Love both of those ladies!
I've talked about Ryan and I before, but Colleen, in her own right, is just beyond fantastic. I'm struggling to find the words to describe just how much I adored/still adore her.
A little known fact is that I spent most of the game holding out hope that we'd have a Final Three FTC. Yes, the jurors didn't add up, but mind you, Philippines had just aired, so I didn't think that it was beyond plausible for something like that to happen. I kept that hope up for a really long time. Right out of the gate, Colleen was always someone who was in my endgame plans and that never wavered once. We connected instantly and I don't think I ever doubted her one step of the way.
While I would constantly be running strategy scenarios with Dominic, (and to an extent with Ryan as well,) Colleen and I didn't really talk all that much "game." Most of our conversations were the two of us just basically goofing off and being silly; 95% of the time we would do random things like exchange voice recordings, draw pictures for each other in Paint and gush about being aunts.
It was a very raw friendship and more or less the partnership between the two of us was implied; we never said 'Final Two,' but Colleen truly would have been the last person I thought would ever vote me out. I said on more than several occasions that I trusted her with my life... I probably said it at least fifteen times in my confessional... and of course, in one of the most classic cases of irony I can recall from this series, she was the one who ended up being the one to cast the sole vote that eliminated me from the game.
Now, I say that with admiration because I totally made my bed in The Plagues. I betrayed Colleen's trust at the Final Five when (after a LOT of hemming and hawing on my end,) I agreed to vote out Carly and of course voted out Ben instead.
Colleen's game play in the Finale (from the Final Four on) was flawless. Even though she was utterly devastated by Ben's blindside and was (rightfully) angry with me, she never once showed her hand and brushed the vote off in conversations with me as no big deal. So when I won Immunity at the Final Four, I saw no reason not to stay the course. I went through with implementing my plan to send Carly to the jury and go to the Final Three with two people who I thought, if they had the choice, would both assuredly take me with them to the FTC.
Regardless of how safe I felt going into the Final Three though, I was never going to throw that challenge. I didn't want my fate to depend on the outcome of an Immunity, but I did want to win it if I could. Not only did I want to add to my FTC resume, but keeping some sort of loyalty and honoring my Final Two Alliance with Ryan was important to me at that point too. I was playing for Ryan and I in that Final Three and maybe that was my undoing.
I knew fully well what I was going to do if I won, so I didn't bother giving Colleen the runaround following Carly's departure. I had lied to a lot of my friends in The Plagues, not maliciously but because I felt that it was necessary, but at that point I couldn't in my heart bring myself to try and exploit Colleen's trust. I just couldn't make her a promise that I would have ultimately broken. I simply cared about her too much to do that at that point in the game. To be perfectly honest, I also didn't think I needed to get a promise out of her. In my head, it made perfect sense for Colleen to take me with her to the end regardless... if looks could have killed, then the jury would have successfully murdered me long before the Final Three.
Of course the FIC was endurance and we both went over six hours trying to win it. I'd completed the challenge first and Justin had been so impressed by how long I'd lasted that he assumed there was no way that Colleen could beat me... he even prematurely edited the Episode Guide with Ryan and I as the Final Two. Oops... wrong. Colleen pulled it out, and in hindsight no one should have been surprised, because she's Colleen.
At that point, I felt awful for Ryan, because I'd pretty much strong armed her into voting out her goat the previous round, but still, I felt secure. I didn't realize that I was actually the one staring down the barrel of the gun.
Colleen had gotten over being pissed at me, and she went into that challenge thinking that she'd vote out Ryan if she won it, but when she did end up winning, it was as if she had a sudden epiphany and everything changed.
I started to see the writing on the wall when she responded to my congratulatory PM with vague answers about her decision.
While Ryan decided to go all out campaigning, I took the opposite approach, not wanting to come on too strong. After about five hours of talking to both of us in the Manhattan Chat and to each of us separately in private IM, and after about another five or six hours of deliberation, Colleen succeeded in psyching herself up and made her ultimate decision. She axed me.
Although I wasn't shocked to come in 3rd Place at that point, it was kind of like being hit by a brick, but to think that it was Colleen who took me out, I can't think of a more fitting way for my time in the game to have ended. As much as I love to win, I also love a good story, and what a fitting end to mine in The Plagues. Whenever I think of Colleen doing that I actually smile. She has that affect on people. She can vote you out and you'll smile thinking about her doing it. What a HBIC.
***
I voted for Colleen to win The Plagues. I love Ryan but for whatever reason I felt inclined to vote for Colleen. She'd really impressed me in those last two rounds and aside from her mishandling of Leah in the jury, for the most part her FTC performance impressed me too. Of course she ended up losing by one vote, which was kind of a lackluster end to her own epic journey, but I still think she deserves all the kudos she gets. She played a great game. So did Ryan.
Thanks for being amazing Sab-, I mean Colleen!
Love you girl.
. 
Love you girl.
I don't even know what to say haha 
