Ricky M.

Ricky is a contestant from Endure: Dissonance.
==Dissonance==
===Profile===
Name: Ricky
Age: 31
Current Residence: Denver, Colorado
Tribe Designation: 
===Player Review Ranking===
Rank: 2nd
Placement: 5th
Edgic: CPN
SurvAv 2.06
I’m just gonna say it, and none of us are going to like it: Ricky likely would have won the game had Jack not fucked up. There, I said it! Ricky was probably the most strategically dominant person for the entirety of their arc. He started out strong on Véner, instantly connecting with other strategic threats (Karen, Jack, Matt D) and letting them all take the attention while he burrowed in. We joke a lot about Joshua throwing his game away for Ricky, but there were numerous people at different points of this game who would have and did completely screw their own games over for him. Ricky’s game really picked up after the death of his loved one Matt D, and he was put on the bottom position tribe where his social connections gained a lot of merit. He instantly decided to eliminate anyone who was young so he could absorb their youth, killing the huge threat in Maddy without really even blinking. At merge, Ricky was pretty much The Proponent in keeping Heinrichs and voting out Jonathan instead. Ricky plays a great threat aversion game, where he surrounds himself with bigger targets that are likely to attract more attention and it really diminishes his own public profile despite doing a lot of string pulling. Jack’s confessional obviously got leaked, the leak really blew up all of the insulation that he had and people were pretty damn aware of Ricky the whole time - and yet they eliminated his whole alliance except him. Ricky sways duo Alicia/Heinrichs to take out the Teubé 3 and save himself or Brie from being picked off next. Ricky’s real only mistake was at 6, when a split plan was supposed to occur 2-2 on Alicia/Heinrichs, Ricky changed his vote to Heinrichs without telling Brie which turned her into a 20 foot giant and she squashed him with her giant foot. An unlucky moment followed by a woman scorned! Ricky played an incredible game, full stop. - Samm
I loooove Ricky’s storyline. Top dog on OG Vener who then has to make compromises when things start shifting. He has strong connections with Jack, Karen, and Alicia. Watching his thinly veiled hatred of Adam was kinda funny. He is enamored with Matt, who is then brutally taken from him and he swears revenge. Ricky is hell-bent on murder!!! But then he meets Joshua on the swap tribe, and Joshua falls deep. At first it seemed like this was one-sided and no one would replace Daigger in Ricky's heart, and Ricky was just going to stab Joshua repeatedly and ensure he never loves again. But that gradually shifts, and the feelings are mutual, and they're going strong into the merge. But at the merge, Ricky realizes that Joshua's grip on everyone around him is too strong, so he makes the subtle power play to chip away at Joshua's numbers and take out Jonathan. If he gets away with it, it's a minor betrayal that in the long run won't mean much because he'll prove his loyalty later; he just wanted more agency in the current moment.
However, obviously the plan gets blown up immediately, and things get HEATED. All the emotions of the betrayal have to be dealt with in the current moment, and it SUCKS. After a lot of dramatic conversation, Ricky is then playing the game from a new perspective: he can't do anything to ostensibly go against his alliance, because it's not worth the damage to his relationships to these people outside the game. But he's still not quitting. And he still has his strong relationship with Alicia on the other side -- these conversations are some of the most frank and thoughtful of the merge as two super intelligent people who care for each other try to find some common ground from different sides of things, while providing emotional support and encouragement. It was so interesting to see Ricky play from the bottom, knowing that he’s going to stay on the bottom for a while, while also being unable to sabotage the other people on the bottom with him even though he likely knew it was in his best interest.
The main storyline with Ricky that comes into play in the merge is him trying to solve his problems on his own. This comes into play with the Jonathan vote -- Ricky feels a bit insecure with Joshua’s power. Rather than addressing that with Joshua and coming up with a solution (which is risky in the selfish game of Survivor), Ricky comes up with a secret way to circumvent that. This happens again in the mid-merge. I can’t think of the specific instances, but Alicia often scolds Ricky for withholding information instead of them trying to come up with a solution together. This issue hits its peak with the final 6 vote. Ricky knows that if Alicia goes at 6, it’s extremely likely that Rayna/Heinrichs/Eric will target him at 5. His (logical) solution to this is that he’ll switch his vote on the split plan and take out Heinrichs instead of Alicia. However, because he does this completely on his own, Brie is furious at him and unleashes on him for being a selfish asshole. It was a cyclical issue that kept coming up, and was ultimately the reason for his elimination. The war between balancing logic and emotions. I found it all super compelling (obviously) and empathized with him throughout. It ends with him giving genuine advice to his good friend Alicia on his way out the door on how to win and deal with FTC, and then he gets to vote for her to win. Soooo good. - Chris
===Voting History===
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===Media Releases===
==Trivia==
* Ricky's average ORG placement is 1.000002
Category:5th Place
Category:Contestants
Category:Dissonance Contestants