Tae Land

***Tae*** was a castaway on Essential Survivor: Brazil. He later returned for Essential Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites and Essential Survivor: All Stars 2

## Brazil

Some people enjoy the brutal honesty of others, some other people may think the utter opposite. But when it comes to Tae, no filter is provided when talking to his man. In fact, his mouth was a reason that he was the final pre-juror of Essential Survivor: Brazil.

Being put on the Samba tribe, Tae was one of the main people that constantly made conversation in the campsite. Unlike their rival tribe, who barely spoke to each other. And because of Tae being the social person he is, Tae was put into a majority alliance consisting of himself, Kim, Jerry, Brandon and Adam. From the jump, they looked like they’d be a solid core group, rocking it to the Final Five, but as Kim and Jerry kept over-strategizing despite winning their first two challenges, the ‘three amigos’ alliance was born, consisting Adam, Brandon and Tae.

During camp life, Tae made it clear that he didn’t agree with some people over things, such as Winter disliking Doja Cat and Jerry being overbearing and gullible. While that made her more noticeable to the tribe, his saving grace was when Winter blew up at everyone during a challenge prior to their first loss. That blow-up helped most of the tribe decide to turf Winter 6-2. During this period, Lucifer told the three amigos about his immunity idol.

As the days went on, Tae and Jerry’s rivalry began to become more apparent to the Samba tribe. And Tae as a player himself, wasn’t hidden from everyone either. So when the Joint Tribal Council came along, it was a complete shock that Lucifer, the guy Tae saved from becoming a social pariah, immediately turned his back on Tae, orchestrating a blindside against him. And if Gavin wasn’t taken out right before Tribal Council, Lucifer’s plan would have worked.

After the impromptu medical evacuation. Both tribes had gone back to camp without voting someone out, the lines on the Samba tribe started to become more clear. On one side, it’d be Tae, Adam, Kim and Brandon, while the other side has Jerry, Dimitri, Lucifer and Rebecca. Taking note of this, before everyone was sent back to their camps, Payton realized the 4-4 split on Samba, so he plotted to send Kim to Exile Island should they win the next Immunity Challenge. Unfortunately for Tae, Janeiro won, sending Tae’s precious and very much needed ally to Exile Island.

Once the feeling of losing sunk into Samba, everyone went into a panic. Jerry began to play both sides due to him being in the middle of two alliances, but Dimitri immediately caught onto this and began to rally up votes for Jerry, which he managed to do until Lucifer convinced his previous alliance to stick with the Tae vote. Causing Tae’s demise in a 4-3 vote.

## Voting History

 You Don't Know It, But I Hold The Cards
 It's Not Just a Nae-Nae
 I Think I've Lost It
 But Are You Hear
 There Will Be Blood
 The Greenthorne Flip
 Voted Out, Day 17

## Fans Vs. Favorites

Tae, much like in Season 2, had a big hand in this season. He came back like he never left. Starting on the Punahele tribe, Tae was made to make really good bonds with everyone, landing himself in between two possible groupings. One of them being the more prominent ‘Gen 1 alliance’, consisting of Tae, Travis, Aria, Bee and Will. He took note of Travis trying to ‘subtly’ push the narrative of Alison being a threat. Tae then woke up to a challenge loss, along with Jayla spreading that Tae was pushing for Alison. So despite originally wanting to work with her, Tae had to vote her out as the safe move. As this happened, Tae also found his way into the Gen 2 alliance, with John, Alison, Bradley and Brittney, positioning himself extremely well. He started to get more and more annoyed with the Gne 1 alliance, mainly Travis and Will.

Stuck between the two alliances as another tribal came for Punahele, trying to navigate them was obviously difficult. Tae first thought of pushing for Brittney since she was the least connected in the Gen 2 alliance, along with being untrustworthy at times. But this idea was thrown away as Tae sat down and thought about it, realizing that there was a bigger fish in the sea -- Travis. After conferring with several tribemates, Tae found conflicting stories within Travis’s gameplay. Now pushing for a Travis boot to the Gen 2 alliance, Tae was able to get the 5 votes and send him packing, but wasn’t able to avoid severe backlash from his original alliance.

Most of them were incredibly pissed, notably Bee and Will but Aria was surprisingly understanding, which gave Tae an in with them still. A few days laters, a Joint TC came, along with extra PTSD from Tae who was almost taken out by a Joint in S2. After conversing with fans, he already wasn’t a fan of Kip. But he was able to get some intel from Mark, who said the Bee would be willing to flip if the vote was on Brittney. Tae didn’t wanna do that however, as it’d leave him on the bottom of the John/Alison/Bradley trio. But there was no need to worry, both tribes stuck to their guns and caused an 8-8 vote tie between Will and Jaylen. Tae was on board to go to rocks, but John and Alison couldn’t disagree more. After getting angry with them, Tae threatened to walk from the game if they didn’t force rocks. Of course, that didn’t hold any power, and along with Will campaigning horrible, Tae figured it wasn’t going to work and voted Will out. However, he gained a new ally again with Aria out of this, so not all hope was lost here.

After losing yet another challenge, Punahele was going down to 6. And this vote wasn’t going to be very hard, the tribe was in unison deciding to vote off Bee, and even though they had their moments, Tae still felt bad that she wasn’t fully in the game. So with such an easy vote on the way, Tae took the time to think about Kahu. Interested in why they had such a team dynamic, he started to pin that onto Kip, their presumed leader. He began to question if there were pre-existing relationships, which was extreme foreshadowing for the following episodes.

After their fourth challenge loss, Tae was sick of this tribe. He wanted to get out one of the John/Alison duo, so with the help of Bradley a split vote plan was in motion between Aria and Alison. But Bradley thought Aria would play an idol to take out Alison, so when she didn’t he came back running to Tae, pissed off. Now Tae had to deal with Bradley running around saying Aria has an idol, and a ticked off Alison and John. Tae was always going to stick to voting Alison out, and her passive aggressive tone surely wasn’t going to help her.

At the merge, Tae received extremely shocking information. Due to certain outside circumstances, Tae was able to piece together that YEG was a thing. Tae also got several other reads correct such as Mark being on the bottom, and Matthew being near the top of the tribe. Come Final 12, he’s ready to take a shot at one of them. Trying to prep up the faves to also target them, Tae tried to get them to think that they are making alliances with everyone. Only issue was that John and Brittney had already integrated with Kip and Kristin, so they wouldn’t consider his pleas much at all. Especially considering that Tae couldn’t vote this round because of the Auction. So when his plan to target YEG was foiled and a favorite was going home, he used the opportunity of everyone being at tribal to blow them up completely. Getting in spats with both Kip and Cole.

Tae was starting to get sick of the tribe. He was bored of YEG controlling the game, tried of Matthew acting dumb, and even more tired of Mark ‘cowering’ to YEG. But things were starting to look up, after the Tribal Council, Brittney went to Tae and began to inform him that a YEG member would be leaving. Of course, Tae was skeptical of that promise, but warmed up to it knowing that he very well may be a target regardless. The plan was to put a majority of votes onto Cole, so that he idols out Kip. Well Kip went home, but Cole played his idol or Kristin, who received 0 votes. Along with that, Kip received the plurality with 5 no matter what.

With 10 people left in the game, the players were hit with a demerge twist. Meaning that they’d get split up into 2 tribes of 5. Tae was with Jaylen, John, Kristin and Despair. With what has been going on, he and Jaylen were the clear 2 targets. But unlike the previous few rounds, Tae had given up. Officially praying that he’d go home due to the stress of the game. But as he recollected thoughts about the game, he was then hit with some info from Despair. They said that a split vote would be happening to avoid an idol ruining their plans, as of right now, Tae didn’t mind as he still wanted to leave the game. But due to a lie Despair made about the vote, they were able to keep Tae in the game and vote out Jaylen 3-2-1.

Now it’s Final Eight and Tae has a glimpse of hope now. His objective now was to try and flip Mark. Making him believe that John, Brittney and Matthew were dangerous players to keep in the game still. Tae, Despair and Aria were seriously counting on Mark here. The former weren’t but Aria was hopeful that he’d be on board to vote out John. Surprisingly, Mark actually voted with them to cause a tie… unfortunately, John used his Vote Steal to steal Mark’s vote and place another on Tae, voting him out 5-3.

## All Stars 2 Voting History

Votes
 This Is A Blessing And A Curse
 We Can't All Be In The Spotlight
 This Man Can't Be Real
 Voted Out, Day 12