[Sara]

I would just like to say I am NOT a returning player nor have I ever even played an ORG before, but I am flattered that all of you thought that from the start

[Sara]

Abe's opening statement might as well be his closing statement, although I'm not too sure if I believe him about the idols...this seemed like it was a back to basics season with a final 2, hardly any tribe swaps etc. But even without the idols Abe played a strong game so I probably do have to vote for him even though I really don't want to

[Heather]

Lol, ‘Abe’ is a megalomaniac. Y’all can sit here and suck on this man’s areola and vote for him but I’m not. 

I’m still deciding who I’m voting for but it’s looking like I’m going to be voting for someone to lose vs voting for the person I think should win. 

[Sara]

For those that were in here when we were talking about Abe's "nervousness" at tribal rubbing us the wrong way, do you feel extra rubbed the wrong way now that we know he (allegedly) had two idols in his pocket that whole time? 

[Evvie]

I'm under the impression that Abe used his anxiety and paranoia as a strategy to get in with people to make them feel bad for him so they wouldn't flip on him. It feels slimy looking back at it and it's something Xander and I discussed at lengths before I left.

[Evvie]

Also, the night of the final 3 is something else I guess I should also share.

1) Basically, Abe was under the impression that we should give him immunity because he deserved it after it was discussed what the options were for the final challenge. It was like the person I had been working with all of a sudden didn't care about me as a person, he solely saw me as his number and felt like it was my part to give it to him after it was all said and done. I knew I was going into the final with the potential for a big L because I sucked at challenges but like, I'm not just about to hand you over immunity. Especially after 2 rounds prior, he said that he would quit at the final 3 if it was a final 2 because he didn't want to have to decide between the two of us, knowing good and damn well he had already made those decisions. It's like, why go to this extent?

2) He's supposedly donating his win to charity - doesn't know the charity just yet, but wants it to be LGBTQ+ informed. This was before the FIC even dropped. Xander and I both discussed whether or not he was saying that to us in hopes that if one of us won, we would take him to the end with us + felt like he was trying to pander to both of us being part of the Alphabet Alliance.

[Deshawn]

The idea that he thought either of you should hand him immunity is wild to me. Same with the idea of quitting at 3. Those 2 things, to me, are not winner behavior. Its a cop out and definitely the path of least resistance. Which is a huge turn off. 

[Shan]

I'm under the impression that Abe used his anxiety and paranoia as a strategy to get in with people to make them feel bad for him so they wouldn't flip on him. It feels slimy looking back at it and it's something Xander and I discussed at lengths before I left.

He definitely wore me the fuck OUT with his anxiety, to the point where I’d sometimes not sign on if I saw him on the board. He actually would have been much more fun to talk with all day long without all the crazy emotional states, so it’s even more annoying that it was apparently all manufactured. 

I’m having trouble rewarding a game that seems so…sociopathic almost lol. I think it’s frustrating when players can gamebot to the end, because I think the real beauty of Survivor is in knowing how to backstab your allies with one hand, while getting them to still want to put a million dollars in your other.  Looking at everyone as data to an endpoint isn’t playing well either, imho. 

Evvie how do you feel about his opening statement? Is he overselling? Also I have to know… his whole fucking meltdown when he was “about to quit” and all of that fucking personal drama that came out, was that real? Or was that another Abebot Strategy™?

[Deshawn]

Won't speak for Evvie but I know for SURE he's revising history on some of the stuff he's saying and I'm glad Xander called him out on it. I'm looking forward to that 90 minutes tribal where we can grill them a little more because I know for a fact that some stuff doesn't add up. 

[Evvie]

To Deshawn's point, I agree. Him threatening to quit or leave the game at certain points (like I'm sure we all had a moment of that) and then trying to pander for my vote makes me feel like he can kick rocks currently.

I feel like for him to also catch an attitude with me when I told him on my way out the door that Xander had my vote at the current moment was out of pocket. He basically said that because he played a better game, he thinks he should win, completely erasing the fact that he sent me through hell and back throughout the entirety of this experience and how I felt. Of course he tries to pin on me that I used my own anxiety throughout this experience but I came at it from a very wounded state of being whereas I think he was using it as something to capitalize upon throughout the experience because he knew both Xander and I both deal with high levels of anxiety and I have my own other forms of neurodivergence. This game was stressful because of Abe in ways that I wasn't trying to deal with, and why I spent most of my time either with my chats off OR leaving him on read throughout the day to make him think I was doing other shit. Like, Abe would stress me out about every little thing and it felt like having to babysit this grown ass man's emotions and placate him.

I'll never forget how both Shan and I had to do damage control for him after he started spiraling out and attacking me regarding a conversation I had with Shan that I didn't even tell Abe directly about. This man wanted to quit, wanted to apologize profusely, talk about making it up to me and...here I am, sitting on ~le jurie~. I definitely am reckoning with the feelings of the person that I worked with this whole time is actually just a fucking robot.

[Shan]

This game was stressful because of Abe in ways that I wasn't trying to deal with, and why I spent most of my time either with my chats off OR leaving him on read throughout the day to make him think I was doing other shit. Like, Abe would stress me out about every little thing and it felt like having to babysit this grown ass man's emotions and placate him.

… I definitely am reckoning with the feelings of the person that I worked with this whole time is actually just a fucking robot.

ALL OF THIS

[Sara]

To Deshawn's point, I agree. Him threatening to quit or leave the game at certain points (like I'm sure we all had a moment of that) and then trying to pander for my vote makes me feel like he can kick rocks currently.

I feel like for him to also catch an attitude with me when I told him on my way out the door that Xander had my vote at the current moment was out of pocket. He basically said that because he played a better game, he thinks he should win, completely erasing the fact that he sent me through hell and back throughout the entirety of this experience and how I felt. Of course he tries to pin on me that I used my own anxiety throughout this experience but I came at it from a very wounded state of being whereas I think he was using it as something to capitalize upon throughout the experience because he knew both Xander and I both deal with high levels of anxiety and I have my own other forms of neurodivergence. This game was stressful because of Abe in ways that I wasn't trying to deal with, and why I spent most of my time either with my chats off OR leaving him on read throughout the day to make him think I was doing other shit. Like, Abe would stress me out about every little thing and it felt like having to babysit this grown ass man's emotions and placate him.

I'll never forget how both Shan and I had to do damage control for him after he started spiraling out and attacking me regarding a conversation I had with Shan that I didn't even tell Abe directly about. This man wanted to quit, wanted to apologize profusely, talk about making it up to me and...here I am, sitting on ~le jurie~. I definitely am reckoning with the feelings of the person that I worked with this whole time is actually just a fucking robot.

Why do you think the episode after I left was titled "fucking emotional midget"

[Evvie]

Well for 1) I wasn't hip to the point that each round's confessionals were named after the prior person was voted out so I wasn't sure who that was directed towards and 2) I made this comment in my confessional but isn't that word a slur lol.

[Evvie]

Oh and Shan, in regards to Abe's opening statement, I read it this morning and all I kept thinking was this man was doing the absolute most and had graphics and shit laid out each round ≠ Evvie's style of jury duty and style of play so it was kinda an automatic turn off. I do think there's a bit of revisionist theory especially since I'm not there to defend myself for my own decisions throughout the entirety of our alliance. I was definitely shocked and surprised to hear about the idols - didn't know anything about them and I hate that he let me pin idols on everyone else aside from him especially after he didn't have to keep the fact he had an idol from me. When it came to the moves we were making, I was definitely tight lipped and never let those decisions leak so I would have kept that information under wraps. It's actually enraging to me to hear about them when he knew good and damn well he was virtually safe the entire game. 

I find it interesting and hypocritical as well that he's the person that would leak everyone else's information intentionally but then would be upset if it was done in return to him. 

[Sara]

Well for 1) I wasn't hip to the point that each round's confessionals were named after the prior person was voted out so I wasn't sure who that was directed towards and 2) I made this comment in my confessional but isn't that word a slur lol.

I certainly didn't mean it as such, it was a play on the expression of "mental midget" and I just expanded it to include how I felt about Abe's behavior in the lead up to my vote out. Apologies to anyone offended!

[Sara]

Piggybacking off of you guys having to talk Abe off the ledge, I recall very early on within the first 2-3 days of the game he came to me about some spat he had had with you Evvie regarding his/your LGBT status and in that moment I felt as though we were having a conversation beyond the game where I was just helping him as a friend. But to hear that he was doing the same thing to most everyone else makes me feel like I was used and that he only did that to garner sympathy, which really sucks cause I think Abe is cool, we also talked about being stoners (kinda tight I wasn't in this stoners alliance but I digress ), UFC, work, Hockey, and all sorts of other stuff outside of the game. I do feel like he threw me away at the end, I felt like Woody when Andy gets Buzz for the first time, discarded and forgotten, and that is a really shitty feeling to overcome and it really doesn't make me want to vote for him. I'm interested to hear where everyone else's head spaces are at cause I'm very torn between feeling an obligation to respect the best game which is undoubedtly Abe's, or voting for the person who I feel treated me better and was overall nicer in the way they went about their business. 

[Jeff Probst]

You may begin asking your questions in the threads.

[Deshawn]

But to hear that he was doing the same thing to most everyone else makes me feel like I was used and that he only did that to garner sympathy, which really sucks cause I think Abe is cool, we also talked about being stoners (kinda tight I wasn't in this stoners alliance but I digress ), UFC, work, Hockey, and all sorts of other stuff outside of the game. I do feel like he threw me away at the end, 

Oh god. 100% same . I actually brought up a stoners alliance to Xander on the first thing which is really ironic in hindsight. 

[Heather]

The question then becomes for me and maybe for others do we feel comfortable rewarding Abraham’s style of gameplay? I’m not denying he played a phenomenal game and I’m almost willing to put my feelings aside, however, I keep hitting a roadblock.

Abraham expects people to do things for him simply because he thinks he’s God in this game. He thinks beating Xander is a slam dunk as he views Xander as his pawn (though I’m starting to believe it’s more accurate to refer to Xander and Evvie as bishops). He believes that we’re obligated to vote for him simply because he played this elaborate and well-orchestrated game. This is similar to how he believed we were obligated to do certain things for him that benefited his game despite be detrimental to our own. For example, Abraham expecting Evvie and Xander to give him immunity. To me, it just all feels a bit ridiculous. 

And I need to mention this since it hasn’t been brought up. 

Despite all of his meticulous planning, Abraham failed on one front and that’s jury management. He failed at arguably the most important part of all this which is maintaining good relations with the people who are deciding whether or not you should win. For me, it’s looking like his lack of jury management is trumping all unless he’s able to convince me otherwise 

[Evvie]

But to hear that he was doing the same thing to most everyone else makes me feel like I was used and that he only did that to garner sympathy, which really sucks cause I think Abe is cool, we also talked about being stoners (kinda tight I wasn't in this stoners alliance but I digress ), UFC, work, Hockey, and all sorts of other stuff outside of the game. I do feel like he threw me away at the end, 

Oh god. 100% same . I actually brought up a stoners alliance to Xander on the first thing which is really ironic in hindsight. 

I honestly don't even know how that alliance got that name. I also did bring up in a confesh how the basis of us indulging in the herbal arts felt very goofy to base a whole alliance of off because like, doesn't the general public engage in them these days? I think I stuck with Abe because he was the first person to ping me that first night lmfao and Xander and I came to find out that we have matching tattoos which was really wild to look back at. That's why I always felt closer to Xander, plus he was more pleasant to talk to. It didn't feel like strategy all the time, it felt like genuine conversation instead of feeling like I was on pins and needles. Definitely regret not getting to know you more, Sara - I felt like we were always online at different times so our conversations were relatively rushed or just not really game focused.

I do agree with what Heather just stated - his jury management is poor and I've definitely seen people lose games because of forgetting that the people you put on the jury and how you sent them there is just as important as getting to the end. I know he is aware his jury management isn't that great, BUT I don't think he's extremely aware of this one component: empathy. What he expected from us, he wasn't willing to give back to us himself and that's a huge chink in the armor of his game to me. He lacks a lot of recognizing the make-up of the people he sent here. I am pretty sure I told him or Xander like, you're dealing with a variety of different people and everyone isn't some huge fan of the show like you think they are or you, yourself, might be. Like, there are moms here lol. They are not going to award you getting here off the backs of your alliance and with you using your high levels of paranoia and anxiety to work triple-time in the game while forgetting how you made people feel as they left. There were definitely times where I wanted to give heads up or say something to the person who was going home in advance and didn't because of him saying he didn't think it was a good idea and wanted the shock effect so you all couldn't do anything (even though he knew you couldn't because he was sitting on all the idols).