@Jury,
if you took the time to read the full jury thread, I applaud you. Truly, it's a lot of effort, especially when we're talking about awarding someone else as the winner in a game you played, and in a game where you lost.
I'm not going to appeal to you each individually. I have the same thing to say to each one of you.
It would be a shame if you voted out of some concept of loyalty to someone you worked with who did not stab you. Cruel as this game is, the reason that Demon, Flum, and I made the final jury was because each one of you were voted out. To applaud the person with their hands clean is to reward a person who made it to the jury through luck and the actions of others.
It would be a shame if you voted to punish out of some sort of meta-gaming strategy, in order to establish a reputation for retaliating against people who stab you. That is selfish and disrespects the game.
I suggest you look hard at the jury thread, and consider your own interactions with each of us in the game, and vote for MVP. Vote for the person who played the best.
I don't think anyone can honestly say the answer is Demon, so I'll consider the case of Flum.
I asked Flum to provide transcripts or to state how many pages he had in his messages from the final tribe board. He didn't do either. The reason is because the transcripts tell the tale.
When Flum mutinied over to Birsan, I was in a tribe with a majority of original Juggernauts. Ezio, Snowy, Flum. I had prepared for that. I had set up an inter-tribal alliance including them when I was on Exile. But I wanted to do more than make the final 4. I wanted to make the final 3 and win.
So I pledged my loyalty to Flum, Snowy, and Ezio, while creating a conflict between Ezio and Flum. That wasn't as easy as saying "let's vote out X." That was painstaking effort to make them both feel they were threatened.
At final tribal, I was playing all sides. I was bouncing back and forth of discussions with everyone. I was gathering information, and I was testing people. I offered Snowy a final three deal, and he said this:
"There's no choice. If I side with you, Flum is our third no question. Really, the only real question I have is whether people will vote me for the win more over you, or Ezio. Because for all our talks about honesty and integrity, we're in it to win it, no? Final three is no position but you know what they say - if you're not #1 you're just a loser."
He let slip that he was going to fearvote me at 4, because he thought I would beat him at final jury, but that Flum would not beat him. That is because in the game, it was clear I was pulling the strings, and Flum was riding coattails.
I took that information and stabbed Snowy at 5 before he could stab me at 4. Perfect timing.
Demon suggested that this game is easy when you make lots of promises and stabs. Respectfully, she has no idea what she's talking about. I'm not the first snake to try to lie to someone and win a game of survivor, and I wasn't the lone snake in a game of angels. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to do what I did. It is hard to avoid fallout from stabbing someone else's ally, and make your votes actually sound to everyone else in the game like you're still on their side, and it's still in their interest to keep you around.
And when other people are apt to stab you at 4, or 5, or 6, or at any other point in the game, it is hard to gain that information and use it to time your preemptive strike perfectly.
Nothing about this was easy. If I open up my final tribe board and click on messages to see all the messages I exchanged with everyone at final tribe, I have 113 pages of messages, each one 30 messages deep. Neither Demon nor Flum would tell you how many they have. And that should tell you something too.
The only sincere counter-arguments to voting for me that I've heard from Demon and Flum are that (1) nobody is going to vote for me, so don't waste your vote, and (2) I assembled the wrong jury.
On (1), this isn't mafia. You're voting for the person who you think played the best game. Vote your conscience. Who cares about making your vote "count"? But also, the most vocal in the jury thread were the people I stabbed. I am confident that this jury will read the material in front of them and vote for the person who played the best.
(2) is a circular argument that assumes the result. Whether this is the "right jury" is for the jury to decide. I like my case next to both Flum and Demon. I honestly don't see why either deserves your vote.
Flum is right about one thing. I did not consider that the jury would use their "MVP" votes to settle old scores, vote for who they liked, or vote to be anyone's best friend. When a townie catches and lynches scum in a mafia game, the mafia player doesn't withhold their MVP vote over a grudge. I have blood on my hands, and I wear it with pride. That is because I made it to the end with my own two hands.
Thank you for your consideration.
Interesting thought
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