BubblyBrittnee

**Days** | 84

**BubblyBrittnee** was the runner-up of Big Brother 8: The Power of Two.

Coming into this season Brittnee was relatively new to the community and didn’t have many connections. However, she aggressively worked the social front of her game and quickly built up trust with other players using her conversational skills, most notably Iconic, Imposs, BIadez, and Jared. In addition, her status as Mateo’s duo partner brought her into a six person alliance created by Ninjaz in order to save Mateo at the first eviction. However, Brittnee swiftly put together that this alliance wouldn’t help her in the long run and likely only viewed her as a number, so she boldly leaked the alliance to the rest of the house and began a campaign against Mateo, her own duo partner. Her goal was to take out her own partner in order to decrease her threat level, as it would make it so that she was no longer opposition to any other players seeking the duo safety. Brittnee and Iconic had formed an incredibly tight bond right off the bat, and through their combined efforts they were able to flip the house to evict Mateo while simultaneously saving an ally in Imposs. Furthermore, Brittnee willingly letting her duo go home was an act that built trust with Imposs’s duo partner: Nintendo. Brittnee’s dissociation from Ninjaz’s failed alliance also kept her out of the crossfire on Week 2, and similarly, her social standing ensured she wasn’t a target for Week 3. At this point Iconic and herself had 2 different 3 person alliances with BIadez and Imposs respectively. Unfortunately, Ninjaz’s dead alliance eventually came back to bite her when Nicole used it as justification to nominate her on Week 4, despite her never wanting to be in it in the first place. Once Imposs was renominated next to her, Brittnee found herself in a precarious position. Luckily, she found an opportunity to reap the rewards of her Week 1 ploy and argued to her fellow houseguests that keeping Imposs over herself did not make sense as Imposs still had a duo and she did not. Additionally, Brittnee and Iconic sold to Nintendo that Imposs, her own duo, had purposefully excluded her from alliances. The seed they planted eventually led to Nintendo flipping on her own duo to save Brittnee, and a third 3 person alliance was created between them called the NBI. Brittnee and Iconic were two of the best campaigners in the house that also happened to have BIadez’s powerful influence on their side, so when these forces combined it ensured Brittnee’s survival despite the vote initially being close. After getting through her first rough patch, things started moving in Brittnee’s favor, beginning with BIadez taking out Yitzer in the Double Eviction and dismantling the power alliance on the other side of the house. Liam, Briana, and Turt voting in the minority to save Imposs and Yitzer in back-to-back weeks put them decisively on the outs and presented easy targets for the house. Additionally, Briana’s social distancing had pushed away her duo partner, Zach, resulting in him switching allegiances to link up with Brittnee and Iconic in their FOURTH 3 person alliance: Charlie’s Angels. Brittnee took advantage of this in order to take out threats from the opposition and propel herself into the second half of the game, winning the next HOH while Iconic won the POV, which gave them full control to take out their long-time rival: Briana. The following week Iconic won HOH and took a shot at Liam, but he was vetoed by his duo partner, BIadez, and Turt was taken out instead. Brittnee was now in the final 9 with all of her close allies in Iconic, BIadez, Nintendo, Zach, and Jared, many of whom even considered her their number one. Liam had lost all of his allies other than BIadez and Biggy at her hand, but when he was on the ropes things took a turn for the worst as Liam won the following HOH. Not only were her two allies, Zach and Iconic, put on the block, but Nintendo’s and BIadez’s loyalties were shifting further towards Liam as well. By the end of the week, Brittnee had lost her closest ally in Iconic with the outsiders Nicole, Biggy, and Jared voting against her and Liam breaking the tie. However, Brittnee’s deal-making with Liam had kept her off the block and she lived to fight another day. Iconic’s departure bonded Brittnee and Zach closer than ever before, despite her throwing him under the bus to BIadez in previous weeks, as they now had a common goal to avenge their fallen member of Charlie’s Angels. Brittnee stuck to her convictions and won the next HOH, targeting Liam and Biggy for game and personal reasons due to the accusations they made against her of being an alt. She succeeded in evicting one of her rivals, Biggy, but Liam had escaped her grasp once again and simultaneously earned the duo safety with BIadez. This left limited options for Nintendo to choose from on her final 7 HOH reign, yet Brittnee managed to remain the only eligible houseguest unnominated by ensuring Nintendo continued to play the middle. Similarly to how she maintained her relationship with Nintendo, Brittnee also upheld trust with BIadez despite his connection to Liam, which eventually paid off as BIadez vetoed her on Liam’s final 6 HOH reign in the second Double Eviction. After continuously surviving each other’s strikes, Brittnee and Liam still remained in the final 5 against all-odds and their sides were firmly pitted against each other. The Double Eviction had removed the remaining outsiders, and now it was Brittnee and Zach against the duo of BIadez and Liam with Nintendo caught in the middle. Her ally, Zach, finally won an HOH and put up the duo together, but Liam won the POV and foiled their plans, leaving BIadez and Nintendo as the final nominees. This was a critical point in Brittnee’s game as she had the chance to take out BIadez by her and Zach’s votes alone, which would greatly benefit her as BIadez was Liam’s main layer of protection and a massive threat to win in his own right. However, after BIadez blackmailed her by threatening to expose her as an alt, Brittnee made an emotional move and kept him in the game, sending the swing player, Nintendo, to the jury. This would immediately come back to bite her as BIadez won the Final POV and evicted Zach, which also ensured that both him and Liam would make it to the final 3. This left Brittnee in the final 3 alone against a powerful duo that had full intentions of taking each to the end. Knowing it was win-or-go-home, Brittnee defied the odds and won the Final Head of Household! Then, in a shocking move, she cut the biggest player of the season, BIadez, and chose to face her rival, Liam, in the Final 2. Although Brittnee and Liam both played hard-fought games at different points, in the end, Liam had avoided embittering jurors as he didn’t have to get blood on his hands during his time on the bottom, whereas Brittnee had played active parts in taking out Liam’s allies such as Briana, Turt, Biggy, and eventually his duo: BIadez. Brittnee had her fair share of allies on the jury as well, but in the end, she lost in a close 5-4 vote after Nicole swung in Liam’s favor. All in all, Brittnee was an exhilarating player to watch from start to finish. Despite not being in the power alliance at the start, her social game was incredibly strong and she drew people in with ease, becoming multiple houseguests’ #1 ally almost immediately. Also, her and Iconic together were even more fun and easily my favorite pair in the game, as they weren’t only entertaining but also active power players skilled in the art of influence. Strategically Brittnee was pretty solid in making subtle moves that positioned herself well in the long run and waited for opportune moments to strike. I’d say her biggest downfall in this department was putting too much faith into BIadez throughout the game as he was the main factor ensuring Liam’s survival. This extended into the final 5 where she allowed herself to get emotionally manipulated by him and basically screwed herself over, which admittedly soured my opinion on her as she had done so well up until that point. She also had a very defeatist attitude the moment things didn’t go her way, beginning with her Week 4 nomination and peaking during the final 5 incident, to the point where she nearly walked and kept talking as if she was giving up. However, she got her head back together rather quickly and kept going, bringing herself to the final 2 with back-to-back HOH wins and nearly winning. It’s just unfortunate to think that had she evicted BIadez at the final 5 her chances to win would have gone up tremendously. Brittnee definitely came to play physically as well, winning 4 HOHs at crucial moments: the most out of anyone. Most importantly, Brittnee was a pleasure to have from a production standpoint. Despite the occasional defeatist attitude that put me off at times, Brittnee was an incredibly driven player and fully immersed herself in the strategy and social politics from day 1. This showed when she immediately sent me detailed Diary Rooms after each session, faster than I’ve ever had someone do so before, and that level of dedication really means something to me. Her strategy was always laid out, and it was fun to not only see an active, determined player but one that kept me in the loop as well. It was a tough decision to name a host favorite out of her and Iconic, but I ultimately went with Brittnee due to her longevity in the game and the fact that her character on a personal standpoint was a bit more complex while Iconic was kind of just in a constant state of being optimistic, but also a bit crazy, which I loved by the way. Regarding whether she deserved to win over Liam, I think it’s a close call. They both played hard to pull themselves out of tough situations and somehow made it to the end together despite being rivals. However, I would personally give the edge to Brittnee as she didn’t make as many strategic errors in the early game and better contained her emotions, while also being a bit more self-reliant than Liam. That being said, the jury decides in the end and that’s part of the game. Nevertheless, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Brittnee was an incredibly good player all around and one of the best runner-ups in TSM history.