Finished Big Brother 10: Scramble & Conquer

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As you're both aware, from my perspective you did play extremely similar games. What you did, you did as an alliance, and that saw the entirety of Hibana make it to Final 4. You both kept it a perfect secret and played incredible social games outside of that alliance, though for me it seems that NP had a slightly more overt impact on the game, mainly as a result of the Shaymin backdoor. I haven't seen anything like that coming from Ephe, but hey, we weren't working together (note: turns out it was pretty one-sided there lol >.>) until relatively late in the game.

So, the question I'm going to ask to distinguish between the two of you is going to be about your social game: What position would each of you have been in had the winner of the Triple Eviction POV been myself or Senkun, and what were your plans for that event?

I was a full 49 seconds behind NP so it's not like it was close, but I think it's an interesting hypothetical.

oh also:
I believe I forgot to answer the second half of this question – what my plans were in case almonds/lily won POV.
I've already said that I believe I'm nominated, but I'm also the one saved in this eventuality.

So, where to from there?
The house would either be:
(A) Lily/Flour/NP/Sen/me
or
(B) Almonds/NP/Flour/Sen/me

Let's start with the eventuality with Lily still in the house.

If Violet is gone from the game, all bets are off. NP has an incredibly high chance of winning the game at endgame, while Flour has good relations with jury. As such, if the house is (A), I connect with Lily a lot more, and grind to win the F5 HoH spot, which I had a realistic shot at doing, given my performance in the actual F5 HoH comp. I then use the HoH position to connect with Sen more, and basically talk to everyone in the house, with my talks with NP/Flour deciding on how to handle the fallout of Vi being evicted there.

From there, I aim to have an F3 of... not Hibana, basically. No offense to everyone but when Vi's out all bets are off :U
I could do so by shooting for F4 veto, and F3 HoH (with NP theoretically gone before F3, I think I'd have an easier time of it).

If Almonds is still in the house.

Again, Vi is gone. All bets are off, I shoot once more for F5 HoH. In this eventuality, Campaigners is still intact, and I use the heck out of that. Using the HoH to connect with Sen, I once again shoot for an F3 that's not Hibana. This could play out in two ways:
a) I stick with Campaigners, knowing that Almonds probably knows that NP is highly likely to win an F2, and as such I'd go for a me/almonds F2.
b) I reconnect with Sen and use F5 HoH to take out either NP or Almonds. Then in F4 veto, I have a pretty good shot, and it plays out largely similar to my expected plan for eventuality A (lily in house after triple).

I'm glad Hibana made it to the end, though. Despite my game, I actually dislike playing to betray people – audience knows this, they saw me breaking down in my DR during survivor week – and I would have hated the fact that in either of these worlds my best shot would be to betray NP and Flour.
 
This time, however, I'm not in the position I had in BB7. I got to make bold moves, and made sure no one traced them back to me:
  • Setting up the house – I made sure to make sides and get Quaking's side to counter Mirdo's side. I set up the Winner's Alliance, and built it as a framework to counter Mirdo's side of the house, while keeping tabs on the other side and ensuring I wasn't perceived as the cause, or the second-in-command.
  • Quaking eviction – I had a major hand in this, and all it took was not playing the insignia, something that people wouldn't fault me for.
  • Simply staying on Quaking's side of the house was probably the most dangerous play in the game. If anyone ever sussed me out, I was done for. But I got through it and managed to keep the facade until the very end.
The funny thing here is that I feel like I have a version of all of these moves, but with perhaps even an extra layer to them:
  • Setting up the house - I made sure to use the mirdo eviction to make the other siding, creating the Billingual Pink Hair Powder Penguin alliance with Sen, Aria, Flour, and myself, but I didn't just end it with keeping tabs on the other side; I built super strong relationships with them too. My conversations with Quaking meant trusted me a good deal, and I'd say I had the strongest connection to Almonds in this game too. While you were making sure you weren't perceived as the cause of one side, I was making sure two sides didn't see me as a cause or member of the other
  • Setting up evictions - my TLS eviction was probably the most obvious Conqueror move there, but I had a major hand that people didn't see in evictions week after week. Just look at Week 1 for instance. When scattered was evicted, I was the one who used logs to convince mirdo to flip, which played a major role in leading to Aria/Sen/Nick flipping too. When Mora was evicted the first time, I was the one who jumped on a perspective slip to convince mirdo he needed to go after him. And I even have a similar thing to you not getting faulted for the Quaking eviction. When we started eliminating some of my allies, I was the one who pushed you to use the Insignia despite your resistance, allowing me to not get faulted for Aria's eviction.
  • You simply stayed on Quaking's side of the house, but I don't forget that I stayed on that side too, just while in the process being a leading member of the other side. If people sussed me out doing that, I would have been done for from both angles. I had to justify every single move and vote to two different sides without either getting suspicious of me, and that's an even crazier tightrope.
NP played the laid-back style this time – he made moves that advanced his game, with the biggest being the Shaymin eviction on his HoH, but I think how I managed to never get nominated once before F5 despite my risky, precarious position shows my skill, and even then the F5 nomination was just for show and to keep Sen pacified – even getting nominated there was furthering the plan.
And finally: if I can compare this to my last time at F2:

NP is in sort of the same situation as BB7 me. He's played sides against each other without getting blood on his hands.

As such, I'd be the BB7 Flour here – except for the fact that while I should have had a target on my back the whole game, I didn't.

I made the bold moves and didn't get targeted for it.

Make of that what you will.
I agree that your lack of nomination is super impressive, but keep in mind that the reason you weren't targeted by the other side of Aria and Sen? That in large part was up to the strength of my social game, not yours:
In Week 4 Part 1, Aria wanted to vote to evict you. But instead of you being the one to go and convince her otherwise, I was the one that convinced her.
After the two tribes reunited, Aria/Sen weren't sure who the last vote to evict TLS was. The person who convinced them that the last vote to evict TLS was you (instead of Lily, which it was in reality) was also me, which I used to get the target off your back.
For a lot of the rest of the game, Aria/Sen brought up you as someone who needed to get out at some point. Every time, I was the one who said I've been talking to Ephe outside here a bit and I feel like I can trust them to some degree. I was also the one who got you out of the nomination plan in the Triple Eviction.

The reason Aria/Sen never went after you this game despite your attachment to Quaking's side? I feel like that was one of the hidden strength of my social game.

On the other hand, I didn't just never get nominated until F5, I was never nominated once in the entire game. I took active measures to ensure I was safe with every single person in this game every single week in a way I don't think you really did. While I did the heavy lifting to keep you safe with Aria and Sen, I feel like my connection with Quaking was strong enough that he wouldn't have gone after me even if you weren't there (not that you being there didn't help). Of the members of this jury, I was closer than you in this game to Aria (RIP), Sen, Vi, and Flour and was at least as close as you to Almonds and Mora too. My social game had me covered on all angles.
Your elimination in F5 may have been just for show, but don't forget that if Sen won POV that week you would have been instantly evicted-Vi would have nominated Flour and Sen's vote plus Flour's insignia would have equaled a 2-1 vote against you at best. I never had a comparable situation because I was the one who went to Vi outside of Hibana to make sure that even if the plan went wrong a bit, I wouldn't be nominated, a thing that I ensured for myself week after week.

The risk and precarious position included in your game I don't think is a strength of it but a weakness. I was able to play a similar game to you but eliminate that risk by building more connections with both sides, and I think that's a huge testament to the strength of my social game and the strategic moves I made to get there.
 
i'd like to start this off with a classic question to both finalists, and that is:

why do you think the other person deserves to win?

i like seeing how people respond to this, so make your responses entertaining :UUU
Ephe is definitely one of the people in this game who deserves to win! They were a super important member of the team in Hibana in so many ways:
  • They were always a voice in the Hibana chat that was ready to talk strategy, and played an important role in a lot of the decisions we made this game. They would always voice their opinion, provide information, and encourage us to develop plans and enjoy the game.
  • Whenever a plan was made, they always played their role in it, executing the conversations we needed from them to make sure our intended outcome would happen.
  • Every single time they won a competition, they used it in a valuable way to help further their game. This is a really hard thing to do and I give them tremendous props for that.
In a way, I'd almost put Ephe in a Kyoko Kirigiri type of role in this game. They always were contributing to the team, using logic and planning to help to solve puzzles ahead of us and always staying objective, composed, and focused on the goal ahead of us.
When they had conviction that something they believe in was the right move, they'd always be sure to push it. There's a reason it took 3 hours of debates for me to convince them to evict Quaking instead of Almonds haha
Imagine this gif of Kyoko making of objection as Ephe objecting to any plan they didn't fully see the value of

If I was to compare myself to a DR character, I'd choose Chiaki. I think I always had my finger on the pulse of this game, knowing what was going on, built strong relationships to everyone else, and was always trying to contribute to the team with smart and logical observations and plans in a way that really reminds me of her.

It's no mistake that Ephe is sitting here right now and it's because they played a quite strong and well thought out game. They had a very strong strategic game and their social and competition games were really good too. Ephe has definitely played a game that is deserving of a win.
 
As you're both aware, from my perspective you did play extremely similar games. What you did, you did as an alliance, and that saw the entirety of Hibana make it to Final 4. You both kept it a perfect secret and played incredible social games outside of that alliance, though for me it seems that NP had a slightly more overt impact on the game, mainly as a result of the Shaymin backdoor. I haven't seen anything like that coming from Ephe, but hey, we weren't working together (note: turns out it was pretty one-sided there lol >.>) until relatively late in the game.

So, the question I'm going to ask to distinguish between the two of you is going to be about your social game: What position would each of you have been in had the winner of the Triple Eviction POV been myself or Senkun, and what were your plans for that event?

I was a full 49 seconds behind NP so it's not like it was close, but I think it's an interesting hypothetical.
Oooh this is a really cool question! I definitely had plans in place for what would have happened in this game had the winner of the Triple Eviction POV been anyone in the game. I tend to geek out a lot around scenario mapping, so apologies if I end up rambling a lot here haha

If Sen won the POV, he would probably just discard it, attaining the game effect as me winning.
The other scenarios are where it gets more interesting:
If Lily won the POV, Ephe would have been the replacement nominee, leaving Vi/Ephe/you on the block. My goal, as it always is in this game, is to make sure I remain as safe as possible and have low eviction equity going forward in the game. If I evicted Vi, this wouldn't be the case. I'd be providing a really open angle for Ephe to turn on Hibana, banding together with Sen and Lily and trying to get both of them to take them to the end of the game. If I evicted Ephe, Vi would still be close with Lily, but she wouldn't really have the ability to draw in Sen and turn on Hibana because Sen already saw her and Lily as a pretty close connection and wouldn't have swapped to be on the bottom of an alliance. Because of this, I'd have pushed for an Ephe eviction if Lily won the POV. Going forward in that game, I'd have stayed loyal to Hibana but also formed a Final 3 deal with Vi/Lily, leaving me as one of the people in this game that every single player wants to take to the Final 3 at the very least, making me well covered and safe from pretty much everyone in the house. I would have pushed for a Lily eviction first and then hopefully have been in a scenario in the Final 4 that was quite similar to here, where I could make sure everyone wanted to take me to the end.
If Almonds won the POV, Ephe would be the replacement nominee, leaving Vi/Ephe/Lily on the block. In this scenario, the best way for me to remain safe and retain trust with you and Sen going forward would be to stick to what both of you expected and save Ephe, evicting Vi and Lily from the game. In this scenario, Ephe doesn't really have the mobility to turn on me easily, since Almonds was super close to me in the game in a way Lily wasn't and you can't get Sen to turn on me before he would on Almonds, nor could you get Almonds' approval to get Sen to go after me. Notably, this would leave me in a super similar position to where I'd be if Lily won the POV, with every single player left in the game being in some three person alliance with me and wanting to take me to the end. I'd have pushed for an Almonds eviction first because you're so strong at comps and such a great overall player and then could again have been in a Final 4 where I could persuade everyone left in the game to take me to the end.

As you can see, I had incredibly different plans depending on which of you would have won the POV, but either way I had placed myself in so good of a position that I could make sure every player would have had at the very least wanted me in the Final 3. It's no mistake that I had outs for every single scenario: I was meticulously setting up my social game to remove any incentive from turning on me and make sure I had routes to go with no matter who took power. I had a lot of Plan Bs in this game, and even though a fair amount of them never needed to be used, I always had them in my mind just in case.
 
Ephe is definitely one of the people in this game who deserves to win! They were a super important member of the team in Hibana in so many ways:
  • They were always a voice in the Hibana chat that was ready to talk strategy, and played an important role in a lot of the decisions we made this game. They would always voice their opinion, provide information, and encourage us to develop plans and enjoy the game.
  • Whenever a plan was made, they always played their role in it, executing the conversations we needed from them to make sure our intended outcome would happen.
  • Every single time they won a competition, they used it in a valuable way to help further their game. This is a really hard thing to do and I give them tremendous props for that.
In a way, I'd almost put Ephe in a Kyoko Kirigiri type of role in this game. They always were contributing to the team, using logic and planning to help to solve puzzles ahead of us and always staying objective, composed, and focused on the goal ahead of us.
When they had conviction that something they believe in was the right move, they'd always be sure to push it. There's a reason it took 3 hours of debates for me to convince them to evict Quaking instead of Almonds haha
Imagine this gif of Kyoko making of objection as Ephe objecting to any plan they didn't fully see the value of

If I was to compare myself to a DR character, I'd choose Chiaki. I think I always had my finger on the pulse of this game, knowing what was going on, built strong relationships to everyone else, and was always trying to contribute to the team with smart and logical observations and plans in a way that really reminds me of her.

It's no mistake that Ephe is sitting here right now and it's because they played a quite strong and well thought out game. They had a very strong strategic game and their social and competition games were really good too. Ephe has definitely played a game that is deserving of a win.

re: bolded
I made a lot of the plans, tyvm! I went through the possibilities for every week, making sure everyone was on the same page for any eventuality.

I have some other thoughts (read: I'm a bit irritated – understating it a little but hey) about certain things you've said about your gameplay in opposition to mine, and I will put them up as soon as I can put them into a more... rational thought process.

For now, it's enough to say that while we are meant to downplay the other's play versus our own, this being the finale after all, our games were definitely not as different as you're making them out to be.
 
re: bolded
I made a lot of the plans, tyvm! I went through the possibilities for every week, making sure everyone was on the same page for any eventuality.

I have some other thoughts (read: I'm a bit irritated – understating it a little but hey) about certain things you've said about your gameplay in opposition to mine, and I will put them up as soon as I can put them into a more... rational thought process.

For now, it's enough to say that while we are meant to downplay the other's play versus our own, this being the finale after all, our games were definitely not as different as you're making them out to be.
That bolded part is there as part of the second point, because the first point was exactly that you were a huge component in all parts of the plans! Trust me, you definitely get tons of credit for being integral in designing #EvilPlans and if my post didn't convey that my apologies. But it wasn't just making the plans that made you strong, it was your execution and dedication to them and that's what the second point is crediting :D
I don't feel like I'm making stuff out to be more different than it was as much as I'm trying to highlight the differences. We played similar games so in many aspects but my first post was where I did a lot of the summarizing and talking about the big picture and it's not worth talking about all the similarities in our games again. My goal here is to highlight the small differences and sections where I think I did better, just as you are doing yourself
I said there that your game was super strong and deserving for a reason: it is. You played extremely well and I don't mean to disparage that in any way.
 
The risk and precarious position included in your game I don't think is a strength of it but a weakness. I was able to play a similar game to you but eliminate that risk by building more connections with both sides, and I think that's a huge testament to the strength of my social game and the strategic moves I made to get there.
Now, for my thoughts.

Let's begin with this one: while you basically took no risks, also consider the fact that you were not the one on the more dangerous side of the house.
Quaking/Almonds/Shaymin was a comp stomp alliance waiting to happen, and I had to navigate that atmosphere for most of pre-jury.
This was a necessary job for someone in Hibana – had there been nobody monitoring that side of the house, we'd have been completely doomed.

Next: I did this tightrope job of making sure they didn't target Hibana while also making connections and talking to people not necessarily on that side of the house.
Nick was one such connection – I had ties to him from our broken F3 deal with Mirdo, Flying Aces – which meant that I had to ensure that two areas I was tied to both didn't target Hibana, and didn't figure out I was talking with the other. I also attempted to reach out to Sen and Aria at this time – they weren't responsive then, so I deemed it unprofitable to keep trying then.
Essentially, I wasn't just the mole – there was a point after Quaking's eviction where pretty much everyone in the house thought I was willing to work with them.

And finally: I did all this alone. When NP was on the other side of the house working to keep Aria and Sen off of Hibana, Flour was also there with him.
I ensured that Quaking's side, the one with the potential to just outright stomp everything, didn't target anyone I didn't want targeted, with no reinforcing voice to back me up.
When telling Quaking not to go for Vi, I had only my reason and wits to go on.
When downplaying NP's clout – which did happen, mind you – I had to ensure that his image of the floater purger, and nothing else, was conveyed by how I supposedly saw him – with no one there to back me up.

I absolutely think my game was risky. But I made sure that the risks would never fall through, through skill and through planning.
I don't think taking no risks is a bad play. But there is such a thing as being too risk-averse: the risky moves I made ensured the success of my alliance, and thus:
I also absolutely think that succeeding despite the risks are marks that I carried my game well enough, in an alliance and as an individual.
 
Now, for my thoughts.

Let's begin with this one: while you basically took no risks, also consider the fact that you were not the one on the more dangerous side of the house.
Quaking/Almonds/Shaymin was a comp stomp alliance waiting to happen, and I had to navigate that atmosphere for most of pre-jury.
This was a necessary job for someone in Hibana – had there been nobody monitoring that side of the house, we'd have been completely doomed.

Next: I did this tightrope job of making sure they didn't target Hibana while also making connections and talking to people not necessarily on that side of the house.
Nick was one such connection – I had ties to him from our broken F3 deal with Mirdo, Flying Aces – which meant that I had to ensure that two areas I was tied to both didn't target Hibana, and didn't figure out I was talking with the other. I also attempted to reach out to Sen and Aria at this time – they weren't responsive then, so I deemed it unprofitable to keep trying then.
Essentially, I wasn't just the mole – there was a point after Quaking's eviction where pretty much everyone in the house thought I was willing to work with them.

And finally: I did all this alone. When NP was on the other side of the house working to keep Aria and Sen off of Hibana, Flour was also there with him.
I ensured that Quaking's side, the one with the potential to just outright stomp everything, didn't target anyone I didn't want targeted, with no reinforcing voice to back me up.
When telling Quaking not to go for Vi, I had only my reason and wits to go on.
When downplaying NP's clout – which did happen, mind you – I had to ensure that his image of the floater purger, and nothing else, was conveyed by how I supposedly saw him – with no one there to back me up.

I absolutely think my game was risky. But I made sure that the risks would never fall through, through skill and through planning.
I don't think taking no risks is a bad play. But there is such a thing as being too risk-averse: the risky moves I made ensured the success of my alliance, and thus:
I also absolutely think that succeeding despite the risks are marks that I carried my game well enough, in an alliance and as an individual.
Yeah you're completely right here Ephe. You were the primary person working with Quaking and Shaymin and you did a really good job monitoring that side of the house. Your Nick connection was also good and I give props for that.
My point there was not that you did badly there, but that I felt like I did the equivalent of all of that with Aria, Sen, and Almonds. Flour spoke about game in that chat a ton less than I did (I have over 6x as many messages there as he does), and I was the main person pushing everything there with him mostly just agreeing with what I was saying. I was also saying that just as you navigated that tightrope, I navigated just as crazy as one being in a Final 4 deal with Aria and Sen while being so close to Almonds as the only Hibana member close to him in prejury and having a good connection with Quaking and making sure everyone wanted to work with me at all times. Sorry if I wasn't clear in what I was saying because I didn't intend to say that you didn't do the great stuff you did.
We've played super comparable games and I think I definitely misread that comment on risk, since you were focused on the risk of your Quaking setup and I thought you handled that brilliantly, while I focused more on the risk in the lategame for you. Sorry for the misunderstanding there.
 
I have some other things I was thinking of saying, but
tbh I don't have the energy to say them.

I'll move on to the questions; I've had enough of rebuttals.

All that I wanted to say has pretty much been said already – if I think of something, I'll say it.

The last thing I'll say in rebuttal:
NP and I have had to cover for each other at differing points in the game.
That was, after all, the entire point of making Hibana.

As for risk in the late-game: I do have some confidence in my comp skills, enough to make the very small risks irrelevant.
A good example of this was the Frat Boy Beer Pong comp, where NP managed to get 51k while I was gone.
I knew I was okay even if I lost the veto, but I was on the block.
So I tried the comp a couple more times and ended with 55k a minute before deadline.

Essentially – NP's game in the late-game was quite a bit similar to my game in the mid-game.
As such. I don't think I lose out in socials at all – I literally only didn't talk to Aria because she made it very clear that she was in no way interested in working with me.
To everyone else, I worked with fine.
As for NP going to Violet and Flour and ensuring he'd never be the target: if this situation had ever happened, it would have been pretty darn easy to prove that NP was the greater late-game threat.
Also I just didn't have the energy or time to keep talking to everyone, so that's something.
I'll address that more in my answer to Sen.
 
and one final thing:
my one single nomination in F5 was literally arbitrary.
It made no sense to argue for me not to be on the block – that would just reveal that I wanted to look better for endgame or whatever.
It also made the most logical sense, since it would lull Sen into a false sense of calm, being the supposed pawn to evict me.

I'm just gonna... stop refuting arguments I guess. I've made myself clear, I've made my thought process clear, I've shown the work behind getting here.
That's all I can really do, in the end.
 
My question for both @Ephemera and @NinjaPenguin is: What was your biggest mistake this season?

Okay, as for your question:

I can think of pretty much only two instances where either I didn't initially have a plan before I said something, or that I could have done something different.

The first was on the week of NP's HoH, before NP put the noms up. I accidentally told Quaking, and I quote: "interesting noms by NP."
Whoops?
However: I was able to spin that into making NP even more of a floater purger in Quaking's perception, telling him correctly that the noms NP was considering were Lily/Nick.
This mistake managed to get my agenda pushed.

I suppose that the actual thing I'd answer for your question (sorry for dithering about something kinda unrelated first, but it's interesting!) is that I should have talked to people more in F7/F5.
By that time, Hibana F4 was practically a foregone conclusion: I had plotted out contingencies for pretty much every outcome for the week, and the outcome for the week after, and so on, much earlier, and as such already knew what I had to do. I also knew the main goals, in case of unexpected circumstances, as well as the house atmosphere, to predict what others would do.

At that point, my DMs with people kinda dried up. They shouldn't have – connecting with others would have helped my case a lot here. But I can only say that I just couldn't keep putting 110% of my energy into this game anymore, and decided that it was fine.

So yeah: should have been more active socially late-game, but what can you do when partially burned out introvert?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Okay, I said I was done talking about my game vs NP unless prompted, or unless I had a really important thing to say.
I have something more to say, but it's just clarification.

Suppose in a hypothetical situation where Hibana decides to gun for the remaining members of Mirdo's alliance first, rather than Quaking's side.
In that world, my game and NP's are essentially switched: he'd have the strong mid-game where he'd have to keep Aria/Sen pacified while they get decimated, while I'd have the heavy endgame with convincing Quaking/Almonds/Shaymin not to gun for NP/Vi/Flour.

Or a possible world where we decide to cut off people from each alliance first, so gun for one side the first week, and the other the next.
In that game NP and I have to make sure that either side doesn't catch on, essentially being mirror images.

My point is: our games, at least in a social dimension, are pretty much built on exactly the same principles. We had the same goals, but applied to different sides of the house.
It just so happened that my side was the one targeted first.
 
There's a couple things I'm going to disagree with you on here, Ephe. I know it can be tiresome for people to read through two people debating over points so I'll just leave my re-rebuttal (is there a word for this? I don't think so lol) in a spoiler for those interested:
With regard to the lategame stuff, I think you are underestimating the work I was putting into making sure I'd have good relationships with Flour and Vi after Hibana made it to Final 4. You said it yourself that I convinced you to go from seeing Flour as the one you wanted to go to the end with to seeing me as that person. I was doing the same type of stuff with both of Flour and Vi, and there's a huge reason that on Week 7, when there was only one person besides the HOH that wasn't nominated, I was that person.
The fact that you still see the nomination in the Final 5 as completely arbitrary further proves my point on how I was making moves and having a social game that you weren't witnessing! This was one of the instances where I had planned ahead, creating a motive on the previous week for someone besides me to be the pawn on the block just to protect myself from possible danger. Not only that, when you won the veto, I told Vi I was slightly afraid of a blindside and asked her to put Flour on the block instead of me, which she honored. It was no coincidence that I was never getting nominated that week, it was my planning and my social game outside the Hibana chat.
I also think it's a bit unfair to neglect that fact that if Sen won the Power of Veto that week, you would have been the one evicted, but I trust you weren't intentionally trying to ignore that.

It also wasn't a coincidence by any means that the Quaking/Shaymin side got eliminated first. In the Hibana chat, you were arguing that with mirdo gone, either side could win HOH, but I countered by pushing that it had to be one of Quaking or Shaymin that went next and I made sure it happened. I took the game into my own hands, persuaded Hibana those were the best targets, and won HOH right there explicitly to further my game and set up a mid-lategame that favored me. That's why the TLS eviction was so strong for me. We built our games on the same principles, but I made major moves to ensure that the side that was furthest from me was the one that was getting eliminated first, and that of the members of that side, the one that got the furthest in the game was the one that was closer to me than you (Almonds).
(I also think you're underestimating the strength of my connection with Almonds a tad and that I would have been completely covered from him targeting me in that scenario, but that's besides the point.)
 
My question for both @Ephemera and @NinjaPenguin is: What was your biggest mistake this season?
I would say that my largest mistake this season was not creating a closer connection with Lily. With every single other member of the jury, I was taking active steps to ensure I would never be their target and that they wanted to go far with me, but with Lily, I did that much more passively, having only a few conversations with her and mostly relying on Vi, who was super close with her, to keep Lily from ever targeting me.
Though while Vi was around, she would have been able to convince Lily to not target me, my lack of conversation with Lily opened a couple of vulnerabilities. I knew Lily could never be closer to me that she was to Vi, so I didn't put in as much effort as I did with my social game with everyone else, but there were a couple of problems that resulted from this. First, if Vi was ever evicted for some reason, I wouldn't be the person Lily gravitated towards, providing an opening for someone else to get her to make a move on me. Second, I had a theoretical big move contingency plan for what would happen if Lily won the veto in the Triple Eviction, and with my lack of a strong connection with Lily, I'm not sure it ever could have happened. In essence, one of my ideas was that if Lily won the veto, I'd tell her I wanted Vi out but would always vote to save her if she was on the block, which would have allowed Vi to be able to persuade Lily to use the veto on Vi instead of herself, keeping Hibana intact going forward. Maybe there's a chance that if Lily won veto in the Triple Eviction, we could still have successfully executed this plan and avoided the scenario I laid out in post #85, but if I was closer to her in the game, I think the chance of that working successfully would have gone up dramatically, leaving Hibana even more covered than we were.

While I feel like I did well overall in seizing the potential opportunities presented to me to get closer to other players and build my social game, I think I definitely missed out with it a bit with Lily, leaving some small vulnerabilities to Hibana that didn't need to be there.
 
You guys gave me a game to remember, that's for damn sure. Sadly this finale could have been a little more vicious if only you let me play. Since I had a question in mind before my eviction and you unfortunately both answered it in your initial write-ups, I'd like to throw you guys an interesting one. I am me, after all.

My question, or request, is a little similar to Lily's. How would you write a case for me to win? I can be transparent here and say I'll simply vote for whoever's I like the most.
(This post contains major spoilers for Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. I know Vi has played it, but for the rest of you, this game is over 10 years old and so if you haven't played it yet, you probably don't intend to in the future, but you've been warned.)
Also fair warning that because you've asked for a case, you're going to get a case and this is long, so uh watch out for scary wallpost. :p
~Violet Valkyrie: The Dahlia Hawthorne Story~
Where do we begin with the tale of Violet in this game? I think it's best to go back two seasons to BB8: Friends and Enemies. At the time, BB8 was widely considered to be Violet's best game. She ruled the pre-jury stage of the game with an iron grip, gathering tons of allies, playing hard in competitions, and aggressively pushing the evictions of some of her largest enemies in the game. She was evicted on the last week the votes would have ever made it possible, and her style of gameplay was widely seen as powerful and independent, making her a shoo-in to win if she ever made it to the Final 2. Coming off of that game, you'd think that be an easy candidate for early eviction and be forced to play that intense, attention-drawing type of game if she ever intended to make it far.
And yet Vi took the exact opposite approach and used it to brilliant effect. It was a complete reinvention of anything people associated with Violet. She completely revamped her social game, building super strong connections from the very start. Not only did she have her incredibly strong alliance with Lily as always, she got herself in tighter with a bunch of other players. She was one of the main founders of Hibana, becoming a super close ally of mine from the start and bringing Ephe, Flour, and Vom into the fold quite soon after. She gained mirdo's trust and a deal with him early on, helping to scout him and working with me to help persuade him to do what he did on Week 1. She had a three person alliance early on with TLS and Mora, getting information from them that way. Even Quaking trusted her a lot early on. That's a ton of players that at some point or another had huge trust in her to take them far in the game. Make no mistake: the Violet with tons of allies in BB8 was nothing close to this Violet, who at the very least was like BB8 Violet except with 3 Ravens by her side or something. Even if something would go wrong, even if mirdo lost trust in her, even if her game was discovered to some degree, she had so many allies going to bat for her that it simply didn't matter. She had managed to set herself up to be even more invincible than she was in the past.
There's a reason I gave this the title it has, and that's because I feel like Vi's game in a way mirrored the strategy of Dahlia Hawthorne. At the beginning of the game, she was this Dahlia, who uses her social skills to avoid suspicion:
dahlia-normal(a).gif

She managed to convince tons of players that she was on their side, protecting herself and eliminating any chance of a quick elimination in this game. Instead of taking control over everything, she made schemes in the background, beginning to eliminate the enemies and threats to her game. But the method of this was so different than it was in the past, with her not needing to win a single competition before the jury stage of the game (except for the Parroting immunity challenge, where she did super well, scoring her first social comp win ever). It was already a powerful reinvention of her past games.

As the game progressed, Vi began to take the game into her own hands, winning competitions and eliminating the players against her. She had become this more powerful Dahlia:
dahlia-hair(c).gif

She emerged from under the radar to begin to take control of the game. Mora, who recognized how strong her and my games were? She backdoored him in her HOH. When people began to see her as the strong player and threat she was, she was placed on the block, but it barely mattered. She won the POV to save herself and evicted a target in Aria. Just as Dahlia was so hard to catch, with so many people in awe of her and willing to lie and sacrifice themselves to save her from being convicted, Violet, despite her known status as a major player, was able to stay around, surviving a unanimous vote in the Triple Eviction on the strength of her connections.

By the end of the game, Violet was a known power player, and began to fight for her spot at the end. She had transformed into her ultimate form, the power player we knew her as in BB8:
dahlia-hate(c).gif

Even with her full power as a spirit medium power player and comp beast revealed to all, Violet was still a force to be reckoned with, going for her goals, winning the F5 HOH comp, surviving a nomination at F4, and being super close to victory in Part 1 of the F3 HOH. Her hard work and eight amazing weeks put her one spot away from the finale, allowing her to make it back to her greatest finish in PBBB.

Violet, I've said so much that you have played amazingly this game and have so much to be proud of for a reason, and that was your game. You, as one of the best PBBB players of all time, still managed to reinvent your strategy to be more effective than ever, with your strongest social and strategic games of all time, removing any reliance on the comp beast Violet of the past. Not only that, but you removed pretty much all of your past mistakes as a player, especially avoiding the fights that had made you a target in the game. It was amazing witnessing you grow as a player and do so well this season. There's a reason I had to evict you at the end here, and it was because of your amazing game and your great reinvention of yourself as a player. And even then, it crushed me to do so, knowing how hard you'd worked, how well you'd played, and how close friend of mine you are.

By adapting to the situation, changing her playstyle, gaining trust with her social game, and making strategic moves to get to the end, Violet definitely played a game easily deserving of a win.
 
The fact that you still see the nomination in the Final 5 as completely arbitrary further proves my point on how I was making moves and having a social game that you weren't witnessing! This was one of the instances where I had planned ahead, creating a motive on the previous week for someone besides me to be the pawn on the block just to protect myself from possible danger. Not only that, when you won the veto, I told Vi I was slightly afraid of a blindside and asked her to put Flour on the block instead of me, which she honored. It was no coincidence that I was never getting nominated that week, it was my planning and my social game outside the Hibana chat.
I also think it's a bit unfair to neglect that fact that if Sen won the Power of Veto that week, you would have been the one evicted, but I trust you weren't intentionally trying to ignore that.

It also wasn't a coincidence by any means that the Quaking/Shaymin side got eliminated first. In the Hibana chat, you were arguing that with mirdo gone, either side could win HOH, but I countered by pushing that it had to be one of Quaking or Shaymin that went next and I made sure it happened. I took the game into my own hands, persuaded Hibana those were the best targets, and won HOH right there explicitly to further my game and set up a mid-lategame that favored me. That's why the TLS eviction was so strong for me. We built our games on the same principles, but I made major moves to ensure that the side that was furthest from me was the one that was getting eliminated first, and that of the members of that side, the one that got the furthest in the game was the one that was closer to me than you (Almonds).
(I also think you're underestimating the strength of my connection with Almonds a tad and that I would have been completely covered from him targeting me in that scenario, but that's besides the point.)

Okay.
For not being the renom over Flour in F5: I can give you that.
But me being the nomination in F5 was literally the best move, since it kept Sen pacified. I wasn't going to argue against a move that was correct – my nomination was essentially just to keep the facade.
As for me being evicted if Sen won the veto: I've already said this, but I do have a little confidence in my comp skills when needed.
Don't forget that I literally grinded to 1.3 million in Pipi first, to ensure Almonds wouldn't win chieftain, in addition to the Beer Pong comp.

Now for the Quaking/Shaymin side being eliminated first: I think you pushing for that is a good look, but also: it was the best move, regardless of whether it benefited you more, etc etc. Keeping the side which could break out and stomp everyone in comps was not a good idea no matter how you see it.
As for Almonds staying over Quaking: please do not say that I only kept Almonds because you convinced me to. I made that decision because it was, in the end, the right decision – Quaking had a much better chance of figuring us out before we wanted him to.

Now, as for being completely covered from targeting by Almonds: you were relatively safe, but don't underestimate Almonds either. Not sure what scenario you're talking about – is this a potential F5 with sen/flour/me/you/almonds? It's pretty easy to demonstrate exactly why you can't be taken to F3.

Finally: you had social moves I didn't see. Duh. I don't see everything.
But I did have a lot of strategy I was working on behind the scenes.
Naturally I devoted most of my time to creating the plans I posted in Hibana chat, covering the exact steps we'd need to get from start of week to end of week.
But I also had my own detailed back-end process where I tried to figure out on my own what was best for me.
If you did that socially, I did that strategically.
 
Okay.
For not being the renom over Flour in F5: I can give you that.
But me being the nomination in F5 was literally the best move, since it kept Sen pacified. I wasn't going to argue against a move that was correct – my nomination was essentially just to keep the facade.
As for me being evicted if Sen won the veto: I've already said this, but I do have a little confidence in my comp skills when needed.
Don't forget that I literally grinded to 1.3 million in Pipi first, to ensure Almonds wouldn't win chieftain, in addition to the Beer Pong comp.

Now for the Quaking/Shaymin side being eliminated first: I think you pushing for that is a good look, but also: it was the best move, regardless of whether it benefited you more, etc etc. Keeping the side which could break out and stomp everyone in comps was not a good idea no matter how you see it.
As for Almonds staying over Quaking: please do not say that I only kept Almonds because you convinced me to. I made that decision because it was, in the end, the right decision – Quaking had a much better chance of figuring us out before we wanted him to.

Now, as for being completely covered from targeting by Almonds: you were relatively safe, but don't underestimate Almonds either. Not sure what scenario you're talking about – is this a potential F5 with sen/flour/me/you/almonds? It's pretty easy to demonstrate exactly why you can't be taken to F3.

Finally: you had social moves I didn't see. Duh. I don't see everything.
But I did have a lot of strategy I was working on behind the scenes.
Naturally I devoted most of my time to creating the plans I posted in Hibana chat, covering the exact steps we'd need to get from start of week to end of week.
But I also had my own detailed back-end process where I tried to figure out on my own what was best for me.
If you did that socially, I did that strategically.
Spoilered so nobody feels forced to read this but I figured I'd reply to this:
You're completely right that going along with both of these was the best move for you because they were. But I think that illustrates a really strong point in my favor: I was planning weeks in advance to try to make sure the decision that was objectively good for everyone was particularly strong for me.
During the Triple Eviction and going into F5, I considered that one member of Hibana would have to be a pawn and took steps to ensure that player wasn't me by adding a good motive for Vi to nominate Ephe (and vice-versa if needed) while making sure Sen was OK with saving her. I created a situation where you were completely unable to argue against being pawned because it was objectively the best move for Hibana's survival. And yet who was the one who benefited from that situation more, you who would have been evicted if Sen won the POV or me who could maximize Hibana's survival chance while keeping myself completely safe and being the only player not nominated that week?
I planned and set up situations in advance that made sure the moves that were best for you and the rest of Hibana had even more benefits and were even better for me, and I think that's a subtle under-the-radar thing about my strategic game and back-end process that deserves a lot of credit. It's nothing against yours because you weren't making bad strategic decisions by doing these things by any means, but it's something really to my credit.

The Almonds remark is more in regards to a hypothetical where the Quaking/Shaymin side is allowed to survive longer and the Aria/Sen side started getting out, not really a F5 situation.
 
Okay.

NP's shown exactly how each and every one of his moves dominates mine. Sure.
I still maintain that our games are largely equivalent, given the functions we both played within the house.
However:
NP had a lot of back-end processes showing how he set himself up to be absolutely safe, even within our alliance.

And here's where I can't really say I measure up, so to speak.
Because I knew I had a lot of options at a lot of points in the game.
Take survivor week.
After Nick had been evicted, I'd lost a connection (albeit a somewhat inactive one), but gained trust with Aria and Sen.
I literally had trust with everyone in the house at that point – Quaking's side, Aria's side, and the middle of the road players – Lily and even Mora to an extent.
I could have taken any option, and I did consider them. I thought about taking other allies along with Hibana, so I'd be 100% safe.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it.
I wanted a Hibana F4, and I knew the best way to do that was to get rid of my side first.
I could have set it up to make Quaking stay for longer. But that would be blatantly anti-Hibana.
I could have chosen to approach the former Mirdo faction instead of the Quaking faction. But again, Hibana needed someone on the side of Quaking to get the job done.
I couldn't bring myself to do the individual play over the one that benefited all of us.

If I were to compare my play to a fictional character, I would be Severus Snape – the double-agent, who would take the fall, die for the cause, and end with almost nothing, and know that I could have turned anytime, and it would have been easy. But I couldn't.

I was the mole. I had the connections to people who were against us, making sure I never blew my cover.
NP and Flour, while you guys did have to ensure Aria and Sen didn't find anything, you also had the benefit of not having to convince them week after week not to go for a sizable group of strong players – you only had to keep them off my back, which at that point wasn't too hard.
I kept the explosive alliance away from all three other members of Hibana by myself, and I expected not to come out of it.
I did have confidence in my skill. But if anything ever happened, I knew full well that it would be me suffering the consequences.
And I accepted that. I knew that in a finale I'm either in jury or in a super bad spot, with not many connections within the jury.
And that was fine.

I knew my task. I did it to the best of my ability. I informed my allies of what others were planning. I played my tightrope position, the one I knew I'd receive once Hibana formed.
That's really all I can say.

Do I think I can win in this finale?
Maybe.
Do I think I will?
Honestly? Probably not. NP's much more eloquent than I am, and I'm already struggling to keep up.
Of course, it really comes down to the jurors, I guess. So I hope you guys took something away from my play.

In the end, I played a game I can be proud of.
(I'm trying to tell myself that so I don't cry if (or when) I lose badly. The potential crying's probably a sign that I've put too much already into this game. Oh well.)
I played the tightrope game, making sure that no threat even came near my allies.
I picked my poison in Week 1, where I grinded the heck out to win the Conqueror's Insignia, knowing well that it would put notice on me, knowing that it would complicate matters for me later, but I did so to keep anyone I trusted out of future danger. In week 1, I chose to approach Quaking and get onto a) the ship I knew would sink, and b) the ship full of explosives. In week 1, I established myself as the double agent. I set myself up as the defenses.
I knew that it wasn't the best position. But this season, I played a delicate game, and I played it masterfully.
I hope that means something.

Case for Violet to win incoming.
 
Because I knew I had a lot of options at a lot of points in the game.
Take survivor week.
After Nick had been evicted, I'd lost a connection (albeit a somewhat inactive one), but gained trust with Aria and Sen.
I literally had trust with everyone in the house at that point – Quaking's side, Aria's side, and the middle of the road players – Lily and even Mora to an extent.
I could have taken any option, and I did consider them. I thought about taking other allies along with Hibana, so I'd be 100% safe.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it.
I wanted a Hibana F4, and I knew the best way to do that was to get rid of my side first.
I could have set it up to make Quaking stay for longer. But that would be blatantly anti-Hibana.
I could have chosen to approach the former Mirdo faction instead of the Quaking faction. But again, Hibana needed someone on the side of Quaking to get the job done.
I couldn't bring myself to do the individual play over the one that benefited all of us.

If I were to compare my play to a fictional character, I would be Severus Snape – the double-agent, who would take the fall, die for the cause, and end with almost nothing, and know that I could have turned anytime, and it would have been easy. But I couldn't.

I was the mole. I had the connections to people who were against us, making sure I never blew my cover.
NP and Flour, while you guys did have to ensure Aria and Sen didn't find anything, you also had the benefit of not having to convince them week after week not to go for a sizable group of strong players – you only had to keep them off my back, which at that point wasn't too hard.
I kept the explosive alliance away from all three other members of Hibana by myself, and I expected not to come out of it.
I think you're starting to see a bit here how my game ended up forcing you into being with Hibana and how I was able to ensure that flipping would likely have ended in your own game being hurt. I knew how you had been willing to turn on your allies after the jury phase started in BB7 and made moves specifically to avoid you having a viable path to turn on me. It's why I made sure Shaymin went out on my HOH week, leaving Quaking and especially Almonds, both of whom I had good conversations with, in the game. It's why I made sure to get you to use your Insignia to evict Aria, gaining myself trust with Sen but hurting your credibility with him, along with making it impossible for you to make a big move by yourself at the Final 5, forcing you to go to me to make one happen if you wanted to. (It's also why I made sure to put the effort in to convince you that I had to be the one person you'd take to the Final 2, putting myself at the top of your plans where going into F4 your intentions were not to take me to the end.)
I put myself in a spot where the plays that were best for the group of Hibana as a whole were also great individual plays for me, and I think that was a really delicate and masterful tightrope.

It also wasn't just you who I was keeping Aria and Sen from targeting, it was Vi. I've already laid out the times I shifted Aria and Sen's target off of you, but there were a lot of comparable moments where Aria especially saw Vi as a major threat and someone she needed out, especially after Mora informed them that she likely had a role in the Mirdo eviction and they doubted her immensely. When that happened, I was the primary player behind convincing Aria and Sen to believe that Violet was telling the truth, getting the target off of Vi in addition to you and shifting it onto other players like Mora and Almonds. I even had to on a couple occasions convince Aria and Sen to trust Flour at times when he was busy and his communication dropped off in that alliance and they came to my DMs with doubts about him. I think I definitely was moving the target off of a sizable number of players, especially considering I kept doing it even as the number of players outside of Hibana kept dwindling to super low numbers, leaving less options to shift the target onto than you had with Quaking.
And let's not forget that for most of this game I was the only one in Hibana actively communicating with Almonds, convincing him that working with Flour and you in the future was viable for us and significantly reducing the target on Vi. I was the primary mole with one third of the Quaking/Shaymin/Almonds group and the secondary mole with another third in Quaking (along with Vi, but her communication with Quaking mostly dropped off after Week 2, while mine only grew from there) and that shouldn't be overlooked.
 
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