LJ Idol Presents:

 We're back and we're continuing to talk to the castaways about their time on the island. 
This was an adventure like no other, and true to form, it had some moments like no other!










The first challenge was a blow out in favor of Luzon. 

The second, ended in a tie!  So I pulled out something inspired by both Survivor: South Pacific and Survivor South Africa: Champions and had the tribes choose their champions.  

Two figures emerged - bsgsix and uselesstinrelic to battle head to head. 

Both of these were interesting choices to me.   This was one of those times that I recall hearing that other people had wanted to step up but ultimately ended up giving way (on both tribes).  

I'm sure any combinations would have been ended up good, but this one was particularly epic with two very different writers matched in a fight to the finish! 

Even that match ended up finishing with the difference of only a couple votes.  Ultimately though, Asaga grabbed victory, and helped shift the direction of the game. 

I was really happy that wolfden was going to be avoiding tribal council, and would have a little more time to get in with her new tribe - and I was interested in seeing the tribal dynamics of Luzon up close. 

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I forgot to mention this earlier, but one of the last decisions I made in this game was to add a round in the Tribal Council where I would ask a question about the entry.  It was A LOT more work, but my thought process - looking at who had actually signed up, was that since the challenges were tied to the writing, that it would be a through-line in the tribal council.  Since I couldn't talk about how well you held your breath, or how good you were with puzzles, swimming, or really anything BUT writing, talking about it seemed the thing to do.  Plus, it was a bit of a "thank you" to everyone who signed up for this thing.  I don't normally do it because I like to remain as neutral as possible in Idol. But given the role in tribal council, I was helping guide the discussion and it felt like a natural fit.   I think it worked well.  (other than the ones I still owe the final 3) 

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Another moment from before the second challenge was that I hid the immunity idol that wolfden had played.  That was a big part of giving it to her for the first tribal council, part of it was keeping whoever came back in safe - and the other was to introduce the idea that hidden immunity idols were in play.  I hid it immediately and waited... and waited... and waited... and so I started dropping hints everywhere I could.  :)  I couldn't believe how long it was taking some of these major Survivor fans to look for an idol! 

Than again, maybe since they know that I am ALSO a huge Survivor fan, and when it comes to watching it on TV, I prefer a game with less bells and whistles, there's a chance they thought idols wouldn't really be a thing. 

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In that first Luzon tribal council, I remember trying to look for someone to break.  :) 

I had already heard the rumblings of the idea of random voting, and I thought it was a terrible strategic idea, and potentially explosive one.  I kept thinking "What if bleodswean is voted out here, on a random draw?"  The lines within the tribe were already starting to form/fracture and all it would have taken ti blow them up entirely was for something like that to happen. 

Of course, looking back at it, the poll numbers were pretty even for just about everyone on the team. There WAS no weak link - or "clear choice" to vote out. Usually, in Survivor, everyone just agrees to vote out the one who doesn't fit in as the first boot... but pretty much everyone already knew each other.  It would have been a rough call to make. 

This idea of "random voting" ended up being a story arc of itself, not just in the pre-merge, but into the final vote itself where the winner was decided by a coin flip.  flipflop_diva  - Being the Survivor fan of Luzon, on one hand you know how dangerous it is for your game to trust it to chance - and on the other you know you don't rock the boat, even if it's not a great idea... and stick with the numbers... were you feeling on the outs with your tribe at this point or did you still think you had room to maneuver? 

 swirlsofpurple ended up going out here... but there was a moment, as the votes were coming in that I thought it was going to be alycewilson .  When those votes started coming in Alyce, did you think that your game had ended, or were you confident that you were staying in? 

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and in-between tribal council moment that most of those in the game know about, and those out of it might not, is that after Jen left and I snuffed her torch with the standard "The Tribe has Spoken" and that was that... she was upset because I usually say something about the contestant leaving in Idol proper and this seemed so cold.  I didn't want to change it - that's Survivor after all.  But after our talk, I decided to start sending a personal note to everyone as they were voted out.  Of course, sometimes my note arrived before they checked DW! :O 



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(more conversation in the comments)