Rye

**Rye** (RyeBread#6522) placed 7th in Season 1 & 8th in Season 8.

Rye began the game quietly on the Saharah Tribe, admitting that she was not a huge fan of Survivor so likely lacked the strategic chops of many other members. Despite this, her endearing personality found her in the majority alliance of Saharah, as well as the dominating Saharah Alliance at the merge. Initially starting off with good reads but seemingly too passive to act on them, Rye took the game in her own hands at the merge when Dylan approached her with the opportunity to blindside Amber and add something to her resume. However, when Ruby snitched on her & she did not vote with Celeste a second time, both alliances deemed her a flip flopper. Because of this, she was scared into once again playing a passive game and sticking to her alliance with every vote, hoping to flip on Alec with Ciaran and Ruby after the Celestes were gone. When the Celestes were able to tie the vote for an unprecedented third time, Rye would be blindsided in a 4-2 revote when Ruby was fed up with ties and promised F4 with the Celestes. She is also remembered for wasting her extra vote on the Amber blindside to “throw off suspicion,” as well as setting a very high standard for Flag Making with her insanely cute flag.

Returning in Season 8, Rye was determined to make more of a mark in the game and play hard, potentially stirring the pot. Unfortunately, she was relegated to the side of many alliances for the majority of the game, and never quite found her footing. On the Ilolma Tribe, Rye would form a close duo with Brian that would keep her at the top of the totem pole for the early portion of the game. At the swap, however, Rye and Brian did not socialize as well as they could have with their swapped members, with Rye in particular missing out on being part of a “Femme Fatality” all she/her/they alliance. At the merge, Rye would hike her activity up, stating she was bored in the game due to being on a tribe that hardly lost any challenges so nothing was happening. In the first round, she hit it off well with Smokin and put a lot of social energy into him; unfortunately, she was unable to save him due to her own social standing and this ended up being a sort of “wasted” time investment. The following rounds, Rye was mostly just known as Brian’s duo partner, until his eventual blindside which she was left out of. Embarrassed to be on the bottom, Rye put in work attempting to scramble and improve her standing in the game. She was added to the “Lunch Line” alliance with Chase, Katt, and Elise when the three wanted to scoop up her vote to make a move on “The Frats” alliance. After this move, Rye seemed to be in a decent spot; while perceived as a potential goat, she wanted to offer up her vote to differing voting blocs as the blood-bath of taking out targets began. Unfortunately for Rye, Chase unknowingly won a clutch immunity challenge when Cherry and Nyx were planning on idoling him out, leaving Rye as a shopped out name due to the others feeling no one would be mad to see her go. Luckily, there was initially a plan to take out Cherry instead due to his threatening social game and ability to lie. However, Cherry was able to impressively game his way to safety via Chase, hanging onto his idol and getting the numbers to stay safe. Despite this, the vote was very nearly a tie when Chad self-voted and Cherry was supposed to vote for Elise in case of an idol play. In the end, Rye became the fourth member of the Jury in a 4-3-1 vote when Cherry switched his vote back, failing to make enough strong social bonds beyond Brian. She is remembered once again for her artistic skills in the flag making challenge, making the winning flag yet again.