(I'd actually just drafted a reply to your questions, found it in settings. FTC opener will come later)
Man, I am delighted I've made it this far. Last night worked out perfectly - Stacy was dead set on voting out Rocky all day. I think that would have been the correct move for her; while Stacy is always going to be a long shot with the jury, her best chance was to take me and Candice in the hopes we'd split votes between us. I deliberately waited until just before the tribal council to push for Candice to go for a number of reasons:
1) Candice can be really convincing, and I didn't want to give her an opportunity to let any of her arguments land properly
2) I wanted Rocky to know he was really on the chopping block in order to encourage him to try diminish all of his achievements. Having Rocky post this was a pretty successful implementation of my strategy:
Rocky wrote:i didn't outlast my old tribe, i was carried past them. i didn't own the votes that unanimously ousted cici and cassandra without my consent or opinion on it.
i couldn't make moves, i didn't make moves, thus i didn't push myself any further than necessary. I was PUSHED. i was KEPT, i hardly could keep myself. i didn't know ANYONE at the merge well enough.
3) I knew Candice had already spent a lot of time pushing for Rocky to go, whereas I had a bunch of arguments pre-loaded that Stacy hadn't heard. Getting a barrage of new information is what's going to change your mind when you have limited time to do it.
From what I can see, Stacy is battling for last place. She's nice and friendly, but will be seen as Jessica's coattail rider. Once Jessica was gone, she sat down and waited to die until I came along and proposed a strategy to keep her. She didn't have any particularly strong relationships with anyone, and hasn't had any strong opinions at tribal bar one fight with Nate.
Rocky is a trickier character. His gameplay has been non existent, and he's made a lot of blunders. Missing the vote on Steph, getting blindsided with Nate leaving, accidentally telling Jessica we were voting her out and then talking himself down at the FTC. On the other hand, he brings some friends to the jury that are potentially guaranteed votes. If people on the jury are bitter, Rocky will likely become the default option for those who are pissed at me.
I think I can articulate my story pretty well. In the tribal stages, I was voted most important person on my tribe. This was thanks to me building bonds with everyone on the tribe that I could. However, I was terrified of the target this would put on my back once we merged.
All the strong players placed highly in that vote; Steph, CiCi, Jessica, Cassandra. They all got taken out in quick succession bar me and that's purely down to my strategic and social game. I laid low at the merge while still being instrumental in putting the majority alliance together. Oh and out of interest, where did Rocky and Stacy place? 8th and 9th of 9 in that vote.
I'm gonna post an assessment of what I think each jury member will do next. Might do another video unless text is easier?