I want to start with the obligatory thank you to the hosts. Even though you asked me the same question multiple times and you devised a final immunity challenge from hell, you guys hosted a pretty professional game that I was glad to be a part of and participate in.

Let's get back to the matter at hand though.

I don't want to bore you with a novella of an opening statement. We all have better things to do than to read through all of the small details that people who look back on this season will forget. I simply want to highlight all of the things that make my game worthy of praise, and in turn, worthy of the title of sole survivor.

The premerge went by super quickly for me. I had the fortune of only having to attend one tribal counsel at the very start of the game, so I spent a good majority of my time there making bonds with people. Me and Nick hit it off in the pregame, and that continued when we were on the same tribe. I vouched for Jenn in the pick 'em, and me and him came to really like Jenn, eventually forming an alliance with her. That was where my true loyalty was for most of the game, and it took a few crazy tribal counsels in order to break it up. I was able to establish a good working relationship with Misty and Shane in the premerge, which ended up in an alliance of me, Nick, Misty, and Shane in that time period. I had a good casual relationship with a few other people during this time period, but right around the middle of May is where I had some problems in real life. I became bed-ridden and very sick, so playing in an ORG was not high on my list of priorities during that time. I wasn't able to talk with all of you and participate as much as I would have liked during that period. Nevertheless, I still did my part in challenges and tried my best to communicate and stay in the loop.

Going into the merge, I found myself in the middle due to Chris. I had already been firm with Misty, Shane, Jenn, and Nick. Me and Candice rekindled as well, and with all of these people in mind, I knew I would be safe for at least the first couple rounds. Chris and I hardly had a relationship, and he was already telling me how the vote was going to go down, and he targeted Jenn, who I was very close with. That turned me off straight from the start, so naturally, when we started figuring out the vote, the tide turned against him pretty quick with what he was telling everybody. Nick wasn't sure about playing the idol, and we had talked about it prior to the vote, so I knew that would probably be in play. After the dust had settled, Chris was gone.

After that, Aubry was targeted pretty quickly for not being around. I remember Candice seemed to only want Aubry gone instead of anyone else, and that sketched me out that she seemed so unwilling to compromise with us. After Aubry's boot, I had wanted Candice gone because of how she behaved the previous round. I had only told Misty and Nick about wanting her gone, and in hindsight, Misty must have told Candice that I threw her name out. I started hearing from Nick that Candice was throwing my name out now, and so when i was talking with her, she kept pitching Misty, which seemed odd to me. I was able to sniff out directly from the source what was going on as I asked for more details about her plan, and she eventually told me to vote for her, because she was voting me. I naturally became pretty fucking worried that word somehow had gotten back to her, but Misty and Nick reassured me that they didn't do it (lies, obvs). Still though, Misty was pushing the vote on Tina, and I couldn't go for Candice because of it. I told Candice that I was voting Tina regardless of what she did, and you all saw the end result. The following round came, and I wanted Candice gone. She had voted in the minority, and voted for me. She was not good for me to stick around since I knew she would never work with me again. I was out most of that day, so once I started hearing that people wanted Shane gone over Candice, I immediately disagreed. I managed to talk to Bobby and Nick about switching the votes around (when I was first informed, it was a 4-2-2). Bobby said that Debbie was going to vote for Candice instead of me. Now, whether or not that was my doing? I don't think it was solely me who got Bobby to talk to Debbie. However, the vote was now shaping up to be 4-3-1, which means there wouldn't be a tie on me anymore. All I needed to do was to tip off Shane, and Candice would be going home. So that's what I did. I told Shane a little bit before the vote that people were trying to flush out the idol, so if he had one, he should play it. Shane seemed suspicious leading up to that point, but I'd like to think I was the one that confirmed it for him. That move got rid of who I thought was my biggest opponent at the time, and I talked with Debbie and Bobby about making an alliance between myself, those two, and Nick, and we pulled it together after Candice was voted out. I heard Misty was infuriated with how that vote went down, which made my move all the more satisfying for me.

Which then started a long, drawn out battle between me and her.

The following round, I wanted to push for Misty. I was already on a roll voting out people who had written my name down, so I didn't want to kill the momentum. After talking with Nick, it seemed like most people weren't down for that idea. All possibilities were shattered once Misty opened her purse and snagged a necklace, and the vote was focused on Shane. I now knew that Misty wouldn't be as easy to get out as I thought, since people were unwilling to commit to Misty before the vote, and she had enough social connections to get 20 fucking coins. Misty had previously wanted me gone, so I needed to go with the flow for that. Crazy enough, Misty wins immunity the next round, so that plan has to go back onto the back-burner. I thought I had a decent relationship with Debbie, I still felt like I was Nick's right-hand man, and I was still close with Jenn, so I thought I had four votes on my side to counter the two votes I'd potentially be getting from Misty and Bobby. Then it goes to a tie, yadda yadda yadda, my allies go to rocks with Debbie and Nick gets booted. That vote was a clusterfuck, but I managed to make it out alive, and that's what mattered.

Next round, surprise surprise, Misty wins again. I still know that Jenn has an idol in her pocket, and she seemed more than willing to play it on me. I talk with Debbie, and we recognize that if we can't get out the biggest threat, Bob is next in line. Had there been no idol in Jenn's hands? Who knows, maybe Debbie would have voted for me, but since the idol was in play, Bobby was going. After that, my heart sank when I saw that the challenge was a form of chess. You see, Nick and Misty had been playing chess against each other fairly often, so I thought I was completely screwed. We both won our games, and I knew it was showtime. It was fairly even for a while, but a few mistakes on my part put me at a disadvantage. Misty had my king pinned against the edge of the board, and I only had two other pieces that basically became irrelevant at that point. I moved my lion (rook) up towards her king and spoke in the chat about how I was going to lose in a few moves or less, and Misty, sure enough, made a mistake. She used the wrong piece to capture my lion, which allowed me to move my king into her territory for a turn and win the game that way! It seemed the vote was obviously going to be Misty, and I started getting cocky, hence the really cringey parchment I made. What I did not anticipate, however, is the very person me and Debbie had been talking about getting rid of would sway her to guarantee herself in a F2 spot. So it went to a tiebreaker, and Jenn lost. I had gotten cocky and counted my eggs before they hatched, and the game bitchslapped me like a freight train.

From that point on, I knew what I had to do. I knew I could beat Misty, I had done it before. All I needed to do was do it again. If she beat me like she had so many other times before, I was screwed. I managed to pull off the win though, and I could put an end to the Jerry vs. Misty feud that had been such a burden for me in the past five or so rounds. I came out on top, as you guys just saw.

As you could see, I had a few main goals that I succeeded in achieving during the course of this game. Candice was a roadblock, and I managed to find a way around her and get her out. Misty was a broken bridge, and I made a ramp and jumped over her. Every time someone threatened my game, I was the one who won the battle against them. With the exception of the revote where Debbie voted for me, everyone that voted for me is out of the game, either on the jury or the prejury (curse you, Joe). I voted in the majority for every vote, and if I had voted differently in the tie votes, my least favorable outcome would have came true. For the last portion of the game, I was always trying to think of a way to get around Misty if she won immunity again. If she won immunity at F4, I was going to attempt to do a 2-1-1 vote and try to get Debbie to vote Jenn, and me and Jenn vote for her. Would it have worked? Probably not, but I would have had nothing to lose; I would have been right back to where I started anyways. If Misty won the final immunity? I would have made an emotional appeal to her. It made no strategical sense for her to keep me in the game, but if I could get her to listen to her emotions, I thought that was my best shot at getting to FTC. Would it have worked? Probably not, but at least I could recognize what my best course of action was. I was always trying to plan ahead and position myself to get in good graces with the people around me. I may not have been the flashiest player or played the best game ever to be seen in an ORG. I'm not trying to claim that I did. What I am trying to say is that I played a game that is deserving of winning.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering questions regarding my game and how I perceived the game around me.

EDIT: Goddammit, me and Debbie both mention novellas before we both go on longer than we initially intended. Whatevs, I worked hard on piecing this together.