There were also connections between TeruTeru and Nagito (Bronze), Chihiro and Sayaka (Clique), Nagito, Celeste and Kyoko (Kingpins) and Sayaka and Shuichi (Black tribe). Chihiro and Shuichi were not on good terms, but at least were "neutral" with each other for a bit. It was at this time I would find out if my previous relationships with people would hold, they did. 

     I was never short on information as Celeste would brief me on any information that came her way, whether it involved me or not (she had a lot of conversations) while asking my opinion on what to do with it. Meanwhile Chihiro did a similar thing for me when it came to information, as I encouraged them and Celeste to become friends, and they did. My main allies were now friends, and all was well. Then we lost the first tribal council, and I discussed with Celeste what to do, we knew that Nagito at the moment was someone who was loyal to Celeste, Shuichi was an option but I felt he could be useful for me down the line, whether as a partner or a shield. We soon wittled down to the options to just teruteru, and I let celeste take the lead on convincing people. I even pitched the vote to sayaka as a way to "lower the masterminds threat level" in order to ensure it would go through. The vote was 7 - 1. The one vote was for Sayaka.

During those days a few important pieces of information came my way:

1. Celeste told me that Nagito had been talking to her about how "I might flip" and how "Kyoko might need to be cut down the line" and even gave her a suggested boot order, Sayaka, then Chihiro, then me. I was none too pleased to hear this and reminded Celeste of how strong our relationship was and how I would never just flip on her at the merge. We also concluded Nagito was trying to subtly control the next few boots but Celeste wasn't having any of it. I leaked this information to Sayaka and I think, Chihiro. Us three combined with Celeste would easily vote out Nagito if we lost another immunity, he was not in a good position here, I was.

2. I also learned from Chihiro that Shuichi had an advantage from the elimination challenge. He has told this to Sayaka who told chihiro. I intended to use this information if we went to a tribal after Nagito in order to make Shuichi a boot who was too risky to take into merge, but we never went to tribal again. Still between me, celeste, kyoko and probably Chihiro, this would have been doable.  Once again, shuichi was in a not very great position, while I was.

3. Sayaka talked to me about advantages and then didn't tell me about Shuichi's. I also learned that Sayaka was wary of me from Chihiro. From this point on I knew to keep an eye on Sayaka because she might try to take me out at a future date.

4. I learned of the dynamics of the other tribe from my cliquemate Hiyoko (we didn't really talk that much until this phase due to tribes where very little happened). Ibuki, Akane and Koreikiyo were all in a clique together (which I could have pieced together since it used to be Keebo's clique). And there were whispers of Makoto or Hiyoko being the target. However, I encouraged Hiyoko to focus on ensuring the clique of three people didn't make merge, as a clique could be very dangerous at that point. That phase I unfortunately lost Makoto, but the following phase Koreikiyo made a public post and got voted out, though I disagree about the strategic strength of that decision for people like Ibuki and Akane. Hiyoko was uh...not impressed with this tribe. 

5. Chihiro was nervous about how strong of a player Ibuki was, she had worked closely with her on Mediators, but felt she could win the game. I would remember this. 

Merge

     And this is where all the fun things happened. Due to a medevac and Makoto being voted out, I walked into merge with strong connections with Kyoko, Celeste, Hiyoko and Chihiro, along with less strong connections with Sayaka, Shuichi and Nagito. Walking in I realized the worst thing that could happen would be if someone from future foundation (or Hiyoko) was voted out and Akane/Ibuki were able to work together and control the game. I talked to Celeste and Kyoko about this, and focused on targeting Ibuki, who I knew would be the easier of the two to eliminate and had lived up to Chihiro's hype being really cool in the few messages we had for each other. I was obviously not the only person to think of this, but I was not approached by anyone about this vote first (at least not before I talked to Celeste), I was at at least one point of origin for it. 

     The next round was a very wild one. It started out with a vote starting to occur on Sayaka, I forget exactly why this happened but this detail pales in comparison to the rest of the round. About halfway through the phase I get the message from Celeste that there is a wagon forming on her, and that Hiyoko told her this. She also says that Hiyoko told her say this was Mikan and immediately told everyone that Mikan told her about a wagon on her.  (This led to a very funny exchange with Hiyoko where she tells me about the wagon on celeste, I ask her where it came from and she said "Celestia herself" and I had to pretend like I didn't know) We spent the rest of the evening talking about what to do as stuff happens. Akane admits to the wagon but can't go after Celestia and talks about how she loves her. Celestia asked me whether she should tell Akane the truth, and I said yes as Hiyoko apparently also mentioned my name to Chihiro, who really did not want me to go and preferred Kyoko as an option. This move put Hiyoko in a position where she was not trusted by Akane, and because Celeste had done it and not me, Hiyoko and I grew even closer. Still we tried to vote out Sayaka, and Chihiro got medevaced, which really changed the game.

     I also set up a contingency plan in case the greys fell apart, it's  was very apparent that we would get targeted without a lot of luck, and I would very much like to survive such a targeting. As such I talked to shuichi about his end game plans, and after a long conversation about who we could beat, we agree that me, him and Nagito would make a pretty decent end game team, though Nagito had yet to officially confirm it.

     The next round was big brother. Kyoko winning HoH was a very good result for me. The nomination ceremony occurred rather quickly (which I did not expect) but I had a fair amount of influence. Initially Shuichi wanted Sayaka to be put up and go home, Celeste thought that Hiro and Sayaka would be a good pair to put up. However, I felt this is a prime opportunity to eliminate people I didn't talk to a lot, Sayaka I at least talk to a decent amount and is willing to work with anyone. So I talked to Celeste and kyoko and ended up convincing both of them that Mikan and Hiro are both harder to vote out later and so they should be put up. And then they got put up. This round didn't go exactly as planned though, as Sayaka ended up winning veto and Hiyoko went up. So I counted votes and knew me, celeste and nagito would likely vote for Hiyoko, but Shuichi preferred Hiyoko going, much to my chagrin. I' was not sure I could win him over so I go to Akane and for once actually had a talk about the game with her.

I explained to her how she is perceived as a threat and for her to reach the she needs shields to be up to protect her as she walks toward the end. That if she were to keep Hiro around he would be under the radar enough to maybe even make final tribal, and that hiyoko is not this. While I don't know her vote from this round, this philosophy certainly seemed to impact her future conversations with me. Meanwhile, I was up front with hiro about how I was voting, as just because someone is your target, it doesn't mean you can't be civil about it.

It is also around this time I learned something important, Kyoko had a legacy advantage and Celeste  told me about it. I learned It would expire at final 6, so if the 3 of us are there, or I am the only one of us there (as if kyoko died it would pass to celeste most likely, and from celeste me), it will be very useful. 

With Hiro gone the only people around who might want me as a primary target are Mikan (who I start talking to soon after iirc) and Akane (who I've talked to about why I'm not her ideal target). Both Sayaka and Hiyoko  mentioned that they might want me out at a future date, so one of them going was probably ideal. However, I still liked Hiyoko a lot and as such, for the next vote I was her side. While Hiyoko went out that round very nearly was flipped onto Sayaka due to a bizarre circumstance involving me. I asked Sayaka who her second choice to vote was and she told me Akane, so I told her that if she set up a vote on Akane, I'd follow. The actual goal was to draw Sayaka's vote off of Hiyoko and hopefully flip Akane's opinion of sayaka, and have Akane vote Sayaka out. If Akane came on a bit later, the deadline was a bit earlier, or  Sayaka had gone offline just a few minutes later, the entire vote might have changed. I also had a ton of help from Celeste with the execution of this. Regardless, while Hiyoko going out was not something I wanted, I was still in a very fine position. Nagito also confirmed his interest in working with me in earnest, though I was not too trusting of him at the time.

The next vote Sayaka went and I received two votes.  This was the only point I received any votes in the game and according to Akane they were in case Sayaka had an idol. This was minor and not really a significant danger to me.

Around this point I had spent a good time talking to Mikan and, soon after Mikan intimated to me that she wants to go to the end with me. Now the only people on this board who don't want to work with me are Akane and maybe Nagito, but with Shuichi in my corner I was be fine. 

Final 7 is probably a round Shuichi will try to hang his hat on (with kyoko going), but he was in a lot of danger this round. So basically Kyoko wanted to split the votes early on between Shuichi and Akane, but Shuichi wanted to target Kyoko. Thanks to some help from Celestia, Akane thought that Shuichi was more problematic and wanted him gone over Celeste, me and kyoko (but perhaps this was a lie). However, I had a final 3 deal with Shuichi, and soon (but not yet) Akane will likely turn from friendly to hostile (and also like, voted me last round). So I had Kyoko, Celeste and me vote for Akane initially and try to persuade Mikan or Shuichi to vote for Akane (I give Celeste the arguments I find that most convincing), if this works then they vote for Kyoko next round and the greys choose who they go home. However it doesn't quite take, but we have ample time to change plans. Now this was in the last few hours of the day, Shuichi was not around. I saw this as one of two situations:

1. Akane is voting Kyoko, in which case me switching to shuichi will just hurt a good relationship
2. Akane is voting Shuichi, if I throw my vote a way, the worst situation is a tie, where I can talk to both Kyoko and Shuichi, and decide where to put my vote.

As such I voted Akane and prepared to call it "Payback", protecting my image and relationship with everyone involved. Unfortunately Kyoko was voted out instead of a tie, but it was not too disastrous, Celeste got the legacy advantage and we renewed our vows with each other. Around this time Nagito finally was like "you know, a you, me Shuichi final 3 would be nice" (something set in the works 4 rounds earlier) and Shuichi told me about his secret advantage (which I knew about like 8 rounds earlier). 

Next was Final 6. By this point everyone was pretty sure Nagito had at least one idol, and a vote was led to blindside him. I figured now was a good time to take out Akane, who is voting Nagito this round, but likely wants a combination of me/Celeste gone next. Even if I'm wrong she's the only person who doesn't have a final 3 deal with me. She's the correct vote. Celeste agreed that Akane was the correct vote. So I told Nagito about the vote for him and "if he has an idol he should probably play it". Nagito did have an idol, Akane, Mikan and Shuichi's votes were negated (which is odd because shuichi should have told him to play it as well). Mine was not.

Final 5 was uh...not a fun vote. At this point I knew for certain that Celeste had been playing a really good game, and more importantly, while people associate me with her, they do not know how close we really were. As much as my heart broke to do it, I decided to vote for Celeste, but she was my friend, and so I told her about it. I could have tried to blindside her, but it was not worth it. That was the decision I made. Shuichi and Nagito voted for Mikan, Shuichi for reasons of immunity and Nagito for revenge, basically. Their votes were negated, mine was not. Even when I was voting for her, Celeste refused to even consider voting me out, hopefully she still wishes to vote for me here.

Final 4 you all saw happen. I do not know if I overestimated Mikan, underestimated Shuichi or anything else, but it was a decision I made. And even though she planned to vote Shuichi, Mikan and I had quite the final talk. I told her my story, and while she was not like "wow gundham you the coolest" she actually gave me feedback multiple times (and this also confirmed to me that she definitely would have been hard to beat here). Despite being someone I rarely directly voted with, I treated her with respect and in the end, I received respect. 

And now here me are. Onto the important section.

Just going to go through each of the qualities  from before and how we relate to them:

1. Safety: I was always safe in this game bar for two votes that appeared on me in a round where 5 appeared for someone else. Even in Final 4 I would have waltzed to the end of this game, it's been admitted in public for all to see. No matter what happened I always positioned myself where I was safe using my relationships with others, even if I went to every tribal I probably could have found a way to still make it through. I made myself a desirable player to work with and it was rewarded. Meanwhile Nagito was in huge trouble on future foundation, likely being a second boot if Celeste was with me, and he also might have gone home if not for his idols. Shuichi was in huge trouble on Mediators, if he had made a small mistake on that challenge he might have gone out right then and there, he also may have gone out on future foundation and could have gone at final 7 with Akane just...flipping her vote. Way too close a call for comfort.

2. Awareness:  No matter what the tribe, I always had a steady flow of information on who was working with who. When we got to the merge and future foundations, I was able to find out information from many different sources, like Celeste, Chihiro, Hiyoko and sometimes even Shuichi or Sayaka. Even when something wasn't specifically known to me (Nagito's idols or how deep the talk of the targeting of "the greys" was) I was able to predict it and play around it. I was also aware that I was early on seen a little bit as a threat, and also as an accessory to Kyoko and Celeste, when really I was probably Celeste's number one partner. But I pushed the narrative of being an errand boy, of someone who was not making decisions, in order to make it so I would not be the target of an attack on the greys or something else. I also didn't vote for Nagito when he likely was playing an idol, even Shuichi didn't do this. This maneuvering has hopefully escape Nagito and Shuichi, but I can not be too sure, I already told them about it when I won final immunity, so maybe they'll just say they knew all along.  However, specifically for Nagito, he appeared to be somewhat unaware of the perception of him as shady and untrustworthy until a while after future foundation, finally asking why Chihiro didn't seem to like him. This perception however, was not really changed, leading to me suspecting him of most of the "odd votes" throughout the game. Even if he didn't do them, he was not very good at avoiding the attribution. As for Shuichi, I knew most of what he knew, but he simple found himself in a position to be targeted time and time again.

3. Adaptability:  I constantly was challenged with situations that were not ideal for me. I was thrown into a tribe with no one from my original partner. I was put on a tribe where there were multiple other alliances that could have formed with previous relationships. I lost Gonta, Makoto, and Leon from my second and third tribes all before jury started. And the worst part was, I had nothing to do with any of those eliminations. And yet, I adapted, I made new friends on masterminds, gained a strong ally in Chihiro on  the silver foxes, put myself in a powerful position on future foundation with the allies I made on previous tribes, and managed to turn many relationships into end game deals, even with people who hadn't even met me before merge. Meanwhile with Shuichi, he was put on a tribe with a partner, had a potential easy partnership with Ibuki and Chihiro using common friends from the first challenge, and ended up pretty much having to win immunity to survive. He eventually adapted to his situation in the game, but by that point, I didn't really have much work I needed to do to reach the end. 

4. Respectability: Whether you were on my side or not on my side, I always tried to treat everyone with respect. I rarely tried to pull the wool over people's eyes, and even when I did, it was because it would have been much harder elsewhere. I was more than willing to give people a chance to change my mind,
(which Sayaka almost did numerous times), and even when I opposed someone they knew why I was opposed to them. I will not speak on behalf of the other two about this, as I do not know about their specific relationships with each of you.

5. Agency: No matter what the round, I had full control over my vote, I was not pressured into voting a certain way by someone, and often times I would be one of the people who would propose a vote (even if it was just to celeste and kyoko). My vote was mine, my game was mine, and it belonged to me. Not to mention I am the only person up here who never had their vote negated by an idol. While I don't know exactly what Shuichi and Nagito will say about their games, I can bet you that they will often claim responsibility for the actions of the other in some way or another.

6. Friendliness: I was able to form relationships early and quickly. I was friendly with those I met, and hopefully enjoyable to talk to. This friendliness earned me die hard allies in Celeste and Chihiro, and I was able to have strong strategy discussions with Hiyoko and get along with her. This enabled me to avoid targets early on, and later on, and even if I wasn't a social butterfly, I was hopefully able to avoid any vitriol or hatred. I will not speak specifically of occurrences with Nagito or Shuichi, neither really flew off the handle, but I know and heard about the latter that early on Shuichi was a bit gamebotty and it showed when I first met him. It took me a while to warm up to him as opposed to numerous other people who I had a good connection with off the bat.

7. Individuality: While many of my moves involved other people, my role was always clear, and well, of those groups, I am the only one left. Shuichi and Nagito have games that have been intertwined since the start of the game, a move for one was a move for the other, to the point where if one fell, the other could easily have fallen as well. The winner of this game is a single person, not a pair, and the only person whose own path is clear, with minimal intertwining with the others, is mine. 

This is his pet Purrard





Yeah he was left on a pretty odd note. I got busy near merge and each pciture took 30 minutes to an hour to make.