( ^_^)/Hello everyone! I'm Nagito Komaeda and I'm the luckiest person in the world. Lucky because I was accepted for this fabulous game, with this hilarious cast of the best players I could have hoped to meet. Lucky to have shared pain, despair, laughter and of course the dankest memes. Lucky because I survived and stand before you now to plead my case, for why I should be the Ultimate Survivor. I'll tell as best I can the journey of this game and how I was fortunate enough to accumulate the social relationships and opportunities to bring myself to this place.
If I had a goal coming into this, it was to be relatable. Leadership is the trait I chose because all the plots in the world are useless if no one is willing to listen to you. Rather then the overt commanding social leadership that made people like Akane, Celes and Ibuki feared, I wanted to be the chill open person that everyone could talk to when they needed something done. Those social connections kept me aware of when I was in the loop, and when and who was trying to keep me out. Being strategically placed in the middle meant I made a lot of hard choices but that my choice mattered, to shape the endgame into what it became and ensure I'd reach the end with my preferred opponents.
Leaders, Kingpins:I thank every star Akane swapped to Kingpins with me. She's the fun, dastardly co-conspirator everyone needs in their life. Celes was a fast friend because our sense of humor clicks. Kyoko was more strategy based but the four of us formed an alliance. These are the people who meant the world to me. The Kingpins had power positions in the merge, I would not have done near as well if not for the help of everyone that survived.
At the same time I stayed one step ahead when the strategy turned to getting rid of the obvious pair. I had my idols but considering one of the votes on me was Shuichi knowing I was playing one, I feel my social bonds would have carried me without them. I knew what Akane was capable of so as much as I didn't want to believe she was making her move, I wasn't surprised. Celes didn't try to eliminate me and in return I tried to keep her in the game until the F4. Sometimes you can't always get what you want. It saddens me that I couldn't be here with any of you to beat me black and blue.
Cliques:My clique was Nagito/Shuichi/Gonta. They came off as naive but eager allies, I was just worried they wouldn't survive long enough to ally with. Shuichi's surprise after Kirumi's blindside and optimism that the Mediators said they didn't mean it to hurt him painted a bad picture. Somehow on the Black tribe he ended up with Kirumi anyways! What a weird stroke of luck. Originally he was going to vote Kirumi out first to please Sonia and make amends because Sonia was really nice to him. I saw this as less advantageous in the long run then if the Mediator dynamics were messed with. So I took time to pitch my case, that Sonia didn't care for him at all and he'd be better off without her. Sonia did end up going home. This proved to me Shuichi would listen when I needed him to later.
Elephants:I feel the Bronze tribe was a much better place for Hiyoko and I. I think she didn't believe my earnestness about wanting a Kingpin ally in my colour zone. But she was the one most open about who wanted to snipe me in the early rounds. An F3 with Gundham was tempting, although he had a lot of F3's by the Big Brother round this was offered. I think what Akane had reiterated about you calling me a snake at merge turned me off this more then anything. When Big Brother happened I chose Hagakure over you because I thought you could have emotionally eliminated me to give your real friends my place. No lie when you publically called out this F3, I thought you were capable of throwing me much further under the bus then that. Since Gundham was reiterating the official Loser plan to vote you out after Sayaka, I wasn't sure he would work to save you regardless.
Hiyoko and Bronze also introduced me to Yasuhiro, the funniest man alive. I felt horrible that one round turned into choosing between them. Yasu, I owe you an apology. You just wanted me to tell you if you were going and I didn't say anything. The reason for that is: You weren't supposed to be gone. I told Shuichi we should split our votes between Hiyoko and you so we could fake distance. Also so Shuichi would take any bad blowback from the vote. There were 3 people already voting Hiyoko, Shuichi should have made 4. If I'd thought my vote would eliminate you I wouldn't have played with it like that. This was a mistake, I should have put my vote where my heart was.
Lastly someone I didn't get to meet back up with. Korekiyo's dual sides were my favorite wacky Bronze character and not making merge was a tragedy. Who else can claim they threw their tribe a public Survivor party? I just wanted to say thanks, I enjoyed staring at those familiar letters until the song clicked for me.
Future Foundation, Merge, other things:I guess I should mention the idols. I picked them up early during Challenge 3 and 4. When I feel there's a puzzle out there to be solved, I can't sleep until I've checked every link three times over. Not trying feels like.. if there's a chance looking for one more hour could save me later, how can I not take that time? My passion and persistence rewarded me with good fortune. It also forced me to read
ten pages of desert for a pun so maybe the luck evens out. I thought I'd have to use one if Future Foundation went to another TC, but luckily that didn't happen.
When I got to the merge I knew everyone but two people, I'd left every tribe on good terms with everyone but Chihiro and I had two idols. I could not possibly have lucked into a better position. In about the first 24 hours all the spread out Kingpins told me what they'd heard about a vote on me, Mikan threw Chihiro and Sayaka under the bus to me, and Chihiro had sent me an explanation and ceasefire while the vote on Ibuki solidified. I can't make up something like that happening. By the time I met Chihiro it seemed unlikely we'd be friends. That didn't mean I wanted them gone. I considered Chihiro the heart of the non-Kingpin group and someone who would make it deep. Unfortunately she pulled out and I think anything resembling a resistance fell apart without her.
Although Ibuki and I met briefly I do want to mention Celes and Kyoko were wavering at the last minute about voting you. I gave my honest opinion that since they started it in the first place, if they didn't committ it would cause even bigger problems next vote as anything can happen. So in the end I did take a stance against you for their sake.
Voting Sayaka was mostly consensus, but the F7 was a bit nuts. I felt decent about Shuichi, Gundham and Mikan as backup as F3 opponents. I figured Akane would want the vote on Gundham since the theme of the vote was splitting up Grey, but targetting Kyoko was her idea. I take no credit for changing that, but it definitely locked the game into this F3 since despite not talking to Gundham, no one would ever do his vote now. Trust me, I asked.
Last notes on the F6 and F5. I'm not mad that Akane tried to stab me. I'm just disappointed we couldn't make it a smidge further together at someone else's expense. Same with Celes, although I considered giving you my last idol I banked on convincing Shuichi he should be scared of Mikan instead. Mostly because of the chances of exactly what happened. If I had given it we could have had the most hilarious moment in the game where you vote me out while holding my idol! I apologize for robbing us of this comedic genius.
I talked more to Mikan about the final vote then I did in public. Her opinion is much higher of Shuichi then mine and she made clear she thought bringing him to the end was a terrible decision. But when the choice is between someone like her who was good at basic empathy and giving people what they wanted, versus someone who seemed to have a knack for irritating people with his actions, I figured this was a better decision.
Summary:In summation. I focused on making friends with everyone I met till the merge. I succeeded in having allies that looked out for me until it was too late to vote me out. I was aware of how hard it was to vote me out, and used that position for my personal agenda of endgaming with both Gundham, who didn't seem to have strong bonds, and Shuichi, the cliquemate that hadn't socialized well with any of the tribes but Black. I believe I had more personal agency in getting here, making decisions and while I never lost sight of my goal to win the game, I did right by my allies as best I could.
Thank you for reading! You don't have to pretend you read it all.
I both look forward to and utterly dread what you all have to say to me. Whatever happens I mean it when I say this experience was enjoyable because of all of you.