Ripple

**Ripple** (Bubbles#3555) is the Sole Survivor of Season 9 & placed 18th in Survivor Season 10.

Considered an early contender on the Dausaqalo tribe, Ripple spent majority of the pre-merge forming social bonds. While she was able to form a strong relationship with Kyle early on, Ripple also had a pre-existing connection with Zheema. With the help of these members from Dausaqalo sharing search grid information, Ripple was quickly able to find several advantages, including the Dausaqalo Hidden Immunity Idol and an extra vote by the third day. At the swap, she was able to build trust with Michael, proving that her social gameplay was formidable. Ripple was one of a handful of players to avoid tribal council altogether up until the merge, allowing her to win extra grid searches by winning team immunity. At the merge, during the "captaincy" challenge, Ripple had the highest trust rankings out of the Saqa tribe, which instantly painted a huge target on her back. For the first couple of early rounds post merge, Ripple was able to stay out of the crossfires with her social poweress, despite her advantages being leaked. Ripple was able to secure herself a second Hidden Immunity Idol, making her one of the most dangerous players in the game. She had also won a third Hidden Immunity Idol at the auction, which was inactive. In order to activate the third idol, Ripple had to vote in the minority for that tribal. Due to James leaking information to Ripple that Dar, Tye, Denim, and Kyle were trying to push him to vote for her, she decided to play her idol but also successfully voted in the minority. In turn, her idol from the auction was activated, so by the end of the round, Ripple had flushed an idol but gained one back. Ripple didn't waste much time telling James about the idol that was just activated, even claiming in her confessionals that she wasn't going to tell a soul about the auction idol. Ripple also told Zheema, who she worked closely with at the previous tribal council. Ripple had no intention of playing her idols at this tribal, so she transferred both of them to Zheema in case she was blindsided and got voted out. Following the Tye vote out, to Ripple's surprise, Zheema transferred the idols back to her when he could have easily kept them himself. Despite giving the idols back to Ripple, Zheema eventually turned on her, flat out saying that she was the clear frontrunner to win the game and being quite abrasive about her need to go home. The duo had a falling out, tears were shed, and this led to Ripple playing a solo game the rest of the way. Ripple knew she had to be scrappy and self resilient from Final 7 on. She had a plan to get as many majority votes on her so she could decide who would go. Ripple played the Dasaqualo hidden immunity idol at this Tribal and idoled Denim out with the unexpected help of James. At the very next challenge, knowing her back was against the wall, Ripple was ecstatic to see a Jigsaw puzzle, which is one of her favorite and best challenges. She recorded a blazing fast time completing the 192 piece jigsaw in 11:50, automatically earning her a spot in the Final 5. The Final 5 tribal was the last time Ripple was able to use her last hidden immunity idol from the auction. If she had won immunity, she was open to using the idol to save James because she wanted to take him to FTC. Unfortunately, James had fallen asleep and self voted himself. Had James submitted a vote, Dar would have gone home here, however James was sent to Ponderosa leaving Ripple without any allies once again. At the Final Immunity Challenge, Ripple knew there was only one way to make it to the Final Tribal Council, and that was to win the FIC. The FIC was a 24 hour endurance challenge, where Ripple blew the competition out of the water, scoring 80 points with the next closest having only 33 points. Ripple finally secured her spot in FTC. The last decision she had to make was who to take with her. She and Dar ended up taking a shot voting out Zheema. With Zheema being voted out at Final 4 tribal, that left Dar, Robert, and Ripple at the Final Tribal Council. At the FTC, Ripple would face a surprisingly uphill battle from some Jurors. While some locked her as their vote instantly due to a dominant, hero-coded game, others felt she would be a "boring" winner and questioned if she did as much as their perceptions held. She would go on to give a shockingly lackluster speech, cluttering it with a LOT of focus on her downsides. This would continue into the Q&A, where Ripple appeared to actively be downplaying her game to the point that viewers wondered if she even didn't think she played as well as she did. With a fine line between being humble and throwing, some Jurors took this chance to really think long and hard if Ripple's game was more impressive than the stealthy Dar. In the end, however, her dominant and "main character" type gameplay found the jury favoring her overall, keeping with the idea that there was a reason they wanted her out for so long when she became the Sole Survivor of Season 9 after a 4-3-0 vote.

Quickly returning in Season 10, Ripple would make it apparent fast on the Katibo Tribe that she was not feeling the season. Put onto the Brawn Tribe based on her challenge performance, Ripple would have the attitude of “ugh this again so soon” before the season ever began. As such, most of the content from her on the viewer side was largely negative to nonexistent, proving to be a major whiplash from her prior season being the Fan Favorite. Ripple would form a particularly close bond with Dylan, with the two voice-chatting for hours each night and having a fairly firm hold on the tribe. (Additionally, she would buy Dylan two meals and alcohol with real money and refer to it as a bribe, which was extremely questionable.) Dylan would slowly begin to get clocked, however, while Ripple herself was in a middle position to coast until a swap. This was actually surprising to some viewers given that several tribemates remarked that she only liked talking about herself. Unfortunately, Ripple would begin to feel drained from the game on top of a busy IRL and dating someone new. Despite getting most of the points for Katibo in Letter Number, Ripple would go on to quit the game following their loss to focus more time on her IRL. She is remembered this season just for the whiplash of Fan Favorite to potential flop, stressing the need to take care of yourself before jumping into a new ORG.