Michael

**Michael** (Estrella!#9890) placed 10th in Season 9.

Having a rocky start on the Drega Tribe, Michael would find himself in first boot territory quickly when most of the tribe did not gel with him socially. Despite being quite humorous and easygoing, Michael would rub most of his tribemates the wrong way, particularly Robert. Despite not being a 100% boot, with such high odds of it being him Michael lucked out from the Tovui quits, making the swap unscathed and never having to realize his tribemates were shit talking him. At the swap, Michael’s game changed completely when he immediately won over Ripple. He did such a good job at socializing with her that she trusted him enough to disclose her idol to him before some of her closer Day 1 allies. Via Ripple, Michael was then able to get in decently well with James and Zheema, seeing a significant boost in power from his OG position. Michael would go on to be one of 5 people w/ the rest of Nu Dausaqalo to make the merge without going to Tribal Council once. At the merge, Michael’s investment in the game became apparent as he became much more active in his DMs and confessional, impressing viewers with his call to action in playing hard at merge. As if the Survivor gods themselves were rewarding this activity spike, Michael would find the Saqa Extra Vote quickly into the merge, emboldening him even more to plant social seeds and set up votes. Ever since Ripple had told him about her advantages and despite being arguably her number one at one point, Michael had been attempting to sow seeds to blindside her as a major threat in the game. Feeling comfortable that Kyle could be a new shield for him instead, Michael would work closely with Kyle in attempting to figure out who would be willing to make a move. Unfortunately at the first Tribal Council of the merge, Matt would ruin all traction this movement had when making it extremely obvious he was gunning for her and sort of panicking to get numbers, alienating them away. However, this was insightful to Michael and Kyle as it allowed them to see who all had even marginal interest in blindsiding Ripple. At the following Tribal Council, the two and Tye formed a 5 person alliance (Blackpink in your Area) with intent to use Michael’s extra vote as their 6th. After this vote, Michael pegged Paris as his next target due to accurately feeling as though she had a subtle but strong social game & was in a trio- showing that his reads were on point and he had power player chops. Their recruits were Dar and Zheema, the latter being a poor choice that would spiral this round into one of the most chaotic in Aurora Survivor History. Zheema was actually Ripple’s #1 ally, and despite flip flopping more than anyone the game had ever seen, he would ultimately land on Ripple’s side in the end. Initially onboard to blindside her, he would get cold feet when wanting to at least make her use her idol this round to position himself better. However, in “warning her” about the idol, he actually would go on to tell her the \*entire\* plan (extra vote and all the members), seemingly cementing himself on her side officially despite all the perceived flip flopping. The others would get word that Ripple knew her name was out, which was aptly blamed on Zheema telling James about the vote despite Zheema himself being the direct snake they were looking for. When Kyle would accidentally post his vote for Ripple in the Tribal chat, this alliance would spiral into changing the votes onto Robert, but then would go back to putting them on Ripple when Zheema and Tye convinced them they could make the mistake a very meta move. Meanwhile, an alliance of everyone else minus James (whom neither side trusted) had formed due to Zheema and Ripple spilling tea to them; they were left out of another alliance, particularly pissing off Denim who claimed to have been open to possibly blindsiding Ripple. This group would initially want to target Tye; however, due to overthinking that Tye had an idol, they moved the votes onto Michael due to perceiving him as the least likely to have immunity played on him. There was a minor attempt from some (particularly Zheema) in this alliance to keep the vote on Tye, but it would go unnoticed to the others. To ensure their plan worked, Ripple passed off her extra vote to Paris just in case of a tie, making the planned vote 6-5-1. Blackpink in Your Area would then feel very confident going into Tribal, with some outright cockiness that they had the blindside in the bag. They would be completely gooped, gagged, and shocked when the final vote would be revealed as 7-4-1, with Dar also flipping at the last minute to be on the right side of numbers. Michael was completely heartbroken to be blindsided, shedding a tear for his game that was just beginning to heat up as his torch was snuffed. He is remembered for his humor and growth arc that was cut short, showing potential to make it to the end.