#yes he made mistakes but he is improving phenomenally and that’s what counts

[purpledisastertwin900]

For all of the “Raph raised himself AND his brothers” fans out there I bring this train wreck of a thought (I’m a lil sleepy so sorry if it doesn’t make sense or if I repeat myself a lot-)

We do not in fact have any actual evidence that splinter was neglectful to the boys when they were little. In fact, we have the opposite.

All of these flashbacks indicate that Splinter acc spent a LOT of time with his boys-

With Mikey, he was obviously coached in his art, a smol child can’t paint like that no matter how talented they are so we can see that splinter put in the time/effort to get Mikey the supplies and teach him how to do it well. Which probably means he researched and learned it himself first, idk I just can’t really see Yoshi knowing how to paint/draw that well but that’s just a theory.

With raph and Leo, their lemonade stand is structurally sound: obviously not put together by an 8 year old, and there’s a lotta lemons lyin around that were probably a bit difficult to find, and just LOOK at their faces here they are definitely familiar with this kind of father/son shenaniganizing-also just LOOK at raph. That’s a happy child, one full of excitement and happiness, not a kid who had to grow up too fast. Also his dad is literally right there in the picture

And then with Donnie, I can’t really tell what he’s doing in the background (it’s a bomb) but what i take from that screenshot is that Donnie feels safe/loved enough to come to Splinter when he gets hurt. And Splinters taking care of him!! And, Donnie is wearing clothes, which shows that he went out and got clothes for them but also didn’t force the boys to wear them if they didn’t want to (see other screenshots lol) which also goes to show that he lets his boys choose who they wanna be and what they wanna do. At any point he could’ve forced all of them to train as ninja, at any point he could’ve made clothes mandatory, and at any point he could’ve forced them to drop things that made them happy like skating or science or art but nah. He was supportive every step of the way.

Now am I saying he was perfect? No. Am I saying he couldn’t have done anything better? No. What I’m saying is that Raph acc did not have to raise himself and his brothers. Splinter acc gave them a pretty good childhood, all things considered and it kinda makes me sad when ppl bash Rise Splinter or continue the neglectful parent trope. Again, I’m not saying he did everything right, he def could have spent more time with his kids on an individual basis and he should’ve been more present, but let’s cut him some slack bc he did a really good job at raising the boys. And he got so much better as the show progressed! But that’s another post lol. I’m also not trying to take away Raphs oldest sibling syndrome, he still def has that from being the leader and watching his bros while splinter was away-I’m just saying he didn’t have to do it ALL alone.

Look in the end he’s doing his best and his best was really good for what they had. He’s a good dad, he’s not neglectful.

#sorry if the pictures suck #click for better quality?? idk haha #Rottmnt #unpause rottmnt #tmnt #rise splinter #splinter is a good dad you guys #I will die on this hill #yes he made mistakes but he is improving phenomenally and that’s what counts #Hamato yoshi #splinter hamato #I’m also v sleepy rn so sorry if this don’t make sense #radios realizations

[curupiracue]

A God Chicken Against a Slumbering Dragon

“Hey ah Ienorb, my supah buddy! How are you doing, I ask?”

“Not too good, I’m afraid. Especially with you here...”

“Not too good, huh… Heh! If there’s one thing that I really hate, it’s assholes who are a bit too sure of their own selves. So it’s nice seeing you diminished to this oh, so deplorable state you’re in.”

“I might be cornered, but still. Victory will be mine...”

“Oooh~ Didn’t know you were suicidal! Nice, nice, molto bene~ Now can we hear about your tragic backstory?“

“Well, talk about overconfidence. Let’s see if that holds up, Nim. With this distance, I know you won’t utilise the Overclocks. You’ve never used anything that had good range, so I shall assume you don’t have something like that… Meaning, you’ll use the Water Rope. I know that for a fact...”

“Ah yup~ Can’t try melee right now. You’ll just throw a knife at me, and then I’ll die! That wouldn’t be very nice. Water Rope is the way to go. It’ll defeat you, for sure. ...Oh come on. Don’t screw with me. Do you really think you can just throw a knife and win?”

“Why, I do! After all, that “for sure” comes with a but, does it not?”

“Pff. You’re betting that we’re at the right range… Where I can’t just use the Water Rope to pull myself away and dodge… but also can’t overwhelm you with physical blows. The perfect balance… Not too far, nor too close. Bravo! Pero c’est impossível. Ya’ can’t count on ya’ luck so much, freund!”

“I wonder? It seems like it might just be it to me. And I can see you trembling, Nim. You know that you must attack me. If you can make me close my eyes, avert my gaze, or die, then you can just close your eyes, and no knife will ever hit you. It will be your victory… Assuming you can’t dodge and attack in between these dodges, and nor can you hit me fast enough to incapacitate me in some shape or another, victory is mine.”

“Yes, yes, quite. And I guess you must be thinking: at this distance, he can’t dodge. As for incapacitation, I’m not so sure, but I have a trick on my sleeves… My thrown knife will cut down some of those Water Ropes… and that should be enough to keep me safe. Since Nim will have to attack from the sides...”

“Yes… Quite… And what’s the problem with that thesis, hmmm?”

“Simple. The Water Rope… is a construction that represents fear. Not fear of death, so it won’t exactly fit in… But the second layer of interaction cannot be forgotten. Even if it’s just a bit… The presence of the intent to kill will, symbolically, increase the power of fear. Hence, while it might seem like a buena idea to cut down the Water Rope with the knife… It will actually be trying to douse fire with gasoline! Since it’s liquid, at first glance, yeah… It seems like a nice plan. But in reality… death! Death awaits you!”

“Oh come now. Such a pitiful bonus can’t be called that. Because in this case, the flames will be doused… It’s just that the ones that aren’t, will end up even stronger. So, you can’t possibly mean what you said...”

“Not the gasoline part, no. But certainly the death part.”

“Oh hoh! Then we have nothing left to do but to test this, yes?”

“I do believe so~”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Now! THE ARM!”

“Ugyyyah! WATER ROPE!”

Swi~in!

Floosh!

Swooooooon!

I threw the knife! Now I just need to...

PLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASH!

What?!

“Heh. I don’t need to overwhelm you per se… I just need to grab your head and force it to the side!” Heh. “?! WHAAAAT?!?!!”

“Don’t… underestimate me… I won’t let you move my head any further than this… My will… shall prove victorious… NIIIM!!!”

“Geh!”

Blooshu!

“GARGH!”

Paft.

Gah… Even if I endured, all those attacks still send me backwards… What power…! But still… This is good! That was a direct hit against him!

?! Wait, but he’s not that damaged… What?!

TAM!

BOOOM!

“AGH!”

Puf, blank PAH.

“He... Had used an Overclock to improve his defense…? Intelligent, Nim, very intelligent... If I understand how that explosive overclocking of yours works... Ugh…” I gasped a bit for air, still not quite ready to get up “”It must not have been linear... The equation was definitely exponential, and though I can only wonder to what degree... cof, cof… or manner... It's quite clear that there was a point of perfection... A single point of strength with that overclock, that, if exceeded, would cause too much damage on the explosion, but if not met, would cause damage from the knife.”

“You managed to find that point, and thus you're still alive even after being hit twice... And what's more, differently from me, who found a similar point with luck, you did it by yourself. Gah... T-That's truly phenomenal... I must admit, the one who deserved to win this battle... was you.”

“But! You've made ONE grave mistake... That Overclock... You should have used it for attack, attack instead of defense! Then you would have incapacitated me before the knife could hit. As it stands, I've won this... It matters not if you survived…”

Swwiiiiiiiiin...

“AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Because thanks to your own cowardice, you're now incapacitated and an easy target for a last attac-!”

Bang!

“Huh?! Darn! THE ARM!”

Swon!

#stories #Mywhatamentalworld

[entergamingxp]

Horizon Zero Dawn’s PC port is deeply disappointing • Eurogamer.net

Horizon Zero Dawn has its own particular place of honour in a phenomenal line-up of PlayStation 4 first-party exclusives – an open world delivered with some of the best technology in the business, combined with the gameplay finesse and polish of a more linear experience, humanised with some of the most impressive character rendering of the generation. When Hideo Kojima went shopping for a game engine to deliver his vision for Death Stranding, it was Guerrilla Games’ Decima technology he settled upon – and can there be any higher praise than that? In the wake of Kojima Productions’ generally excellent Death Stranding PC port, expectations were sky-high for Horizon’s PC conversion. With that in mind, it’s both baffling and extremely disappointing to see the port fall so far short of expectations.

Make no mistake, the core game is all there. It is indeed the Complete Edition. It’s still a unique experience for PC users, simply because multi-platform projects and even the odd PC exclusive aren’t built quite like this. Horizon Zero Dawn looks and feels a class apart in many ways – and yes, you can increase graphics settings and improve resolutions and frame-rate compared to the PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro originals. However, where the game falls short is in its many technical failings.

When a game is content-complete but requires polish and bug-testing, it’s considered beta code – and that’s the impression we got from this conversion when we tested it, to the point where much of the reviewing process has been a case of testing and re-testing the game on multiple pieces of hardware to answer a simple question – is there something wrong with our kit or is the game at fault? It’s a little bit of one and a lot of the other, but the bottom line is that there are many technical issues that need addressing to the point where not all of them can be included in this article. A 35GB day one patch arrived on the same day as the embargo lift – hence the delay in publishing our review – but the many and varied problems are still in effect in the code that makes its way to players.

It starts with the initial ‘optimisation’ phase on boot. Like a number of DX12 and Vulkan titles, shaders are compiled and stored the first time you play the game – as opposed to generating them during play, potentially inducing stutter. It’s an extended process to say the least, it adds to the storage footprint, and if your drive fills up during this procedure, the game crashes to desktop – sometimes with an ominous ‘fatal error’. While testing and re-testing across systems, the process could often stall and lock-up even when required storage was available. Beyond that, when I booted the game on my 4K screen in full-screen mode, something didn’t look right. It turned out that Horizon was rendering at 4K, downscaling to 1080p, then upscaling to 4K again. Switching to the borderless display option fixes this (albeit introducing other issues), as does swapping back to full-screen mode from borderless. Bizarre.

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The Digital Foundry PC tech review for Horizon Zero Dawn.

Once past these issues, things do look up. Horizon Zero Dawn offers a large amount of options to tweak, scaling graphical elements both higher and lower than the default PlayStation 4 presentation. Better still, the inclusion of an ‘original’ graphics preset is a great touch – and it’s similar to the ‘default’ option on Death Stranding, where the settings are essentially a match for the PS4 version. You can define the console experience as the baseline and scale up – or down – from there. However, similar to Death Stranding’s PC port, while the settings are there to push to higher quality levels, the actual improvements to visuals are thin on the ground.

So, for example, the reflections setting improves the quality of screen-space reflections – and the high preset is indeed of a higher quality than console-standard medium. However, the practical difference is minimal and the main disadvantages of SSR are not mitigated. A game based mostly in nature has very little in the way of reflective surfaces meaning that where there is a gain, it’s not really significant. Similarly, the only real difference in shadow quality at the highest setting comes in the first cascade right in front of Aloy. It helps a touch with self-shadowing but not to any great degree. It doesn’t change the range of shadow cascades or the distances at which they ‘pop’. Even the texture setting is a little strange. Pushing the setting up increases texture quality further into the distance. There’s the perception of increased detail, but it can also produce aliasing issues – leaving it on console quality medium is just fine. Speaking of texture quality, the anisotropic filtering setting simply does not work. My advice? Set it manually to 16x in your GPU control panel for an actual quality boost.

Various anti-aliasing options are available but of all of them, only TAA really does a good job – and thankfully it has a minimal performance hit. Two settings I do recommend boosting from console quality are model detail and volumetric clouds. The former increases the distance at which certain patches of grass or objects render further away from Aloy, reducing the pop-in effect – and it also increases the distance at which the higher quality versions of a model are rendered. So trees into the distance will look less cardboard and ‘2D-like’ and show off more individual branches and leaves. Guerrilla’s cloud rendering system is brilliant but computationally expensive. The default medium setting has some artefacting, but there are obvious improvements shifting to high and ultra. High delivers the best balance of bang vs buck.

If you were looking to utilise the game’s dynamic resolution scaling for balancing performance, I do not recommend it at all, as it is overzealous to the extreme and coarse in its application. I observed a scene rendering at 55fps using native 4K at ultra settings on an RTX 2080 Ti, where DRS should deliver full frame-rate with a minimal resolution drop. Engaging dynamic resolution scaling did indeed get me to 60fps but pixel-counting saw that the game had switched resolution to 1080p to get the job done. To claw back a mere 5fps, the game had quartered resolution to do it. I’d recommend leaving DRS disabled.

Let’s talk optimised settings – my selection for the best bang for the buck across the game’s many tweakables. As things stand, console quality ‘original’ – with 16x anisotropic filtering forced via the control panel and TAA – will do just fine, but feel free to add ultra model quality, high shadows and high clouds. Ultra settings are nice and appreciated, but there are few meaningful visual returns. You’re better off spending that performance elsewhere, which brings me onto the crucial matter at hand: I’m privileged enough to run high-end hardware and put simply, I had a hard time getting this game looking good and running well, even on a Ryzen 9 3900X paired with an RTX 2080 Ti. Meanwhile, performance on my mainstream class rig was way off pace.

Average frame-rates from the benchmark don’t tell the full story. Apparently, I can run Horizon Zero Dawn at native 4K at an average of 78 frames per second on an RTX 2080 Ti. What it doesn’t tell you is that the actual game experience will be a fair bit lower than that, with frequent stutters. Stutters in excess of 40ms, 70ms or over 100ms can happen as a cutscenes starts or ends, when a camera changes position in a cutscene, when a UI element updates for a quest, or when you are just walking around in the world not doing anything special in particular. This happens reproducibly across multiple graphics card and CPUs and chosen resolutions, impacting the fluidity of the game, producing an experience less consistent overall that the PlayStation 4 version, which has no such stutter.

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Decima should be running much better on PC – as the PC port of Death Stranding demonstrates.

I thought that dropping to console-level 30fps might solve the issue but the problem is that the 30fps cap within the game actually runs at 29fps, producing even more stutter. Also, if you are experiencing profound performance problems, make sure you have your mainboard properly configured for 16x PCIe bandwidth for the GPU. This one’s on me but I didn’t – my slot was set to 8x bandwidth and it hobbled performance, while switching up to 16x solve that particular problem. Going back to Death Stranding, PCIe bandwidth made no difference at all.

Even with the game running in what I think are optimal conditions, performance is not where it should be. Death Stranding would deliver 1080p60 on a GTX 1060 or RX 580 system. Horizon Zero Dawn – based on an older iteration of the Decima Engine – does not, far from it. The lack of a day one driver from Nvidia is also curious. Horizon certainly seems to need it as GTX 1060 performance up against RX 580 – its perennial rival – is remarkably poor. Indeed, on optimised settings, the GTX 1060 can drop beneath 1080p30 with highly erratic frame-times, meaning that it’s performing worse than a PlayStation 4 with only a small visual uplift. The Steam hardware survey cites the GTX 1060 as the most popular gaming GPU around and yet it is clearly not performing as it should be, which means that a large proportion of the PC market could have issues. By extension, it comes as no surprise to see that the brilliant DLSS 2.0 support we saw in Death Stranding is not present in Horizon.

There are other issues that need to be addressed. Cutscenes run at arbitrary frame-rates but facial animation is locked to 30 frames per second – it doesn’t look right, with an almost Wallace and Gromit-like effect. Another problem in cutscenes is how they were not authored around the idea of interpolated frame-rates above 30fps, so in some cutscenes you can see characters warp around during scene cuts. Mismatches in animation refresh are evident elsewhere: Horizon’s tall ‘stealth grass’ runs at the correct frame-rate at all times, but the new dynamic plants and foliage added to the PC version are locked at 30 frames per second refresh instead. An unlocked frame-rate needs to mean just that – picking and choosing what can meet the limits of PC hardware and what remains locked to 30Hz shouldn’t be an option. What’s so baffling about this is that Guerrilla Games are perfectionists – I can’t help but feel that intrusive stutter and mismatched animation would never make their way into one of their PlayStation products so it’s disappointing to see that happen here.

Our feedback was submitted to the developer and we understand that addressing the stutter and fixing the broken texture filtering is a priority, while essential features like full frame-rate animation are being looked into. But to see such an amazingly polished console experience transition to PC with so many issues and with depressed performance is a problem. Death Stranding set the bar with a technically solid (if not especially scalable) port and to see Horizon Zero Dawn fall so far short by comparison is such a let down. We will be waiting to see if these issues are addressed over time, but right now, while the game itself is highly recommended, we can’t say the same for this PC conversion.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/08/horizon-zero-dawns-pc-port-is-deeply-disappointing-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=horizon-zero-dawns-pc-port-is-deeply-disappointing-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[celestialallstars]

Episode #16: “Well, this is the end folks.” - Stephen

I WANT TO QUIT

I AM GOING TO QUIT

MICHAEL DESERVED BETTER HE WAS MY FUCKING F2 AND BEST FRIEND IN THIS GAME AND IM SO FUCKINF MAD I LOVE HIM WITH MY WHOLE HEART HE DESERVES WAY BETTER THAN THIS FUCK THIS CASST SO MUCH I CANT STOP FUCKING CRYING

#FuckChris

FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST FUCK THIS CAST

EITHER IM QUITTING OR IM WINNING OUT OF SPITE WATCH THIS SPACE

Feel like pure shit just want Michael back

Bryce messaging me like “hey bowling ball” SHUT UR FUCKING FACE BRYCE DO NOT START TRYING TO TALK TO ME RN I AM MAD AT YOU

I MADE FINAL FIVE AND I HAVE AN IDOL I LEARNED MY MISTAKES IM MAKING FINAL FOUR I BEAT MY PLACEMENT WOOO I makin sure history dont be repeating doe

Alrighty, I am hoping that one of Chloe or Zach leaves this round. I dont know how the idol is going to go but I think Chloe's the safest bet for us as I still feel Zach could have it. Still, I can't risk a Loris situation so I would prefer it if Stephen won immunity. I do feel bad for him and I just hope he still trusts me even if I lost a little last night. Right now I think if Crystal Clear is the F4 then it could do a lot of good if anyone but Bryce wins it but I hope Stephen is wanting to go to the end still now

So, THAT happened. Chris lied and sided with Bryce and Zach instead of splitting like we planned! Greeaaaaaat.

He says it happened shortly before tribal, but when he told me his reason, he said it was because of Michael attempting to make an F3 deal, which is something that happened the day before.

I did have an interesting chat with Zach where he said me and him are essentially seen as Chris and Bryce's +1's and our chances of winning sitting next to them might be pretty low based on that perception. Obviously I want Bryce out before Chris, but I need to start realistically thinking of cutting Chris at some point. He did go behind my back here and staying blindly loyal despite that just seems foolish. He said he'd use the idol on me this round which is great and all, but if Bryce wins immunity... well... what are my options? Honestly the best case scenario is me or Chris winning immunity just so we can be sure about playing the idol on the one who loses and voting Bryce out.

I hope that bad scenario doesn't have to play out, but let's just say at this point I think Zach and Chloe are my best possible F3. Which is interesting considering I just tried to get Zach out!

It does kinda suck to hear Michael say what he said. I get he was upset but like I dunno. It didnt help but at the same time I don't feel too bad knowing that he made an f3 without me in it. My hope was that it makes the others think more on NOT bringing me to the end so I want to use it to my advantage as much as I can to still win it all if its possible

This vote has been so messy it's ridiculous. I know Chris has the idol and is likely playing it on himself, so I'm trying to get Zach and Chloe to throw their vote on him so me and Chris can decide who goes. I was considering actually voting him out for a bit but I don't think that's feasible without their being an imminent reason for him to use the idol on someone else.

So I told Chloe and Zach the plan, and I told Bryce the plan was Chloe and used idol-fear as my fake reason. Hopefully it's a strong enough justification for him to buy it and just vote for her, but he's immune so he personally has nothing to fear tonight. It's been a hard day and I hope everything pans out as I expect and I'm not on the bad end of all the plans LOL.

im in f4 wooh but no chance at winning i think im gonna be blindsided by zach tonight so thats fun if chris goes im legit over but idk how to fix that i ened to make sure chris votes stephen with me but idt he will

________________________________________________________________

Chloe: How does michael leaving impact the game?

Michael leaving the game probably means it’s a bit more open for people to make moves and shake things up even more which is TERRIFYING. In my eyes Michael had a lot of control over people that was going unnoticed.

go to an optometrist queen

im trying to do stuff but who knows oh well LOL SDGMLKDSGKDSGKDMSKGDSK i want chris out but he probs has idol all i know is unless theres an idol nullifier i be makin f4 tho

________________________________________________________________

Chloe is voted out 2-2-1. She becomes the eighth member of our jury.

Watch Chloe’s exit interview take place below:

________________________________________________________________

Welp! I've survived probably my closest call all game. I wish I could make it to the end while being targeted a bit less but I can settle for this. Anyway, selecting Chloe to be my target ended up being the correct decision, since she was the only person other than me who could be targeted. I'm so close to the end again, and the people still in don't see me as much of a winner threat. I hope they're wrong sksksksksksks

I think winning this immunity challenge and being the reason Bryce goes home could boost my odds quite a bit, but I need to be ready for the possibility of not winning the immunity challenge as well. Still, I have F2 deals with Chris and Zach, so that's another reason to avoid wanting to choose between them here. No reason to make anyone madder than they need to be.

I guess a lot is riding on the last comp and I enjoy it because it does show how it isn't clear cut as far as what will happen next.

ok so results in 2.5 hours and i know im not winning its so sad but its just sth that i have to face. i tried my hardest at endurance but fell alseep. before and after.. i have no brain. counting? literally my least fave thing on orgs the actual anxiety it gives me is unreal. winterbells???? anyways. the puzzle prob the only thign i can do alright at and i just know zach beat me at it too. and like just like my og season i feel like if i dont win i go home.at least there i dont think maynor would have voted me but here i dont have a maynor and i will get 3-1'd even tho i dont think its the right move like ugh this is so sad i rly just wanted to show i deserved my win and my spot on all stars and i cant even win final immunity its so embarrassing why do i even play orgs this will be my last mark my WORDS going out on one of my fave orgs ever will be cute anyway yay wooh haha im so random...

________________________________________________________________

im so sad like im depressed this sucks im gonna get 3-1'd for WHAT why wont zach take me what could i have done differently except be better at immunity like ive had no agency since f9 rhys blindside and its like that has been annoying but it was always with the end goal being yes i may not have gotten to play how i wanted to but at least ill make ftc how cute. but  i dont even get to do that and its like ppl just say i was a shield well i have feelings and i dont like being used as a shield why am i so melodramatic its literally an online game but im just tired of being used and thrown away and so what if ive listened to liability 10 times since i woke up this morning that has nothing to do with me feeling like im a toy that ppl grow bored of.

Its been one heck of a rollercoaster but I have a little faith for this last tribal.  I was sad to have lost the final challenge but I feel it can perhaps help my overall game if Im able to make it to the final three. With that in mind, its time to enact my final plan. While I have openly acknowledged Bryce's threat level to people I sorta was in need of certain things falling into place- Zach winning was the first part even if it would have been nice for Stephen/myself. Now is the part I pretty much spell it out for him that taking Bryce not only equals less jury votes but also could take votes that Zach would have since Bryce is viewed as the stronger of the duo. I basically have to make Zach be fully on board to get out his biggest threat to winning.

________________________________________________________________

As for Bryce, it was nice to play with him but I do hope he is serious about voting Stephen because it then guarantees that not only am I safe but that I can get him out. Alas Justice4Mitch has never died but if I can pull it off after basically convincing Bryce I was not against him while also just painting Zach as a necessary meat shield then I have a chance! I dunno how it would go down with the jury but thats moot until I see "18th person voted out and the final member of the jury...@Bryce"

So I made a bit of a mistake last night. Zach won immunity and I assumed it was pretty clear Bryce was gonna go 3-1 no strings attached, and I told him my reasons for voting him. Bryce isn't giving up though. He came up with a plan with Chris to get Zach to put his vote on Chris, and then the 2 of them vote me out. It's not the craziest idea I've ever heard which is why I think I made a mistake telling Bryce the truth.

Knowing this, I went to Zach and told him everything about this plan. Hopefully it makes Zach too gun-shy to consider voting for Chris and, since I don't think he wants me out that only leaves Bryce as an option. I wish I was immune and had nothing to worry about but here we are! If Bryce can dig himself out of this he'll have a really good shot to win though. And Chris/Zach have to be aware of that.

im livid im depressed and my hair is such a mess.

this is likely my penultimate confessional [that is lengthy] so here we go.

i won immunity. im so happy. I MADE FINAL TRIBAL!! even if i lose, i still made it here, in an allstar season - which is just phenomenal. top 3 out of 21... WOO! and i beat my placement and improved my game (in my subjective opinion) and so i feel like i got what i wanted out of this game. i didn't even need the immunity tbh but.. it's just a relief to have it because it secures my game and allows me a bit more control than the average person at F4.

when it comes to the vote, i think the frontrunners are chris + bryce. i think neither are a cut-and-dry win, but i think they are the two people that the jury is currently praising to a degree. it's also known that those two are on the chopping block for this round, and i believe i'm in a swing vote position (stephen/chris voting bryce, bryce voting chris - i can tie it or send bryce home).

this is where it becomes tricky. i love all these people, especially bryce. he's my best friend and we've been through this game hand in hand. i would love to see him win, and i would prefer him as a victor over stephen/chris (no offence to them, just as personal taste obviously). but, i think he's an obstacle for me come FTC. the jury has perceived me to be his goat (or just a follower of his), and while that's not true (both bryce and i have played briefly separate games and have taken some control at varying points), perception matters a lot. like, it's not reality - but it is critical to who wins this game. so i think i need to do my utmost best to reverse that perception.

my main strategy throughout merge (and i mentioned this in early confessionals) was to highlight bryce as a bigger threat [giving him another challenge win, hyping him up to people, etc.] so that in our inevitably perceived duo, he would be the bigger fish to fry. while at times this failed (ie f8 when I was the target of the split vote), i fixed it by ensuring jared's elimination because he was the person keeping bryce alive and that was awareness!! woo!! but overall, with the whole "shield strategy", it becomes redundant imo if you take that shield to FTC. bryce, as someone who's been consistently targeted (him and i both tbh), if he gets to the end, that becomes so impressive. even if he hasn't made many moves or whatever, it's that underdog-like story that likely ensures him the gold in my eyes. i would love to see him win!! he's the best candidate (on a personal level) to be sandra diaz-twine (though he's being so fat to me right now, as i am to him though). but i feel like my prominent strategy only ever comes into fruition if i eliminate him, and that's where i'm leaning (and he knows that).

while chris could win (or even stephen, i won't exclude him), it's all a risk. if they do, then good game!! but i think ive played to a great standard and have proven myself, and i've shown divergence from bryce and others and while some moves failed, i attempted to be flexible and that in and of itself speaks a lot! woo!! this is a deserving final four imo (higher than average for most final ours). this allstar season has been hectic, every vote being so diverse, so regardless of the final outcome, it's an achievement that us four made it here.

i could be majorly misinterpreting this game as a whole, but who cares. chris and stephen are both great speakers, so it'll be a tossup in that regard, but i just have to do what's best. maybe i vote out chris though. i'm torn, and it's not because of what anyone has said, it's just an internalized conflict that's like... do i vote out my best friend but i think it's smarter or do i vote out another threat and just hope the jury can recognize that i had a stronger game than perceived.

i think i know the answer though. and i hope that when he (BRYCE LKSDGLKSD i love him im on call with him ill link a pic below) goes to jury he can be my cheerleader... bc i lav him. if not i understand. but I HOPE he doesn't hate me remotely seriously because i value our friendship immensely... but i didn't come here to play for second. will i get second (or third)? sure. it's possible. but at least i didn't *play* for it, if that makes sense.

link to bryce on cam suffocating himself with a pillow in response to me potentially voting him out: https://imgur.com/BgFRtsK

that's all. MAYBE I DONT WRITE ANOTHER CONFESSIONAL THIS IS TOO STRESSFUL AND LONG AND MY FINGERS ARE CRAMPING. but that's it. love yawls. mwah.

IM SO DEPRESSED IM GETTING 3-1 HOW DO I HAVE SUCH BAD SOCIAL GAME WHY AM I THE WORST PERSON TO EVER PLAY THE GAME WHATS THE POINT OF PLAY 77 DAYS IF I CANT BE A TWO TIME WINNER I RUIN MY SLEEP SCHEDULE I PUSH THROUGH MY EPISODES OF SADNESS TO TRY TO WIN AND ITS ALL FOR NOTHING BC IM AN UNLIKABLE AND NO ONE WANTS TO SIT NEXT TO ME IN THE END LIKE THATS SO CRAZY ITS INSANE I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO LIKE ME https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/613389489154293780/634539770583973888/unknown.png

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i thought most betrayed was jared to me but turns out its zach to me

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Bryce is voted out 3-1. He becomes the ninth and final member of our jury.

Watch Bryce’s exit interview take place below:

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Ahhh I cant believe I made it to FTC. Its pretty surreal to have actually made it after everything's that happened! I am so nervous about FTC because I know a lot of people may not be thrilled to see me and I have to do a lot lf convincing...but this is where I have to try to give everything my all and hope it will work out!

Well, this is the end folks.

My final confessional of All-Stars. Will it be my final Celestial confessional? Who knows. All I know at this point is that my speech is ready and I'm speculating as to what questions I will be asked and what my answers will be. Finally being at the end of an ORG is so surreal but winning this thing after all the nonsense would be so sweet.

Making it to the end with Chris is great too, even if I kinda wish he was just on the jury supporting me. This is our second time playing an ORG together but the first time we played we both went pre-merge, so this really is a big deal for us.

I'm proud of the game I've played though, and I want to make sure that comes across tonight. Even if I ultimately end up losing I won't let myself be called a goat or "just playing for FTC". I came here to win from the very beginning and by the end of the night everyone is going to know that.

I am so nervous for this FTC that I don't think I'll do that good, BUT I'm gonna put on my acting abilities and pretend I am confident and own everything I can! It's do or die and I'm not ready to be six feet under yet!

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So I'm very happy with myself when its all said and done! This was such a journey for me in that whether I win or lose I feel satisfied with myself because I had highs and lows and learned things- wishing my fellow finalists the best of luck and huge thank you to the hosts for allowing this to even exist here :)

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Zach wins in an 8-1-0 vote!

#episode #shinebright