Nagito (1):

Out of everyone in the game, you stood out to me the most as "unaffiliated" and "third party". Which isn't bad considering your idols, but you even referred to my vote on you as a "stab", when at that point in time I was trying to vote out shuichi feeling kind of distant from you compared to my other allies (Mikan/Celeste). Who were your loyalties to over the course of the merge? Who did you think you were closest to at what time? Specifically early-mid merge, we've all heard enough about the pact of the three of you before us.

Yeah no problem. First off, my goal with my social game was to get a few deep connections  with people that would protect me no matter, what, not to try being besties with everyone (i've tried the latter it doesn't work for me). From the moment merge started I knew that if either of us made the end, the other one wouldn't, so instead I just accepted it, and figured you'd be someone I'd occasionally work with while sometimes working against. We weren't close because I didn't want to bring you close to me only to stab you in the heart, so hopefully I spared you that much. As for rankings, here goes:

1. Celestia: We were ride or die since our tribe tribe. We talked literally every day that we could for long periods of time, we trusted each other to the point where she told me everything she knew and for the most part I kept those secrets. Basically anything important that passed through her ears also passed through my ears. It's because of her I didn't have to have a long in depth conversation each day to understand what you were thinking, and have a good idea on everyone else. She also probably defended me multiple times if what kyoko said was true, and was never ever going to vote me out. Furthermore often times she would come to me with information and simply ask "what should I do?" and so I told her the move that benefitted us most in that situation if it could get done, and most of the time, it was done. Now I stepped in myself a few times (the Yasuhiro vote and talking to you and trying to flip you on Sayaka by having her admit she wanted you out), but for the most part she did a lot of the things I either didn't have time or the willpower to do (talking to people is just plain stress to me a lot of the time). If you respect her game, well, a good portion of that was thanks to me, but certainly not all, Celestia was more than able to handle herself.

2. Chihiro: Chihiro and I had a very similar situation to me and Celestia, except that we met later, and Chihiro was more busy. We were friends, talked almost everyday (when Chihiro wasn't busy) and ultimately never would have wanted to target each other. While Chihiro talked to less people, to them they sung my praises about how good I was (unfortunately these same people were the ones that I talked to least so they didn't get the full effect). They also would have defended me to the end I feel, after all in round 2, when the wagon on celestia formed I was apparently also an option, Chihiro was one of the people that said no. Thanks to them on future foundation I knew Sayaka's thoughts on me and how much I could trust her. If Chihiro has survived I likely would have gotten information from both sides of the aisle, but instead they got medevacced.

3. Kyoko: While Celestia and Chhiro ended up being my number 1s on other tribes, Kyoko still did a lot for me. Similar to Celestia, we met on the first tribe, and through a mixture of strategy and the first challenge, had a lot of fun together. This continued on the future foundation, when we had been separated for 7 rounds (for comparison almost every other first tribe had fallen apart by this point and they were not starving for allies, so obviously I did something right). We walked into the merge together and tried to protect each other (I messed up in final 7 which sent her home without a long talk because I thought it was gonna tie). Kyoko herself has admitted to hard defending me early on in the merge when I could have been an easy target as someone on the outside, but I was not targeted thanks to the realtionship I had with them.

4. Shuichi: Let me make one thing clear, I was the first person to talk to Shuichi about a potential final 3. This happened in the second round of the merge, BEFORE the big brother round (and hiyoko's explanation that one of the 3 of us would win). I explicitly asked him who he saw in his endgame and "who he saw at the end aside from him and me", he obviously said Nagito. I figured this would work because despite originally not meeting before future foundation, I managed to worm my way into his heart and bonded with him about how we could both win immunities. Sure he also had other reasons (Kyoko and Celestia being huge jury threats) but that was also intentional, I wanted to have bigger targets than me. From this point on, even though Nagito wasn't 100% with me, I was way down on Shuichi's threat list and combined with my other relationships and how other people were targetting others, my safety was guaranteed. 

I'm only giving a top 4 because 5/6 would both be Hiyoko and Sayaka, who were both people I could talk to on a strategic level (and they were of course willing to work with me) but never had a super deep social connection with (to be fair I tried with Sayaka on Masterminds, but I suppose it didn't quite take).

Also for the Record, 4 and 5  would have Makoto and Leon respectively had they made merge. I had die hard alliance with Makoto and Leon thought I was pretty damn cool. However one of them was medevaced and SOMEONE (i.e you) decided to kill Makoto. Thanks for that....(yes I'm still bitter okay, if he made jury I feel I'd be in a much better position at FTC since a lot of stuff from masterminds and silver foxes people would learn from him).

Point is, my connections were not many, but they were so deep that these people managed to go to bat for me so early and often that I was going to be safe in almost any situation, without really needing to lift a finger. You may respect that, you may not, but the way I see it, I tried to develop deep connections, and it paid off in spades. While shuichi and nagito were both being targeted later in the merge, I was still safe thanks to my friends.

I feel people are confusing safety for passivity. I was anything but passive on the masterminds, along with sayaka I formed an alliance group in case. I was very active on the first challenge when there were 3 people doing a lot of writing and everyone else was just "cool with it", I tried my hardest on the puzzles round. In fact the only challenge I ever sat out was labors of kirumi because my internet connect was bad and would have lost us the challenge. On the 20 questions challenge I debated non stop with Makoto and Leon over the optimal way to ask questions (asking or questions instead of single questions) and had we used that strategy a little more (specifically asking about oscars with jackie chan as the character), we would have asked probably around 3 fewer questions and won the challenge with no need for a tiebreaker. Me and Nagito (and everyone else) did a lot of the work on the maze for the mass public debate (admittedly you were a lot better at that) and on the trivia challenge I got two questions perfect. I was devoted to helping my tribes not have to vote people and even though I obviously was not the only one to do this, I certainly contributed a lot to this. Because of my integral role on these tribes and yeah, social relationships I was fine going into the merge.

Also like, most of my "active" moves, happened early in the merge, when things could have gone south for me but I was protected due to things I had set up beforehand. Like the Ibuki vote, sure I was not one of the people who specifically pitched to it, because by the time I had just talked to Celeste about how it would be optimal (Kyoko also did this) and before I could turn around the votes were already on Ibuki. Hell in the big brother round you know I was the reason that yasuhiro went home, because I decided to step in and talk to you when the other votes were already locked up. Then where was I, oh yes, at final 9, with a bunch of people who wanted to work with me (Kyoko, Celestia, Shuichi) and a bunch of people looking at Hiyoko and Sayaka, who are both people I know might not want to see me at the end. So I was in a position where no one was going to going to target me in 2 rounds, and the people who believe then wouldn't want me gone. So, WHY WOULD I FUCK IT UP BY TRYING TO GET TOO INVOLVED. And hell, why were Sayaka and Hiyoko in a position where they might get voted out, you were the swing vote you should know. Oh yeah, because I convinced you to let Hiro go before Sayaka. But even more so Hiyoko was in trouble because during the second round she leaked the celeste vote to celeste, but that wasn't what got her in trouble. What got her in trouble was Celeste telling you that Hiyoko was the leak, you might ask, why would she do this instead of I dunno, pinning it on Yasuhiro who you suspected of the whole thing. Well that was because celeste specifically asked me "what should I do?" and I told her to tell you exactly what she told you, that Hiyoko was the leak. If I hadn't done that, Hiyoko might be suspected of it but isn't for sure guaranteed to be a target. Then the greys get targeted and die off leaving me in a sea of people with few friends and maybe an idol (but idols are stupid compared to not getting voted for).

You were also the swing vote on the round that was Sayaka vs Hiyoko part 2, and I tried to move mountains to just get you to swap your vote, sure Celeste did a lot of work with the execution of that, but who went to Sayaka and got her to admit she wanted you or Nagito out in a quote (maybe she talked about it to other people but she didn't think for sure it could work until I talked to her), which brought you *this* close to voting her over Hiyoko. So yeah, I was pretty active this phase, I just knew who to focus on getting votes. The same with the Kyoko round, I convinced Celeste and Kyoko to vote for you initially (well Celeste convinced Kyoko I believe, but I convinced celeste) and I also suggested (though it was parallel thought) that they switch to shuichi for the end, which led to you still being cool with Celeste the next round. And also, shuichi wasn't the only one saying nagito probably had an idol, that was also me. I also told him to play the idol that I figured he had, but I was smart enough not to vote into said Idol, and it didn't matter who Nagito voted for, Celeste and I could have voted for whoever we chose (though our options were limited) and who we decided went home went home. So like...how is that game passive? I think it's just efficient is all, doing a lot of work pre-merge, setting up an easy path to the end from final 9, working on swing votes but not getting tangled up in the mess that everyone else was caught up in, and being able to walk to the end with little resistance. Shuichi worked harder, I worked smarter and Nagito...did something I guess.

Yeah i don't care so Shuichi (2):

Straight up dude I think you're totally outshined by Nagito and Gundham here, like, Nagito played a better social and midleman game then you did, gundham played a better strategic game and like I have no idea why people are saying you're the best and you're the person to beat lmao so just give me some specific thing that will appeal to Akane to make me consider you.

Well yeah, you must think that because you obviously never caught on to my game if you're saying in your first question that you assumed I was with Mikan and Sayaka and not doing much else. I need to rectify this. (To be fair, I think I had a similar view on you as you do on me then)
I wasn't just lazily waiting around and not talking to people. I know you underestimated my relationship with silver trio, because when we talked about how long we'd last with the silver trio calling the shots, you assumed you'd last longer then me, and it was only a matter of time before I became the easy boot. But that's not the case. I was never going to be an easy boot with them. Reading Kyoko's post, she wasn't targeting me until 6, and she was targeting you at 7.

Nagito played a game more detached where everyone knew he was a bit of a wild card. I played it better because people thought I was a wildcard with the same interests as them, and thus we were able to bond more. I suspect Nagito had a better social game with you then I did, because we didn't meet until the merge, and at that point we didn't have much time beyond game talk. (Or at least I didn't) But at least on Hope tribe he was more in danger than me and at that stage, social strength is a much bigger factor to power rankings. (Although I really hate talking negatively about him because he is an absolutely awesome person)

With regard to Gundham's strategic game, yes it's true he was able to soar to the end not being targeted at all, even if he lost final immunity. But that should be a red flag. YOU'RE NOT PLAYING THE GAME RIGHT IF YOU'RE NOT TARGETED AT THE END. The only explanations for that is people aren't targeting you because they think they can beat you at the end, or because they like you so much they're okay with you winning. Not even Celestia could pull off the second one.
And again I hate talking negatively about either of them. They did play good games. Great games even. I just believe I played it better.

Should clarify when I said I had a similar view as you as you did on me, I meant in terms of game position and what you were doing. Not that I thought you were unimpressive. I didn't know you were working the silver trio as much as you were.

SECURITY

mmmmmm we got ourselves a really good 1v1 here, I really do hope one of you two wins. I don't know what other question I could ask that would get me more information to help me make this decision, so uh.. nagito you're lucky that one of the only survivor season i have watched was heros vs villians

Nagito (3) and Gundham (3):

I feel like I have a good representation of both of your games here and its like guy with lots of friend VS guy with lots of dead friend but still enough friend, a bit of a cool clash of styles or something, so it is hard to compare the two for me. What I do know is that you both were dealt different hands and played them both correctly. idk is there any last thing that either of you can point to and say "I specifically, objectively did X better then the other person here therefore I should win"?, even being given your different circumstances?

I think I was better at making lasting connections. Like I know this is hard to corroborate because they're all dead, but I'm just going to try an experiment. Let's look at the masterminds with me, and without me. With me, the masterminds went to no tribal councils (that was only part me I sat out labors of kirumi and had a mediocre time on the puzzle) and had a 6 fold alliance that was strong, but to be honest, I don't think anyone was looking my way. I mean teruteru cast a vote for Sayaka at future foundation, so it's clear that he either liked me more or saw me as harder to get rid of there compared to Sayaka (sorry Sayaka). I also made silver tribe in the popularity contest (in fact Chihiro had rated me fairly highly because "Sayaka thought I was pretty popular" on red tribe, so like yeah) because I was good at making connections that mattered there. Meanwhile multiple people (Chihiro most of all) have mentioned  that Nagito was not fully trusted by people from kingpins. Apparently you were included in that, and you can read Celeste's thread where she didn't see Nagito as with her on votes, but knew he wouldn't target her (remember she knew him for 3 rounds, and me for 1, there is no reason she shouldn't have trusted him more aside from gameplay). Kyoko also saw him as a back up. Not to mention Hiyoko was uh...never super keen on him, and Mikan 100% told me she was gonna poison the jury against him when she went in.  (Fun fact, 2 of those people ended up adoring me, 1 was meh and 1 actually bothered to help me with how to handle FTC despite thinking I was a goner and having me voting them out, and I had less or as much interaction with all of them over the course of this game compared to Nagito).

And now let's move back to that experiment. Look at the Masterminds without me, Gonta got a vote flipped on him without me there with him (and in fact Makoto played a huge part and helpign Kyoko survive that vote as well as Celeste, like the argument Kyoko made to keep them was something Makoto did to help our fellow friend. I knew about that the entire time). TeruTeru still preferred me and didn't feel any heat from me before he was voted out (I guess I'd have to show PMs to prove that). Sayaka got voted for (and eventually voted out) despite knowing as many people as me at merge. Leon...well he peaced out. And Makoto, without me there, got voted out when he tried to make waves, and koreikiyo followed suit. Those two totally could have just worked together, but without me there...they didn't. And like the reason why I mention the 3-1 and 4-1 votes is to show how tribes with me, despite hard decisions, like voting Keebo early on at the first tribal, and voting Chiaki who you know was probably pretty cool, but they happened. And the stray votes weren't even on me, but other people.

Also Nagito has already talked about how horrible future foundation was for him, because yeah, he was not in a good spot. Meanwhile even though he wanted me out, he likely couldn't have gotten the votes, maybe shuichi, but that was it. He might have had to rely on his idol that early, that isn't a good sign.

And at merge, the kingpins could have reformed and dominated, they didn't, they ended up split. The rascals could have stuck together, but Chihiro voted for Ibuki, the Cuties could have stuck together but got into a fight with each other and Hiyoko full on tried to sell Yasuhiro down the river if my memory of my PMs with Celeste are accurate. The Leaders....actually sort of stuck together, so yeah, good for Nagito on that one. Gold tribe could have stuck together, they didn't. Bronze tribe definitely didn't stick together. Black tribe could have stuck together, but shuichi just threw away Sayaka. And the Mediators were in a civil war before merge even began. .Yet two groups showed real concern and trust for each other, the greys, who I hadn't seen for so many eliminations, and the silver foxes (like we all know chihiro was not going to kill me anytime soon and also had the connections to just like....throw me away if they wanted to). I don't think it's an accident that two of the closest knit groups were tribes I was on. Like yes, kyoko and celeste were already close, but there was no reason for me to be more than an accesory to them yet I wasn't already.

And how does merge play out if I'm not really good at making those connections count? Well I just...get punted by my allies and end up in a sayaka-esque situation where I have to try whatever it takes to survive and end up dying by almost everyone. Like I could have easily been expendable to Kyoko and Celeste, or to Chihiro, they had way more people they knew then me, and yet....I survived.

Like Nagito had a bunch of people wary of him who he was pretty close to, and a number of people who disliked him. I had a number of people who adored me and a number of people who were like....meh, and discounted me. And well, I'll likely explain that last part with a reply to yasuhiro.

hahaha epic

Here you go