Tribal Council - 10
Apr. 6th, 2021 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clauderainsrm posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
therealljidol Have a seat. Let's bring in the Jury.
jenwithapen, bittyjane, megatronix, impoetry, n3m3sis43, minikin25, wolfden, lawchicky819, bsgsix, swirlsofpurple, eeyore_grrl, bleodswean, adoptedwriter, alycewilson and murielle, voted out a the last tribal council.
Tonight is the last time the 3 of you have any control in this game. After this vote, the power shifts over to the Jury who will be determining who will win this game.
The decision made tonight could either make or break your game.
That power rests in the hands ofhalfshellvenus who won an iconic epic challenge. It also breaks the tie for "most individual immunity wins."
halfshellvenus - You did it. You've made it to the final two, and will be arguing your case in front of the Jury. You did it by outwriting your competition for an impressive 20 entries in 17 days. You went into that challenge as the underdog due to time differences. What did it take for you to win that challenge? You have two friends, both of whom are big Survivor fans - and you are about to end the dream of reaching the finale for one of them. What goes into that decision?
gunwithoutmusic - You on the other hand were the first one out on Day 11. Which was unexpected. Going into this challenge due to being in the same time zone as me and usually being one of the first people to post their entries, there was definitely some talk of you being the frontrunner. You did something really interesting and unprecedented though, you "challenged" your own entry. What made you decide to do that - and how did it feel watching the next 6 days play out knowing that your fate was in someone else's hands?
flipflop_diva - You fought to the very end on that challenge, but in the end, you just couldn't manage that second entry... what went wrong? If you hadn't slipped there at the end, how much longer do you think you could have gone? Your game is now in the hands of halfshellvenus - what does it feel like to be in this position, so close to the end?
***
This one is for everyone - there were a lot of entries written over the last 17 days. Which ones are you the most proud of - and which ones do you wish you could have back to work on some more?
Of your competitors entries - which one(s) are your favorites?
***
There's only one real question left to answer -flipflop_diva gunwithoutmusic - make your case for why halfshellvenus should take you to the end, and why it would be a mistake to take the other option.
(voting instructions to follow)
jenwithapen, bittyjane, megatronix, impoetry, n3m3sis43, minikin25, wolfden, lawchicky819, bsgsix, swirlsofpurple, eeyore_grrl, bleodswean, adoptedwriter, alycewilson and murielle, voted out a the last tribal council.
Tonight is the last time the 3 of you have any control in this game. After this vote, the power shifts over to the Jury who will be determining who will win this game.
The decision made tonight could either make or break your game.
That power rests in the hands of
halfshellvenus who won an iconic epic challenge. It also breaks the tie for "most individual immunity wins."halfshellvenus - You did it. You've made it to the final two, and will be arguing your case in front of the Jury. You did it by outwriting your competition for an impressive 20 entries in 17 days. You went into that challenge as the underdog due to time differences. What did it take for you to win that challenge? You have two friends, both of whom are big Survivor fans - and you are about to end the dream of reaching the finale for one of them. What goes into that decision? gunwithoutmusic - You on the other hand were the first one out on Day 11. Which was unexpected. Going into this challenge due to being in the same time zone as me and usually being one of the first people to post their entries, there was definitely some talk of you being the frontrunner. You did something really interesting and unprecedented though, you "challenged" your own entry. What made you decide to do that - and how did it feel watching the next 6 days play out knowing that your fate was in someone else's hands? flipflop_diva - You fought to the very end on that challenge, but in the end, you just couldn't manage that second entry... what went wrong? If you hadn't slipped there at the end, how much longer do you think you could have gone? Your game is now in the hands of halfshellvenus - what does it feel like to be in this position, so close to the end? ***
This one is for everyone - there were a lot of entries written over the last 17 days. Which ones are you the most proud of - and which ones do you wish you could have back to work on some more?
Of your competitors entries - which one(s) are your favorites?
***
There's only one real question left to answer -
flipflop_diva gunwithoutmusic - make your case for why halfshellvenus should take you to the end, and why it would be a mistake to take the other option. (voting instructions to follow)
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Date: 2021-04-06 03:58 pm (UTC)First, let me talk about how it felt watching the next six days play out. It felt great! No joke, I would have loved to have won this last immunity challenge, so I was bummed being out of the challenge, but there was also such a huge sense of relief for me. If it hadn't been day 11, I would have been out shortly after, I think, because my schedule this past week and a half or so has just been wild and I wouldn't have had a ton of time to write, anyway. The only time I really worried at all about the challenge was seeing flipflop drop with 5 minutes left on the clock and no entry from halfshell. Those couple of minutes were exciting because there was a chance that halfshell might have missed the deadline and flipflop might have won, despite "dropping" at the last second. Otherwise, I really really do not envy either of the two of them for going those extra six days.
I did come into the challenge thinking that I had a leg up because of the time zones and the fact that I'm generally a fast writer, but you never know what life is going to throw your way.
Regarding challenging my own entry, I don't know if I would have been so quick to do it if I had realized that an entry comprised entirely of photos had precedent in Idol, but at the same time, I still felt bad about dragging up something that I had done years before in an effort to make the deadline. I don't know if halfshell or flipflop put up anything that was "pre-written" like that, and I guess it doesn't really matter. What mattered was I felt like I was doing something that was against the whole point of the challenge.
I mean, I'm sure that all three of us have stuff in our backlogs that we've either posted before somewhere else or posted in Idol that we could have theoretically kept in our pockets for such an occasion ("Oh no, the deadline's coming up and I've had literally no time to sit and write!"), and it wouldn't technically be against any rules to post that, but at the same time, the whole point was "slip and you're out." I didn't have time to write something new, so it was only fair in my mind that I should be out.
I initially wanted to shift that DQ away from myself and put it into the hands of you and my fellow competitors, but I also thought that wasn't fair of me to do. halfshell and flipflop are both so nice that I think they would have let me squeak by, and I think that you would have been fine with it, too, if they had been. But then that's not really me taking responsibility for myself.
I started out this game saying to myself (and most people that would listen) that I was going to play as honestly as I possibly can given the format, and I just felt like continuing on in the challenge wouldn't have been me playing honestly and wouldn't have been fair to my fellow competitors who were really giving it their all. My hope is that that honesty will be a deciding factor for halfshell to want to keep me around for the top two, but all I can do at this point is hope that I've played a good enough game and been true enough to my relationships that I'll get a shot at winning the whole thing.
In a sense, I'm glad that I wasn't able to win the challenge, because I really wouldn't have liked being put in the position that halfshell is in right now. Sure, it's great for her because she's guaranteed a spot at the end, but all three of us have also been together for such a long time (maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly feels like we've been playing Survivor forever at this point) that she has a really tough decision ahead of her.
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Date: 2021-04-06 04:42 pm (UTC)(And just for the record, everything I wrote for this last challenge was new. A couple of the ideas I had before — like I finally wrote the idea I'd had for the challenge I ended up sitting out on earlier this season — but I didn't use anything pre-written. I wanted to be as true to the spirit of the challenge as I could.)
I really admire you for doing what you did, though. Gary did send us an email to ask if we wanted to challenge your entry, but I had just read it right before he posted that you dropped. But I do think I probably would have said it was okay :) So I think what you did was really admirable, because I know how much you wanted to win and it's hard to let that chance slide away when you could technically keep it.
No matter what happens from here on out, since only one of the two of us is going on, I've really, really enjoyed playing with you this season, and your friendship and Karen's (among others) will forever be the highlight of what I've won <3
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Date: 2021-04-06 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-06 06:58 pm (UTC)And no, I didn't think you were implying anything like that. I just thought that if someone else was reading this and was wondering that I would just mention it :) I mean, if people do have pre-written stuff and they are able to use it for a challenge, I think that's totally fair and good on them. I just never have any pre-written stuff, unless someone would like to read some Marvel fanfic!
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:24 pm (UTC)Eleven days of open topic fics is a huge accomplishment! That there is pain.
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Date: 2021-04-06 10:26 pm (UTC)Nope. All of it was written for the challenge.
My big plan was to get maybe 1-2 fics ahead, but I was just too fried for that to ever happen. A few times, I started something and things went well for a while, but then it just didn't want to work, and I had to try something new instead. :O
I got an email from Gary asking if I wanted to challenge your last entry, and I was still in a "what now?" headspace when he made the call before I'd even had a chance to read it.
But I admire you for doing the honorable thing there! And I probably also would have said it was okay, just out of understanding. That would not have been the competitively smart choice, but that whole aspect of the game has been the weirdest for me anyway. \o?
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Date: 2021-04-06 10:43 pm (UTC)I feel like I wouldn't have wanted to win if I had somehow made it past the point, like it would have felt bad, even if no one else felt that way. But it did really suck! I wonder how long you would have been able to go. :)
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Date: 2021-04-06 04:28 pm (UTC)Let me just start out by saying that challenge was hard. I thought one open topic a few weeks ago was awful, but this was every day trying to come up with something. And just knowing that every day I had to write or be out was mentally hard.
That all said, I did really, really want to win, though. And I gave it my all. In a random fun fact, I keep track of my word counts just so at the end of the year I can see how many words I wrote, and just for this final immunity challenge alone, I wrote almost 22,000 words! (21,738 to be exact, not counting the half-finished entry I didn't post yesterday.) So I think that alone shows that I put in a lot of effort. I tried to make each entry as best I could within the time allotment. I tried a few new things — my awful poetry, for one, and then finally putting down on paper a novel idea I've had for awhile but been too terrified to actually put out there.
But honestly, once you announced the two entries a day twist (which I feared from the beginning was coming!), I had a feeling Monday was going to be make or break for me. I had a doctor appointment in the morning with an ultrasound, so those always take a long time, and then everyone at work always seems to need everything on Mondays as well. I stayed up as late as I could Sunday to work on them, but the second one just wouldn't come together, so I took a chance that I'd be able to work on it Monday afternoon, and that gamble failed. I'm glad I was able to at least finish and post the one that I did post, though, since that one I was pretty proud of anyway.
If I had made it through yesterday, I think I would have been okay the rest of the week time wise — but then who really knows? It was getting harder by the day to keep it up, physically and mentally, so I can't say for sure. Plus, who knows what awful twist was coming Thursday? THREE entries a day??? And I have no idea how long Karen would be able to go — maybe she was prepared to go for three more months!!
It definitely sucks to not be in control right now, though at the same time, I think I would dread having to pick between halfshell and guns. We all deserve to be in the finale, but only two of us can go.
I know halfshell and guns have been together since the beginning, and he was really high on her list of people she wanted on her team (maybe even first?), and I was not, and that's scary. But all I can do is hope that I tried hard enough this final challenge, and the rest of the season, that she'll want to take me to the end with her. I would really, really love to be there, but I know guns would too.
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Date: 2021-04-06 05:07 pm (UTC)That's amazing that you did almost 22,000 words over the challenge; that's almost half a novel right there! It really was cool to be able to have that chance to stretch ourselves and just write our hearts out, even though it was hard.
I saw that "two entries a day" twist coming a mile away, but I never said anything because I didn't want to give Gary any ideas! I'm really surprised by how long both of you were able to keep going with having to do that - I know I'm a fast writer but even that might have been too much for me. :)
Good luck to both of us here at the end! I know K's got a tough choice between the two of us.
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Date: 2021-04-06 07:05 pm (UTC)Right from the beginning, I was wondering if he would make it harder, and the two entries a day was the first thing I thought of. Of course, it could have been worse — I was talking to my husband about how I thought Gary could make it harder and he goes "He could make you write 10,000 words a day!" I was like, "Well, we would all be out then, but okay' lol.
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:26 pm (UTC)Me too! That's what I was expecting-- a 3-way Tribal Council.
And I got to hold onto that fantasy for, like, a DAY before the next challenge hit. /o\
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:32 pm (UTC)Granted, I have not seen early Survivor seasons in a while, so maybe Gary did follow things as they were back then, but in later Survivor seasons, the final breakfast is literally the final breakfast and you go to final tribal that night! You don't go hang on to a pole for 17 days and have to chop someone else!!
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Date: 2021-04-06 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-06 11:14 pm (UTC)That's what I was afraid of! Like 1 a day wasn't bad enough at the beginning already!
And I have no idea how long Karen would be able to go — maybe she was prepared to go for three more months!!
Sadly, yes. For better or worse, I'm a tenacious person. As are most of us who do Idol, I think! But I'm willing to sacrifice a LOT of sleep for something like this. I have. I DO. :O
So, it could have been forever. It already FELT like forever!
This challenge was SO hard. Ugh. :O
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Date: 2021-04-07 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-07 08:29 pm (UTC)And pregnancy makes the need for sleep so much worse. I've had a couple of 5-6 hour runs over this season (which is frankly something I never want-- it's bad enough when that happens as a side-effect of insomnia!) So, yeah. It was uglier at 1-fic-a-day, and 2 fics was downright evil. :(
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:42 pm (UTC)I was joking with some friends over the weekend that I was going to have to start posting haikus as my entries, but it might have happened if i had made it longer :)
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Date: 2021-04-07 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-06 11:37 pm (UTC)You went into that challenge as the underdog due to time differences. What did it take for you to win that challenge?
Both for the time difference, and becauise I think I'm the slowest writer of the 3 of us. Sean is super-fast (Mr. "I thought I'd dash something off this morning"), so I thought this was his challenge to lose. :O
I'd hoped to write so much more fiction, because that's my preferred type of writing, my most creative area. But it's just too slow and unpredictable. I started several stories, but there was too much time pressure to allow them to go anywhere. I tried to complete a bunch of openings (or even stories) I'd saved from past prompts, but it turns out there's a reason I didn't get very far with them the first time around. THAT was disappointing.
So, being the pragmatist I am... I settle for writing what I could write within the time allotted, which was poetry, non-fiction entries, and drabbles. I'm please with what I wrote, but disappointed that only the first entry was the type of fiction I'd originally HOPED to write.
You have two friends, both of whom are big Survivor fans - and you are about to end the dream of reaching the finale for one of them. What goes into that decision?
Pain. A lot of pain. And ultimately, what promises were made that need to be kept. *sigh*
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Date: 2021-04-07 02:12 pm (UTC)I can't really respond to your answer to the second question, if it means what I think it means. Promises in Survivor (the show) don't usually amount to much; someone that's playing Survivor is going to do whatever is best for them personally and strategically, and if that means making promises with no intention of keeping of them, so be it. Survivor Idol is different, though. I've made promises in this game, and I've always kept them. The promises that have been made to me have been kept (a notable exception being promises made that can neither be kept nor broken because the "if something happens" didn't happen). Overall, I think that a big factor in the three of us ending up in this position has been the fact that we've relied on the strength of our relationships and on the trust that is there.
I know you've got a tough decision to make, and I respect whatever decision that may be (even if it means eliminating me). I'd just say to not put as much weight on promises as you do on what's ultimately best for your game.
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:37 pm (UTC)Now, there's some smart thinking! The non-fiction stuff is usually my "last resort" choice (unless something fits the prompot really well and inspires me), so I don't rule it out. But I prefer to write fiction and get down inside those alternate worlds.
Also, I don't think most of us are as good at non-fiction as you are, with that "life-essay" twist that only a few are gifted with. I think
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:00 pm (UTC)I love all your fiction! It's always so fun and creative, and I adored the piece you wrote for the first day of this challenge! But like you said, you have to do what you have to do, and the fiction your typically write is definitely not an every day, once a day type thing!
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Date: 2021-04-07 01:59 pm (UTC)I think I'm pretty happy with everything I put out over those 11 days, including the one I challenged on Day 11. I worked my hardest to make every entry I posted as high-quality as I could given the time constraints. My favorite was probably "At the Block" because I had a lot of fun with it. The one I'd probably most like to go back and work on some more was "Riptide." I felt like I captured the experience pretty well, but there's some extra context around that day that I think would be worth exploring, as well. My near-drowning was more of a wake-up call for my husband than it was for me, and I might go back to that experience again at some point.
Of your competitors entries - which one(s) are your favorites?
flipflop_diva's "2am Thoughts" really resonated with me - I think many creatives understand that thought process really well, and, despite her protestations, I think she did a pretty good job with the poetry!
halfshellvenus's "Tales From The City" was probably my favorite of hers. I love the format and how she was able to give us complete stories while still withholding so much.
Granted, I still haven't read anything from Day 11 on - I keep meaning to go back and read them but it's a lot of entries and I don't have a lot of time - but out of the ones I did manage to get to, those were probably my favorites. It's honestly difficult to choose, though - both of them really showed a lot of range in the challenge and it's sort of like comparing apples to oranges to pears in that sense.
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Date: 2021-04-07 08:12 pm (UTC)Awww, thank you! I still feel a little like an imposter poet compared to everyone else this season, but I'm glad I tried it, and I'm glad that it did resonate with you (and other people, I think). So yay. But just in general, thank you for the compliment since it makes me feel less like I completely embarrassed myself lol.
My near-drowning was more of a wake-up call for my husband than it was for me, and I might go back to that experience again at some point.
Okay, I really need to read your entries and soon! I'm hoping later today.
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Date: 2021-04-09 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-07 08:26 pm (UTC)Of your competitors entries - which one(s) are your favorites?
Ahhhh! I can't answer part 2 yet cuz I need to finish reading, but I shall get back to this! Sorry for being the world's biggest fail, everyone!
As for the first part, I actually had to go back to look at what I even wrote every day. Overall, though, I feel like some of the first ones were my strongest ones. I really like the Siren Song of the couch one and the one about my husband's weekly proclamation that we are going to be lottery winners (once again, we did not win last night). I'm also really pleased how the Prologue to my 'The Darkest Night' novel idea turned out. And even though I will never love it, I am glad I at least tried poetry.
For ones I wish I could work more on, definitely the one about my aunt and extended family that I wrote the last weekend. I feel like I lost the point of it along the way and it was more just random than super cohesive. That one is probably my least favorite. A close second in least favorite is the holiday one. It was supposed to be about Easter traditions but it also got a little lost.
I don't think it's coincidence those were some of the last ones I wrote, but even though I tried my best when I was writing them and I worked on them as much and as hard as I could at the time, I do think there is lots of room for improvement, and even having another day to fiddle with them probably would have made a lot of difference.
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Date: 2021-04-08 08:48 am (UTC)I hate to say this, but unfortunately there's no real point in answering this question. I don't know if halfshellvenus is making a mistake or not - none of us will know until you read the Jury votes. But the results of this Tribal Council were already set before we even came in.
I don't hold it against either of my two competitors. A choice had to be made and a promise is a promise. I did my best in this game and I fought really hard to be here and this whole situation just sucks, but there's no real reason to pretend I've got a shot and try to plead my case.
Good luck you guys.
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Date: 2021-04-09 08:25 am (UTC)But with that late-game shift, the only chance I had to make it into the Final 2 was to win the final challenge. Otherwise, whichever of you two won would have picked the other one to go along.
So, it was either keep writing until the other person fell over dead (and we both wished we were dead), or propose a pact with whoever else remained.
Like virtually ALL of this season, I would so much rather have let the polls decide things rather than have to actively eliminate people. That has been horrible.
And it has only been made worse by the fact that all of the other players are people I like and admire, including very much you. ♥
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Date: 2021-04-08 07:55 pm (UTC)I don't want to get into the things that have happened the past few days, since that's between the three of us, but since you never know 100 percent how something is going to go until it happens ...
This game has been really hard. And Sean and I have worked together since we were on La Mina together. We made most of our decisions together, and we spent a lot of time going over things together. So in some ways it's hard to say I deserve this more than he does. We both want it. We both fought really, really hard to be here. I wish more than anything this had been a final three.
I put my all into this game every step of the way, including this final challenge. I thought about writing poetry so I could have shorter word counts, but poetry is not my forte, and I felt like I needed to write the things I do write. So I worked really hard for 17 days to put out the best writing that I could. In the end, I hope that's the difference.
Whatever happens now, I'm ready. But Karen and Sean, I just want you both to know that this game has been one of my favorite and best Idol experiences so far, and a lot of it is because of you both. So thank you both for everything. You were the best final three I could have asked for <333
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Date: 2021-04-09 08:26 am (UTC)Right back atcha! :D
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Date: 2021-04-09 08:01 am (UTC)My favorites were "You, Once My Girl" (the poem about my daughter growing up, which left me in tears for a solid day) and Whiskey Junction (the fic from my first post).
I would liked to have tweaked the wording slightly on "Tales From The City," but that's probably perfectionism talking? It wouldn't change the individual stories at all.
Of your competitors entries - which one(s) are your favorites?
I had to finish reading flipflop_diva's later entries first, and then review the range of stories from both of them before I could answer this!
For
For
So many good stories, and so much to choose from!
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Date: 2021-04-09 06:49 pm (UTC)And thank you! Honestly, I'm super happy you picked "The Darkest Hour". I've had that idea for so long, and I worked really hard on it to get it the way I wanted, so this makes me feel like it was worth it. And I'm glad you liked the other one too! Thank you for the compliments!