Rikki

**Rikki** (Rikki#1966) placed 5th in Season 3 & 9th in Season 8.

Staying quiet with a strong social game, Rikki was well liked by his starting tribe of Cagi and beyond. Rikki initially had an advantage in being on a tribe with someone from another season he played off-server, Shelby. The two quickly formed a tight working relationship and ran the OG Cagi tribe with Bree. After a tribe swap, Rikki found himself well integrated with his new tribe. He wasn’t a target of the flip flopping Mink, which led him to reach the merge unscathed. Rallying back with his OG Cagi member, Rikki found himself in yet another comfortable position. He was not perceived as the strongest of the Cagi, so had a cushion to expand his social game outside of this alliance. His strong social game would see him survive vote after vote, though after an unexpected family tragedy he became noticeably less active in the game. This caused some to view him as a non-factor for a while. At the F5, however, Envi last minute decided to idol Rikki out with 2 votes over Shelby despite feeling Shelby was a stronger player in fear that Rikki would win immunity. Rikki is remembered for his friendly social game and his several obvious/bad attempts at lying to his allies throughout the game.

Returning in Season 8, Rikki was a fairly under the radar player once again on Ilolma. With his social game being noticeably less impressive this go around, Rikki found himself precariously on the bottom of the OG Ilolma tribe, unbeknownst to him. Rikki would luck out when swapped with the majority of the Ilolma Tribe, thus helping breathe a little life into his withering game. Rikki initially did not get on well with the new members after the swap, but did eventually form a side alliance with Smokin. Unfortunately, Smokin would go on to have the least agency of almost anyone in the game at merge, making him a poor use of time sowing the seeds of allyship. At the merge, Rikki also was under fire when Cherry spread a rumor that he and Smokin formed a “frat” alliance with the he/hims of the game not including Brian. Cherry initially intended this rumor to cause a rift and eliminate Rikki, but when he saw that he would actually have a monopoly on Rikki’s trust given how fast the entire game bought this rumor and turned on him, Cherry shifted to keeping Rikki instead and furthering his lie that Brian was actually the one spreading this rumor. Rikki would then go on to ironically make the exact alliance that Cherry lied he made in the first place, with Cherry naming this real and genuine alliance now “The Frats.” Rikki and Brian would then go on to battle it out for the next round, with Rikki being victorious due to Cherry pulling the strings and wanting to keep Rikki as a vote for himself, as much of the game did not actually trust him due to The Frats shenanigan. The following round, The Frats seemed in order to sail to the Final 5, with Cherry officially thinking he could take the alliance far due to perceiving the other four players as weaker and easily manipulated. Rye was their easy target due to Brian being her only ally in the game, which would then give The Frats (especially Cherry) the wiggle room to control and socially maneuver themselves through the rest of the game. Frustratingly for Rikki, Rye won a clutch immunity at the Auction, leading the alliance to need to find a new ally. The round began as one of the most quiet flops in Aurora Survivor history, with over 12+ hours of literally no one talking at all about the vote. Then shit hit the fan: Chase defected from the Frats, citing his reason as not trusting Cherry and Rikki and not wanting to leave his fate up to immunity wins at the F5. The Frats' new target was Elise, which was instantly leaked to her via Chase. Elise then formed a new alliance consisting of herself, Chase, duo member Katt, and outsider Rye. Her plan: use an extra vote to send Rikki home as the founder of The Frats. (Katt and Elise were particularly annoyed with this alliance being in its “I hate women” era /lh). The alliance discussed bringing Nyx in, but when she leaked Rikki’s name to Naran, she was left out of any further discussion due to being perceived as a flipper. Naran, via Nyx and Chase, was able to procure two names for The Frats the minority was targeting: Cherry and Rikki. This led to Cherry’s paranoia ramping up, feeling as though the only way they could be confident is if they had goodies from the Auction. The Frats (via Rikki’s suggestion) decided to target Nyx as the safest option to not play an advantage, despite her genuinely leaking the right name to Naran. In the end, this would prove to be the nail in the coffin as the one person outside of their alliance that might have voted with them genuinely could not vote with them now. In the end, the minority pulled off a showstopping 5-4-1 blindside of Rikki, leaving him very confused but in good spirits as always in the Jury. He is remembered for his multiple sassy screenshots of typing things he wanted to send, such as “YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN NEXT” to Rye after she had won immunity.