LJ Idol Presents:

 And so we come to the end. 

gunwithoutmusic and halfshellvenus had made it to the end together.  It was a beautiful story of friends who stuck together and who grew their bonds deeper because of Survivor: LJ Idol. 

They enjoyed their final Survivor breakfast together. They had their Rites of Passage.  Now they just had to go to the final vot... oops.  :D 

I'm glad there were two Survivor fans at the end, so they could appreciate (or "appreciate") what I did at that point in the game.  Had the end been 3 "most LJ Idolers" I wonder what the response would have been to that moment. 

The final Survivor breakfast and Rites of Passage are iconic moments. BUT they almost always come before the final tribal council.... note I said "almost always", because if you go back to the very first US Survivor season (Borneo), they woke up, ate that final breakfast, did the torch walk, and then completed in their final immunity challenge. This was a throwback to Old School Survivor. 

When gunwithoutmusic talked me into doing this special event, I knew I needed an endurance challenge at the end. Obviously, I couldn't make you stand on a small platform as waves crashed down on you in an iconic battle to the finish. But I *could* make you write... a lot... over an extended period of time. Idol has it's own history of endurance competitions, but never quite like this. Honestly, I loved how this element worked and want to bring this into the main competition. 

I knew there would be someone asking "what if someone tries to game the competition and doesn't really WRITE anything, or just puts random words on the page and calls it an entry", which is why I built in the idea that the other competitors could "challenge" an entry. 

I went into this week thinking that gunwithoutmusic had this.  He was going to win the final immunity challenge, and take flipflop_diva to the final tribal council and fight it out. I wasn't sure where the numbers were going to fall, but thought since she had played her game so close to the vest and he was more "popular" of a figure, that he had the edge. Barring something completely unexpected, he had this game in hand... 

*Cue something unexpected*... he CHALLEGED HIS OWN ENTRY. 

Honestly, the move was so unexpected that I really wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. So I emailed his remaining competitors to see what they thought of the situation, and I talked to him about it more... my bottom line being was this a "I didn't really like this entry I wrote/it's not my best" OR was it a "My hand slipped. This is disqualifying."  In the end, he felt that his hand slipped... 

I disagreed then. and now. It wasn't his best work. But I've seen people turn in worse under better circumstances and do quite well with it. 

But in the end, we are our worst critics, and in this case, our own executioners. 

***
Halfshellvenus had been counting herself out in this particular challenge since the day it was announced. But one thing I've learned over the years, is that the louder she is grumbling about something, the less likely she is to ever let go. The sheer stubbornness was the X-factor in this challenge. She does not give up. The only way to get her out of the challenge would have been a real life incident, or carrying her out on a stretcher. 

gunwithoutmusic had the speed to get things done quickly, and my thought process (and apparently a lot of others) was that he would be hammering out entries and just overwhelm the competition. Which had a chance of working... maybe... if it had gone on for another week or so with the three of them. 

Flipflop_diva - I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what her stamina was like. She had never been this far in the competition before. She was always one of those writers that I really enjoyed, but for whatever reason, just never got the attention I thought she deserved. Hopefully this special event has helped to change that for the future.  The fact that she was hanging on for so long... only to fall at the very end... 

Halfshellvenus ended up taking her to that final tribal council - paying flipflop back for the decision to keep her safe at the final 5. 

That final tribal council came down to a single coin flip. One of the jurors couldn't make up their mind, so they flipped a coin to make halfshellvenus the winner.  So it's difficult to say either of the finalists "did anything wrong" with their game. 

Then, there are the jurors who decided not to vote. I wasn't surprised. There's a reason why I ask twice as many Gatekeepers as you end up seeing. Because most of them say "Yes" and about a quarter to half of them don't end up showing up.  :D   There were actually only a couple of them. But they may have impacted that final vote. Maybe halfshellvenus would have won easily. Maybe they would have voted flipflop_diva. 

I said earlier that I felt that the decision to take flipflop was a "thank you" for the gift of the idol. I'm sure it will be argued that it was about friendship, and the alliance, and fighting it out to the end between the last two left in that endurance challenge. 

But let's take those one at a time - friendship. Halfshellvenus was friends with them both.  
Alliance - her original alliance had been with bsgsix, but she'd been in a tribe with gunwithoutmusic the longest. Plus they'd been tighter in the previous Idol season. 
Fighting it out - that's the only one where I can say "OK, that might have played into it".  :) 

But since this is all hypothetical  - pretending that the same number and combination of jurors cast votes at the end... this is how *I* think the scenarios play out. Your mileage may vary - so tell me why I'm wrong! :) 

Gunwithoutmusic wins immunity. He brings flipflop_diva. Gun wins. 
Gunwithoutmusic wins immunity. He brings halfshellvenus. It's really close. Based on what I was hearing from the jury, gun wins. 

Halfshellvenus wins immunity. She brings gunwithoutmusic.  Even closer than the other scenario. I still think he has the votes to win. BUT it's going to be really close. 

flipflop_diva wins immunity. She brings gunwithoutmusic. Their games were so tightly bound since the merge, and given the Survivor-precedent of the guy getting credit for shared moves, I think Gun probably ends up winning. 

flipflop_diva wins immunity. She brings halfshellvenus. I think she gains a small edge for winning that challenge and may have changed at least one vote. I think flipflop wins. 


Going into the vote though - I was expecting halfshellvenus to walk away with it by a large margin. I think the final tribal council arguments actually ended up really helping flipflop_diva's case. 

What did YOU think of the final tribal council? What did you think would happen? 

Was there a moment in that final tribal that helped you make up your mind on who to you wanted to win? 

 No. I haven't forgotten you.  :) 

I've been spending most of my time as "cat hospice", but now that is done.  :( 

When we last spoke, it was the big double tribal council twist, and bleodswean stepping away from the game due to a loss of her own. 

This time we are starting off with my worst moment of the season, and one of the worst from all of Idol history! The time I spaced out on a poll closing. 

By the time I *did* close it, flipflop_diva would have won immunity. Although gunwithoutmusic was only a vote behind, so who knows where the poll was at the right moment... I don't know how much it altered the vote that was to come, but halfshellvenus won the immunity for the very next vote - so either of the other two winning would have meant she wouldn't have tied the record for the most individual immunity wins. 

Given that the final vote came down to a coin flip, it's impossible to know for sure how much each individual choice, and random chance, ended up playing in the Jury's decision. 

It's also the time when I first mentioned that there *might* be a Reunion!  I hadn't originally planned for one to happen. But it was just starting to feel like the right thing to do, in order to properly decompress and air anything that needed airing.  :) It's (hopefully) closure for a game that needs it. 

Speaking of random chance and how it might have played into the season... flipflop_diva ended up unable to submit an entry.  I'd introduced the "sit out" opportunity a few rounds before... in Survivor, it's a great "tell" of who thinks they are safe, and willing to let everyone else know. 

Granted, in this case *due to the idols in her pocket*, she WAS going to be safe regardless.  But the Texas ice storm knocked out her power and forced her to sit on the bench for a round.  Again, did this factor in to the final vote?  I don't think it ended up hurting her - BUT, I'm sure it didn't help. 

As I said - this time halfshellvenus ended up winning the immunity necklace. The picture I used this time was of Michele Fitzgerald, another winner, who wasn't viewed as "strategic" but won once and ended up in the finale a second time (on Winners at War) by having an amazing social game. 

flipflop_diva ended up playing one of her immunity idols for herself, even though she didn't need it. She still had two more in her pocket, and it jumpstarted the biggest idol hunt of the season in the following week.  At the time I wasn't sure of the move, it made me curious if she thought her numbers were worse than they actually were... but given that she and gunwithoutmusic seemed to think that *she* would be the target out of the two of them... had halfshellvenus decided to flip on them at this point, "wasting" an idol this close to the end is better than going home with three of them. 

The vote was a 4-1-1 - with the "outsiders" splitting their votes between flipflop_diva and gunwithoutmusic... and adoptedwriter ended up going home. 

This was the vote when I accepted the the "final four" alliance (or "final three +one") was real. I won't lie. It shocked me.  if you are in the f/g alliance in this spot - here would have been the time to take out halfshellvenus, but you couldn't. she was immune.  If you weren't, then taking out gunwithoutmusic would have made sense here as well... or taking a shot at flipflop_diva... heck, looking at that alliance of four, if they truly weren't turning on each other - you take out murielle in this spot. Not taking her out here ultimately cost alycewilson 

My only real theory, at the time, was that the feeling was that alyce and adopted were too tight, and if you left her in, it might be too tempting for them to break away. 

(More to come... )

 Game-wise, this week was just about perfection. 
Personal-wise, it was tragic and scary.  But let's talk about the game part for the moment. 

One of the things that I wanted to do, at least once in the season, is to incorporate a Survivor challenge into the mix. "Touchy Subjects" seemed to be the obvious fit.  It's a Survivor classic challenge, a staple of the brand. But how would an group of Idolers respond to that? Would they roll with it? Would people get upset? I had no idea. But honestly, if I wasn't going to throw in something like this, I shouldn't bother having a Survivor event at all.  If anything, in retrospect, I think having MORE Survivor elements, earlier, would have cemented the idea that this wasn't Idol. 

I'm also not 100% that I should have included the writing challenge as well. But people here love their writing challenges, and if they were going to indulge me with this event, I figured I'd indulge them as well.  :D  Plus, having two people with immunity potentially complicates the vote.  Given that there was a medevac during the challenge, if we didn't have a second part to it, there would have been no need for a tribal council, and that would have been a waste of a great challenge... so I guess it's good it was there...  (and yes, I'm thinking about these things as I type and they are going straight onto the screen. :D)

Survivor fans know the purpose of the challenge, and the chop lists, is to expose alliances. Back in Marquesas (the first time it happened) the people on the bottom realized "Oh wait, we are the next people who will be going" and banded together. They were able to turn the game around, topple the alliance in power and take control of the game all the way to the final 4.  Other seasons it's been a mixed bag as far as results. But navigating it can be tricky. 

Again, I needed to have people submit their chop lists in advance so we didn't have to wait several days in between each move. :D  But that actually worked in the games favor, by prioritizing who they wanted to hit, a storyline emerged.   Especially when you then ask people to say who they thought *the group* picked... that exposes what they *think* is happening with the rest of the group... which, to me, is even more interesting...

I think if a lawchicky819 figure was still in the running at this point that things would have been even more interesting... but then again, maybe flipflop_diva wouldn't have ended up so exposed. 

My insights about the group decisions (as well as those eliminated, as they happen) 

The first question was "Who would you trust with your life".  It was a 3-way tie!  Do you have any idea how much I hated it being a tie? :D  That meant that any of those 3 answers would be correct.  "adoptedwriter, bleodswean  and bsgsix"
Those answers all make sense to me. But only halfshellvenus , the eventual winner of the game, knew that was what the group was thinking! 

The next question was "Who would never survive on their own on an island"? This was accidentally poignant given the struggles bsgsix ended up having during that week in real life. But she was the correct answer.  3 people got it right, again, one of them being halfshellvenus. 

Both swirlsofpurple, the contestant who came in at the merge and who wasn't part of an existing alliance - and bsgsix, the person who was perceived as the biggest threat in the game at the time (and the most likely to win immunity on the writing challenge) took hits and were down to one rope.  Based on who was getting the questions right, this made perfect sense to me. 

"Who would you most like to hang out with in person once the pandemic is over" was the next question. The correct answer was bleodswean, but NO ONE got it right. Which again, is what makes her so dangerous in a game like this. Everyone loves her, but thinks that she isn't as popular as she actually is. 

The next question is always a controversial one - "Who mistakenly thinks they are controlling this game"... the correct answer was bsgsix. But looking at it in retrospect, and looking at the comments as the votes came in, this was a question people struggled with having to name a person and seemed to just give that answer because they had to say someone, and she was the one winning immunities. Knowing now about the tight alliance she was in - I'm not entirely sure that would have been a "mistaken" belief if she held it.  She was in a much better position than anyone was giving her credit for being in. 

Adoptedwriter was the one who took bsgsix out of the game. Which was an unlikely direction for it to come from. Looking at it now though we know it wasn't going to be one of her allies. (Although, honestly, when you play a game like this, it SHOULD be one of your allies if you want to distract people from your alliance... but I doubt people were reading that deeply into each hit). 
eeyore_grrl  gets hit three times in this round. From pretty much out of nowhere, and is taken out of the game. To me, this read as people knew she was a huge threat - and that she wasn't really working tightly with anyone.  Since I didn't know, at this point, at bsgsix's existing alliance, there was a part of me that hoped that the LaMina group would stick together and bring in bsgsix for a few votes. 
swirlsofpurple also went out... and I'll admit, I thought it wasn't looking good for her at this particular spot. Maybe if people looked at the results of this thought, they might think "Oh, we can keep her on with us"...  that might have worked. But returning from Edge of Extinction was always going to be a rough spot. 


"Who is the best writer" - That was, of course, my own contribution to the game.  :)  I loved it because it highlighted that this WASN'T about the "best writer", and also, because I'm always curious about people's individual tastes. Different people like different things. But I think bleodswean was a solid group choice.  
Here's where it gets funny - flipflop_diva ends up cutting halfshellvenus' final rope, eliminating her from the game. Halfshellvenus, of course, famously ends up winning a bunch of immunity challenges, including the crucial one at the end, and brings flipflop_diva with her to the finale. Had flipflop_diva ACTUALLY taken a shot like this in the game itself, things may have turned out much differently. 
gunwithoutmusic is the one to take out adoptedwriter. Which, from where I was sitting, made sense. Adoptedwriter was a lynchpin in what I saw as the biggest threat to his plans. 

The next question is "who does the most for the tribe"  The overwhelming answer this time was murielle. Which again, makes sense.  Who doesn't love murielle ? Her getting to the merge seemed like a huge mistake for game players to make, and indeed came pretty close to costing them. At this point, everyone remaining in the game went after everyone else. EXCEPT alycewilson  who was sitting untouched.  Had people been able to adjust their chop lists, maybe she would have been in danger. But they couldn't, so their priorities for elimination were pre-set. For whatever reason - alycewilson was the only one that no one wanted to eliminate. It makes sense now that I know about the loose voting block happening. But it seems like *everyone* wanted to keep her around. 

The next question was "Who is the most honest, in the context of the game?"  I had to throw that "in the context of the game" into the mix because I knew there was a chance someone would be upset about it.  :)  It would have been naturally implied, but sometimes you need to spell things out, and this was one of those times.  
It was a tie for the "correct answer", between bsgsix and murielle. Solid choices IMO. 
Again, no one hits alycewilson!  But gunwithoutmusic  takes out murielle. 
This situation stood out to me because it put the final four, in the challenge, as alycewilson, bleodswean, gunwithoutmusic and flipflop_diva. Which, could have very well been a workable final four scenario. But both gunwithoutmusic and flipflop_diva were struggling to hold on, which IF THEY WERE IN THAT FINAL FOUR, I thought they would have been. (Again, I didn't know about the voting block with alycewilson) 

"Who is the most likely to stab you in the back" is a rough question to ask.  But the correct answer was "flipflop_diva"... considering how everyone was playing, that might have been the correct answer of the remaining players. In the entire game, I think it would have been impoetry.  :)  I think her name played into that though... "flip flopping" in Survivor means frequently changing sides.  :D  If it were *me*, I'd be more worried about alycewilson making a better deal.  But no one asked me.  :) 

No one got the answer right... which is always interesting when the group has an opinion, but no one thinks the rest of the group thinks that. :)

"Who is playing the most like this was LJ Idol" - the correct answer was "bleodswean."  Which is both true, and funny, given that she had just reached out to explore an alliance the week before.  :)  I was kind of afraid at this point that the game was going to end before the last question... but for some reason, only 1 of the remaining contestants got it right! 

flipflop_diva took gunwithoutmusic out!  At this point I knew about their alliance, so I thought it was a good strategic move to not keep each other safe in this game. Plus, I thought that she would probably need to take him out to get to the end. 

The final question was "Who is playing this the most like Survivor"  The correct answer was a tie between flipflop_diva and bsgsix... which, I thought it was interesting to see that people seemed to know how strategic bsgsix actually was!  I personally would have voted for gunwithoutmusic. Although flipflop_diva had those immunity idols, so that was a solid choice even if they didn't know that...

bleodswean takes flipflop_diva out of the game... which, again, I thought could have very well happened in the game itself. 

We went into a tie-breaker at this point, I had a couple different layers of possible scenarios, but all of them worked out to the same answer... honestly, at that point in the game bleodswean would have had to run the tables for alycewilson to not win it, having not lost a single rope. 

alycewilson wins her first immunity! Looking at that *should* have been enough for anyone to go "Um... yeah, I'm not going to the end with her..." but that came far too close to happening... 


***

It was at this point that I received the update from her friend that bsgsix was in dire straits, and not the "playing guitar on your MTV" kind. You know the situation. You know the updates.  I think it's pretty clear that everyone is happy to have her remaining among the living!!! 

But it was definitely a scary moment that I think was a good reminder about how lucky we all were to be able to play a silly Survivor game online and not be fighting for our lives. 


***
In the writing challenge, halfshellvenus ended up winning immunity.  I used the picture of John Cochran, who I believe she called "some hippie"'... which is just funny to anyone who knows who he is.  :)  He ended up winning his season due to having great relationships with everyone in the game. People just plain liked him.. and when he started winning immunities it was pretty obvious he was going to be end up winning, unless someone stopped him.  :) 

***
bsgsix going out of the game put the original Asagas down by 3 people - the same position Luzon was pre-swap!  :O  I wasn't sure who was going to be going out in this spot. But the obvious choice was taking out an Asaga before going old Luzon went after each other...

But would the results of "Touchy Subjects" alter any of those plans...  when I started getting the votes and saw eeyore_grrl's name, I thought it was curtains.. but then the swirlsofpurple votes start hitting and I knew the group was just taking out the Edge of Extinction player... 

That was a rough spot to be in. I think it was a mistake, game-wise, to take her out here. But someone had to go, and I also understand that with two immunities in play, that eliminating someone that you were pretty sure didn't have a hidden immunity idol (she had already played the one from Edge) makes sense. 

***
It was around this time, or shortly after, that I learned that bsgsix had been in a alliance with gunwithoutmusic and flipflop_diva. I DID NOT know that she had also been working with halfshellvenus.  But I also heard that halfshellvenus was "taking that spot"... (again, I had never heard her name up to this point)  

My first impression? I thought they had gotten lucky that bsgsix wasn't in the game anymore. No one knew about the upcoming double elimination, and it *could* have taken her out there... but if it didn't, she had a real shot of winning her way to the end. Personal loyalty aside, you would need to cut her before that happened, and I wasn't sure they would be able to do it.  Bringing in halfshellvenus though... I thought that was even worse. She was *far* more dangerous and likely to win a final tribal council to convince a jury (obviously)... but, and this was my mistake not knowing how solid the alliance was, I didn't think that she would ever vote out bleodswean or murielle. I just couldn't see it happening.  

Opinions would change as events continued to develop, but, in that moment,  I thought that flipflop_diva's idols were her, and gunwithoutmusic's, *only* hope of making it to the end.  From where I was sitting, it was just a matter of would it be bleodswean or halfshellvenus that would come out on top. (with the outside chance of alycewilson slipping through untouched in the chaos)   Clearly I was underestimating existing alliances, and their social games... but I'm just saying what I thought at the time... 




 

 When I started the last reunion segment, this was the stretch of the game that I wanted to talk about, where things fell apart due to Real Life and where Asaga cost themselves control going into the merge. 

Thanks to the new configuration of tribes after the shake-up, Luzon broke their losing streak, with LaMina squeezing out a second place finish and sending Asaga to tribal council. 

But that's not the only important thing that happened that day. 

After WEEKS of hinting about a hidden immunity idol, the first one was found by flipflop_diva !

From my perspective, I'd been practically begging someone to find it - posting the same Tarsier picture after every clue. (It was hidden under the image of the first one I posted)

It actually ended up coming down to a mistake.  I'd made a clue, and hid it under the new Tarsier image, but when I went to preview it, I realized that the order had been flipped, and had I hit "post" at that point, the clue would have been visible.  Oops! 

So I changed them back around and thought "That was close!!" 

What I DIDN'T realize was that in making that change, the text around that image had been made into a link as well! So when flipflop_diva looked at it on her phone, she noticed that the text was different, and clicked on it... taking her to the location of the first clue!

She still had to figure it out, and go back through several weeks of posts to find where the hidden idol was "buried", but she did... and the game was afoot!!

Sure, there was a chance that she would misuse it, or go home with an idol in her pocket. But at least ONE of the Survivor fans in the game had a little bit of a safety net. So that felt good. 

***
I felt "less good" from the first new Asaga Tribal Council.  I found out after the fact that megatronix asked to be voted out.  Which is the ONLY way this vote makes sense from anything other than a self-destructing/imploding sense.  Adoptedwriter was the odd one out going into this tribal, and the fact that she managed to escape elimination at this point gave her a clear shot at getting far into the merge, and keeping the original Luzon in the mix. You manage to convince megatronix to stay (would that even have been possible at this point? *shrugs* I don't know how convincing you are! :D) and original Luzon doesn't make a comeback going into the merge. Which, to me at least, completely shifts the game. 

Then again, adoptedwriter didn't even get a single vote in that tribal, so maybe she would have stayed and lawchicky would have gone out... which again, would have been a huge mistake (to anyone except the winner) IMO. 

There are MANY "completely shifts the game" moments as we get closer to the end, but this one always struck me as critical. 

***
But critical losses seem to be a theme, because after the challenge, both impoetry and n3m3sis43 ended up quitting the game.
it did even out the tribes again - BUT took original Asaga down one more person overall. Meaning what was a 3 person-advantage was down 2. 

As I've said before, impoetry made the graphics for this event. He was one of the MOST excited about things coming in.  He was going to play as "The Wildcard", somewhere between a Coach and a Specialist. 
Real life just got the better of him though, and he never really had the time to get into the game the way he wanted. 

I wasn't entirely sure what N3m3sis43 was doing, strategy-wise in the game. But later hearing that she had been loosely working with flipflop_diva makes sense in retrospect.  I thought she was in a pretty good spot (Luzon being down in the numbers not withstanding... ultimately though, she wouldn't have been the first, or even second target, for anyone looking to get rid of "visible threats"... and she seemed to be willing to consider her options. Which would have been dangerous for everyone else going down the stretch just after the merge.) 

I didn't close the poll in time this week - and although no one has asked, I will tell you what happened. I KNEW about both of these drops before the poll was set to close. I had fully intended on closing it on time, but at the last minute I was called away from my computer and it didn't get closed in time... which is a pretty rare thing, and highly embarrassing. BUT, knowing that there wasn't going to be a regular tribal council this week, I didn't feel as badly about it as I would have... 

***
The two drops forced the merge to take place earlier than scheduled.  What would have happened in those two votes? How would the game have changed if new Luzon had been forced to go to tribal? Or LaMina? What if Asaga went again? I have no idea. 

But a merge also means that there is a hidden immunity idol hidden. And flipflop_diva now knew how to look... and ended up with a SECOND idol in her possession!

I believe it was around this time that I first heard about the alliance between her and gunwithoutmusic... so in that short period of time she went from "the next person to be voted out" to one of the people in the strongest positions in the game. 

***
The Edge of Extinction ended up being more anti-climatic than I had wanted... just due to the amounts of drops toward the end. I was in communication with jenwithapen, so I knew she wouldn't be able to come back, and the last three people hadn't had the time to really change their minds about fighting.  Which means it came down to 2 people! 
I was really regretting not saying "AT LEAST one person will be returning"... instead of just 1.  Bringing both swirlsofpurple AND bittyjane into the game would have shifted things. But it would have also meant that everyone voted out was back in the game, which felt like a complete reset. And besides, the only time 2 players had ever come back was in Pearl Islands, and that didn't seem like a good move (which is why I didn't make that call in the first place.) 

Still, I felt bad for bittyjane, who I think could have done really well if brought back into the mix. 

***
The question of "merge boot" always comes up in a game of Survivor.  Traditionally, it's the strongest player from the weakest alliance. It sets the stage for the game to come. 

This time, that decision was taken from the group when minikin25  missed the deadline and was eliminated. I was personally sad to see her go. 
She's an "old school Idol" competitor that not a lot of the newer folx had the opportunity to interact with before, and I thought that was great to see how well she had been doing. 

From a game perspective though, I saw her as someone who would have had a clear path to the very end of the game. As the "bigger names" went after each other, she would have just been behind the scenes/outside the chaos, writing her entries and disappearing from their radars. 

She was doing well enough in the polls that she wasn't going to be at the bottom either. In my "head canon" she would either be brought into someone's rag-tag alliance or be the outlier that surprises everyone at the end of the game. 

Plus, it took out yet another original Asaga... bringing the original tribes in at 6 each.  Would the new relationships shift things? Would swirlsofpurple go back to the tribe that voted her out, or get vengeance??? I was excited to see what would happen next. 

***
What were YOU thinking at this stage of the game? 

 These next couple stages are rough to get through, so it occurred to me that I should take you back a bit further. 

Back before there was such a thing as LJ Idol. 

I've told this story quite a few times over the years, but i think it's good for the context. 

When Survivor Borneo was airing (known just as "Survivor" back in those days - the first US season) there was a lot of talk from the Screen Writers Guild about how reality shows were cheap to make, as opposed to scripted shows, and how they were going to be used by the studios as a weapon against writers. 

I certainly wasn't a member of the Screen Writers Guild by any means, but as someone who had spent his teen years and in into his early 20s pouring through the pages of magazines like "Writer's Digest",  I've always felt a great loyalty to the idea of writers supporting each other. 

Of course, my end of the summer the show was so big that I couldn't avoid hearing about it, and getting curious, and the rest was history.  There was a certain guilty feeling about how 

Back in my high school days, I ended up getting suspended for putting out an "underground publication", it was part newspaper-like columns (which A LOT more swearing) and a literary magazine of poetry and short stories.  I was on the staff of the official literary magazine and felt that the editor's attitude to the writers at the school were that they were beneath her. I don't recall the exact quote now, but there was this image I had of her looking at them like they were all just a field of grass that she was walking on without ever truly seeing. Which is why I called MY publication "Speaking with the Grass"... which, in retrospect, sounds like it's a drug reference. :D 

I didn't really think much of it at the time, but despite being a writer myself I wasn't publishing any of my own work. Which, again, in retrospect, makes sense with my story arc, but at the time I didn't really think about.  Putting together the zine became my creative expression, with the benefit of having the interior moving parts that it showcased other people's creative expressions inside of it. 

I kept "SWG" going for awhile, even after the suspension (I just stopped distributing it on campus - and even then I ended up getting in trouble when a copy made it there anyway)... and for awhile didn't really do much, but I found that I needed something like that in my life... and into my time at St Petersburg College, "Mr Dooley's" was born.  (I'd seen that name on a couple local businesses,  so every issue had a slight name change "Mr Dooley's (fill in the rest here sort of thing")  It was basically the same publication, except I had more experience and was doing it better. 

That publication would come and go over the years. At one point, when I was broke but it was the early days of my personal internet access (1995 or 96) I restarted the publication as an e-zine. It was the same sort of thing, but I sent it out as an email.  Not an attachment mind you, an actual email!  :O It was LONG.  That went on for a few years into the marriage to my first wife until I kind of dropped everything and concentrated on writing fanfic. 

By a few years into that, I ended up being in charge of a website that "published" fanfic as "Editor in Chief", basically coordinating a shared comic book based universe with all of the writers, and it kept expanding from there. I started writing less and less and coordinating more and more, shaping my creativity into something other people could use as well, and setting the stage for the spotlight to be on them. 

It was in the early 2000s when I had an idea of combining this love of writing (and writers) with my love of reality shows - it was called "Fanfic Survivor. (Because it featured fanfic writers and it was very loosely based on Survivor). It was very much a rough draft.  I pulled together the things I knew at the time, and crafted what I could craft, but my own skill set wasn't to the point that I could merge those two things in a way that made sense.  People had fun. But it was a "one and done" idea. 

It wasn't until 2006 that I would try to do something like that again. I'd been putting together these weird little "who would win in a fight" matches between people on my FL, which seemed to amuse them and I wanted to do something a little bigger... so I was trying to think of what to do next... so I threw out a bunch of ideas, really just potential names for things. One of them was "LJ Idol" - American Idol was a huge show, and I was on Livejournal... the name was more of a joke than anything.  No concept. Just one idea in a mix of other ideas. 

But then I started thinking about it... and the concept slowly came together, and after a few days, I knew how this could work. Not just "work" but this could actually BE A THING. I started researching and realizing that this didn't exist anywhere. That these ideas that had been percolating in my head since high school, or longer, all kind of fit into this system.  So I mapped out the general game mechanics (how the polls would work, selected the topics, etc) and started talking to people about it. I was able to get 9 of my friends to sign up for that first season. We hit snags that I hadn't expected, and I learned from them. I took the constructive feedback, including my friend Hillary saying that it needed it's own LJ community, instead of just being on my personal LJ, and I started work on a second season... again, I mapped the entire thing out... and again, there were snags with the rules and I learned and adapted them until I got to a place where I knew how to make Season 3 work. (which is the one that exploded to 72 contestants and kept growing from there until we reached 300 at the last gasps of an active LJ).

I think it's important to have this context because - per the conversation in Part 2 of the reunion - I think there is a misunderstanding of what Idol is... because for a lot of folx, they come here to be inspired to write and for the friendships.... insert a ton of different combinations of reasons, and those are all great and valid. 

For ME, this is my creative endeavor. While I was running the last season of Idol, I was planning out future seasons.  It may look like it's running on its own, but the stages are planned out as are the topics. One change from early Idol was that I would say "This topic is happening on Week 5" and regardless of what else was happening, that topic would happen there. Now I give myself a little more leeway to feel out the room and move it back a couple weeks/switch it with something else that feels more of the moment or (very rarely) cut it completely.... there's a game twist that has been on early drafts of a season since Season 6... but every time I've gotten close I start getting worried and end up pulling it.  At some point, it will show up.  Maybe.  :) 

The ideas at the foundation of Idol are deeply personal. As I've said elsewhere, the topics (other than this event, which were all Survivor related) are all things that have come up in my life. Pretty much every aspect of this game is a little piece of me that I am putting out into the world. When people sign up and compete in Idol, it feels like they are doing that inside of my head, adding their own talent and imagination to the mix as they go... when it's working, it's a wonderful feeling.  When it's not... well, anyone who has ever had criticism about something they have written can tell you that it can feel deeply personal.  Constructive criticism, when handled correctly, can be a great thing... it helps you get better. (A great example of that from this season was my conversation with Jen. She was surprised at how eliminations were handled, and it inspired me to add a little something personal to the mix with my "goodbye emails".  (I said "upset" before, but she was more just concerned about how that might come off to people. It was a great note and I took it, thought about it, and used that data base in my head to make a valuable addition to the mix.) 

Or even where this event came from in the first place. Toward the end of last regular season, gunwithoutmusic and I were talking about Survivor and he was asking if I'd ever run a season (there was more to it... but I think that's the basics.) It wasn't a new thought. I'd had it before. Other people had been asking me about it over the years... but there was something about that conversation where things just ended up clicking. 

Again, I sat down and mapped out the mechanics of how this would work. How the Survivor rules could be fit. How idols would work. The placement of each topic within the season.  The more I planned, the more I liked the idea and it wasn't long before this idea "jumped the line" over the other concepts I'd been working on. 

As other people have pointed out, it takes a lot of work to make it look easy.  :) 

I'm pointing this out because I don't know how many people think about it in this context - it's kind of like how if someone emailed you about an entry and said "that part didn't work for me and here's a suggestion" and posting "that entry really sucked"... both of them might be difficult to hear. Honestly, there is a good chance you purposefully made the decisions on what to put into your entry and were really proud of it, and having someone show up and criticize it might hurt. But one might contain information you can use, even if they might not fully understand what it is you were doing with the piece... depending on the context of the rest of the conversation. The other doesn't.  

(and no, I'm not fishing for compliments. Even though it may sound like it... I've just been thinking about how people tend to view Idol as "this thing that exists" and not an ongoing project still being written and shaped)

This is all leading to the 3rd tribal council, and the decision made there.  It was a rule put in place before any contestants ever showed up, and had me staring down the barrel of a season about to go off the rails. 

Which, oddly enough, is where Borneo was at the same point in the game.  The first couple boots had been the oldest contestants, and the tribe was leaning toward voting out Rudy... depending on which version of the story you believe, either production stepped in and told them to vote for someone else (Stacy Stillman's testimony) or that the tribe decided to go in a different direction (official story)... had Rudy gone out at that point, the game would have been entirely different. 

With Survivor: LJ Idol, we'd gone through a rough first drop and then a difficult elimination with a divided tribe that seemed to be trying to find its footing... and then this week happened and things looked bleak for how this season was going to go... 

Which leads us into the actual events of the week, and a wild tribal council that ended with two people leaving us.  Looking back over the posts from that week, that is when my cat died, which caused the first delay of the season. I have to wonder what would have happened if there WASN'T that extra time for events to unfold. 

Looking at my comments from the the Challenge Mat, as well as remembering specific conversations, I knew there was a lot of tension going into this challenge on the Luzon side. Things felt like they were about to boil over... and they did. 

impoetry had come into the game all fired up - he was going to the be the Next "Coach" figure, and I was still playing on that... hoping that he would take the bait and run with it on the mat. But real life was already starting to take him away from the game and he was playing distracted. 

It felt like the game was on a knives edge at this point and it could just as easily implode, and all of that effort would have been worthless... and into that breach, Asaga ended up winning immunity, putting Luzon back on the hot seat. 

I wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen... would the "factions" go after each other? Would every just agree to go after the "weak links" (people who didn't have as many connections and didn't "do as well" in the poll... mind you, that were were only a couple votes in that gap between "doing well" and "not doing well" when it came to Luzon. It was a razor-thin margin at times. 

As far as I could tell, if those factions ended up sticking together, then either bittyjane or flipflop_diva was on their way out. 

I was feeling terribly about that. I thought bittyjane was in a rough spot from the start and flipflop_diva had ended up on a tribe without her "natural allies" (fellow Survivor fans)  I kept wondering if one of them would find the idol to play it and turn the tribal council upside down... or maybe someone else... anything could really happen!!

This was the first tribal council where I used the third question to just ask general questions to the group, which I think worked better. 

I also thought there was a chance that alycewilson was also in trouble. She'd had some votes the first Luzon tribal council. To me, as a Survivor fan, this was the vote that made the most sense to me.  (Sorry Alyce!) She is far too good, and likable.... and is the kind of person who would fight it out to the end. If you have her on your radar, my head was saying this is when you need to take that shot, before she vanishes back under the waves and you don't see her coming until too late. 

The vote ended up in the first tie, between bittyjane and uselesstinrelic, with flipflop_diva and alycewilson both getting a single vote.

Which meant we went into our first revote. The outsider vs the one outside what was seen by some as  "the power structure" of the tribe. (the outcast) 

I was preparing myself to "go to rocks", which would have resulted in a random person being voted out of the tribe. I honestly thought that it might come down to that. 

Then the vote started... and I was on the edge of my seat as the votes started coming in and it was looking like another tie... 

Until uselesstinrelic let me know that they were quitting the game. 

I was upset with this for various reasons, ranging from being a fan of their work and knowing how close we were to a tribe swap... to the fact that the decision came when the vote had already started, meaning that I couldn't stop it and just declare it a "sacrifice"... this wasn't regular Idol.  There were orders of operation at play. Once the host tells people it's time to vote, all other actions stop, and do not resume again until after the vote is read and a torch is snuffed. 

I felt like I was watching a train wreck that I couldn't do anything about... I kept visiting and revisiting to see if there was ANYTHING that could be done... I had not built that leeway into my structure though.  So my only hope was that the last votes being cast would come out for uselesstinrelic... after all, I had heard that they had asked people to vote for them... 

It still sucked. But not as much as the alternative.  The last two votes came in for bittyjane.  The tribe had decided to keep uselesstinrelic. Would they change their mind and stay... that was in the air for maybe about a half minute before I found out, nope, they were still quitting. 

So we ended up with a double elimination. 

It was absolutely the correct call. I stood by it then. I stand by it now. But it's also one that I regret a great deal. On a personal level, if there was anything that I could have done to keep bittyjane in the game, I would have done it.  (or even just talked uselesstinrelic out their decision....)  But when I put this thing out into the world, I accept the restrictions I put on myself to not interfere... it's a bit like performance art,  if I act upon it, I change what it is in that moment... 
In that moment, I thought there was good chance that bittyjane would be fighting her way back into the competition (which almost happened).., and thought that further played into the idea that an Asaga would get to the end, I didn't see her coming back and helping anyone who helped vote her out.  :)  

Luzon had walked into the tribal council already down in numbers, they came out having lost two more.... I wasn't sure they were going to recover...  But there WAS a hope, if maybe this smaller group actually proved to be an advantage in the challenge.... 

(more conversation in the comments) 

 

We are back with something really special - all 19 original contestants have been invited to participate in a Survivor tradition.  It's a reunion special, like they have after every season, combined with the "Deep Dive" podcast element.  

Every one of these people have a story to tell about what happened in the game, and why - and the impact that had on them. 

I hope that this will be an useful, and entertaining, look into the relationships and situations that developed as part of this season. A "group therapy session" if you will... that's certainly how Survivor contestants have viewed it over the years. 

If anyone has any questions - feel free to ask them.  Not just contestants, I'll come down into the audience with the microphone to get questions from any random person.. and not just Probst's favorite "go to" of little kids and celebrities! 

Before we get to that though, congratulations once again to halfshellvenus on her victory!

At what point in this game did you think "I have a shot to win this thing?" 
You've talked about your biggest mistake in the game, and we'll get to that later, but what do you think you did RIGHT to get yourself to the end, and win? 

flipflop_diva  - You came really close to winning this, despite being a bit of an underdog coming in.  Other than "have that coin come down the other way", looking back, is there anything about your game you would have changed that could have gotten you that extra vote?  Anything you could have said at the final tribal council to sway just one more person? 

You've mentioned forming some really tight friendships as a result of this - do you think people's opinions of you have changed over the course of this season as they've gotten to know you better? 
***
For the rest of you - Day 1, moment 1... you find yourself marooned on an island.  One on the things, production wise, that I wanted to get across right away was that this wasn't a season of LJ Idol.  There were a lot of images and terminology thrown in right away to get you in the mood to play Survivor... when you got to that beach, and the "School Yard Pick" was announced, what was running through your head? 

(continuing the conversation in the comment)  

Several months ago, 19 Idol writers began the adventure of a lifetime. 

Tonight, that journey is about to come to an end, with one of them being crowned Sole Survivor. 

***


You've said your peace and the Jury has had the time to ask you any questions they had to help them make this important and solemn decision... 
the power is in their hands. 

*turns to the Jury* 
This game now rests in your capable hands.  

One by one, you will go up to the voting confessional and write down the name of the person you WANT TO WIN this game.  Hold it up for the camera, say a few words if you like, and then place the vote in the urn. 

OK - let's get started... 

*one by one the voters go up and vote*

(NOTE: On the TV show, this would be the point where we would most likely see a vote or two.  But we don't reveal Idol voters... so this is my compromise - a couple quotes, just imagine that the faces and voices are distorted...) 

***

"This is hard for me because when it came down to the final three, I was rooting for gunwithoutmusic

***
There were 16 members of the Jury.  Unfortunately due to Real Life, 3 of them were not able to cast a vote. (they let me know they couldn't) Which means there are 13 votes in this urn. It takes 7 to win.

Remember you WANT to see your name on this parchment. 

Good luck to you both. 

I'll read the votes. 

***

First vote 



1 vote halfshellvenus

Second vote (slowly turns it over) 

2 votes halfshellvenus 

Next vote 


3 votes halfshellvenus 

Next vote 



4 votes halfshellvenus 

Next vote, takes it out, looks at it, slowly turns it over


4 votes halfshellvenus 1 vote flipflop_diva

*pulls another vote out of the urn* 



4 votes halfshellvenus  2 votes flipflop_diva

*pulls another vote out* 



4 votes halfshellvenus 3 votes flipflop_diva


*and another vote is revealed*



We are tied. 4 votes halfshellvenus  4 votes flipflop_diva. 

*after a dramatic pause, pulls out another vote* 


4 votes halfshellvenus  5 votes flipflop_diva

*reaches in and pulls out another vote* 




We are tied again.  5 votes halfshellvenus 5 votes flipflop_diva

3 more votes remain.  
*puts hand in urn, and slowly pulls out a parchment, looks at it and turns it over* 



6 votes halfshellvenus 5 votes flipflop_diva
2 votes remaining

*pulls out another parchment* 


6 votes halfshellvenus 6 votes flipflop_diva
1 vote remaining

*replay of the voting confessional  ""Wish I could vote for both. Literally, I am flipping a coin" 


Gary pulls out the final parchment, opens it, looks back to camera and he slowly turns it over* 

The winner of Survivor: LJ Idol is 

Here we are, at the last moment before the power in this game shifts to the Jury.  There is only 1 decision to make, and it rests in the hands of halfshellvenus 

Unless, for some reason, you would like to give up that necklace around your neck? 

*halfshellvenus looks shocked at anyone would suggest such a thing and shakes her head*

I didn't think so, but I had to ask. 

Here's how this works - flipflop_diva, gunwithoutmusic - you can only vote for each other.  So your votes cancel each other out.  halfshellvenus will be casting that final vote, to make one of you the last member of the Jury, and put the other in the seat beside her to argue their case to win this game. 

halfshellvenus, it's time to vote

*camera follows her as she goes to the voting urn, after a few moments of hesitation and writes down a name and places it in the urn before returning to her seat* 

Alright then.  I'll go get the vote. 

***
*Gary meets with production and eventually comes back* 

Once the vote is read, the decision is final and the person voted out will be asked to leave tribal council immediately. 

I'll read the vote. 
*opens urn, takes out the parchment, looks at it and slowly turns it over* 


gunwithoutmusic - please bring me your torch. 

*snuffs torch* 



The tribe has spoken.  Head on out. 

***

Turns back to the final two. 

Congratulations.  You have done it. You've gotten as far as you can go in this game. 

Now it's going to be up to the Jury to determine how this is going to end.  I'll give you a couple days to collect your thoughts before we all come back here to see how this plays out. 

Good night. 
*the camera follows him down the path* 

 of the final immunity challenge is 

halfshellvenus !

You have a guaranteed spot in the finale to argue your case AND when we go to tribal council, you will casting the deciding vote on who to sit next to in the finale. 

It's a big decision.  So I'll give you until tomorrow before tribal council will begin and we can get into it! 

gunwithoutmusic glances down at his watch to see how long the challenge has been going, forgetting that his watch hand is on the post... and forgetting that he isn't even wearing a watch out on the island!!!

He is out of the challenge!!! 

He steps off on the stump in a frustrated heap and collapses on the ground, exhausted.  Medical comes over and helps him to the bench to watch the rest of the challenge play out. 

 flipflop_diva 

halfshellvenus 

Who wants it more??