So we'll start with the beginning. I was put on a tribe with old Croatia's Nikki & Ella. So I made a final 3 deal with them, but I also knew being a winner I could be targeted at any point. So because of that I took advantage of Highnoon's offer and alligned with the rest of the original tribe as well. We dominated challenges and never went to tribal.
Tribe swap I immediately felt fucked. I knew Natalie was going to target me eventually and I didn't know where AJ/Jeff stood. Thankfully I was able to convince AJ & he convinced Jeff (I think) and maybe it so we were the majority four. Highnoon went first obviously for trying to take out Croatia people (the only time I was close to going home), then Nat was supposed to go next until Nat tricked Nikki into thinking she had an idol, so instead of a tie it was 4-2 DJ left. I had a plan to convince DJ we could go far, but after that my shot at working with DJ was gone.
Merge comes along and AJ & I convinced most people to vote for Natalie and thankfully it went smoothly. I knew Nikki was going home and I did try to change it, but it couldn't be done so I had to let it happen even though I thought it was going to hurt my game (more on this later). To further hurt my game I ranted about Nikki going and called out leaders from both sides. Meaning I should have went next right? But instead I was able to recover and get into some people's heads and then eventually I was back on top with alliances with both AJ/Connor. I had the power to send home whoever I wanted every round. After I convinced AJ to switch his vote to Jeff, it was all a matter of keeping people in tact. The only slight bump was when Ella/Cedric tried blindsiding Connor, but kept that from happening with my vote, assuming Sim would self-vote.
People probably felt like they were choosing who we would vote because I would ask them who they thought should go, but every time I had already convinced them the best way to go was really just best for my game. Originally I was going to take Connor out, but when he was saved because of a self-vote I knew he got lucky. I knew I was a big reason why Ella even got passed the vote with Jeff, because I got the vote to send Jeff home and kept Connor from flipping.
I played strategically, I won immunities when they were needed and made/broke social connections at the right times. There were some I didn't talk to, but didn't have anything said to me either to make it fair to use that against me.