Survivor: LJ Idol Reunion Part 2

[clauderainsrm]

 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. 

***
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) 

***
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. 

***

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? 

***
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 



**
(more conversation in the comments) 

Comments

[clauderainsrm]

There is something to be said for pretty much everyone playing for possibly making it the end, but swirlsofpurple was someone that I thought if she was given a little bit of a longer runway, could have gone much deeper in the game. It was literally a bad bounce coming out of the gate that took her out. Fortunately, she had Edge of Extinction... and a lot of time to sit and ponder how things might play out if she had another chance...

[swirlsofpurple]

I have been mentioned and thus have appeared...

I was actually really glad when I found out the vote wasn't random after all. Even though I was one of the ones who agreed with the random vote, once the vote happened it was actually really painful to think I'd been voted out that way, because a random vote is in no way based on the merits of the writing, and it felt quite unfair.

[clauderainsrm]

At this time I was still thinking Jen might be able to come back though. Had she been able to compete, I'm not sure anyone could have stopped her from coming back in. But it would have been an epic struggle to watch!!

[gunwithoutmusic]

I would have loved to have seen Jen come back in! I'm actually kind of sad that only two people came back from the Edge of Extinction. Swirls coming back was a nice thing because I was happy to get to read more from her, but I was really hoping for a tough competition among the people who left.

I can't blame anyone for not wanting to come back, of course, but it would have been cool to see several different people come back in the game.

[jenwithapen]

Geez, it sounds like I missed one HELL of an opportunity for my naughty side to come out swinging! ;D I'm bummed I missed out on the EPICNESS of this struggle! It would have been all Panzer Tank to a gunfight, you know it would! ;D

[clauderainsrm]

I'm curious what Asaga was thinking watching the first Luzon tribal council?

How did it compare for you? Was there anything you were able to read between the lines about the relationships?

[gunwithoutmusic]

I gained like, no information from the first Luzon Tribal. I remember being frustrated that people weren't giving straight answers a lot of the times! But as I mentioned before, that was probably not a terrible idea, not giving much away. I didn't really get much of an advantage in the game from watching the Luzon Tribal Councils - I couldn't see if people were working together or what the plans were or anything like that. There wasn't even any indication of who might be getting voted out!

[clauderainsrm]

I could go back into my emails and figure out which tribal council it was, but it was an early one for Luzon so I'll just put it here rather than pinpoint an exact moment. But I got an email from someone who was upset that people were voting for "my friend"...

I had two opposing reactions to that. (1) that this was going to be an interesting group of people to have in a game like Survivor and (2) that, on some level, there WAS an understanding of basic dynamics there - being protective of "your people" within the tribe. That is the formation of an alliance, regardless of what you want to call it.

[flipflop_diva]

Oh!! That's interesting!

I wish I could be a fly on the wall reading your emails from this season lol.

[adoptedwriter]

I liked getting a chance to explain my writing. I know it took more thought and time, but it was like getting an after the fact work room.
Personally I made a big effort to dodge the drama. I saw brief amounts but relationships here are too important for me. I was more in it to write and progress plus support others than to strategise and plot.

[clauderainsrm]

I know there were people who saw you as a wild card later in the game - because people couldn't figure out what you were going to do! Which is what tends to happen when people *with* a plan meet someone who isn't strategizing. :D

[flipflop_diva]

I have to say, there were so many times in this game, I thought about sending you a PM to see if you wanted to work together, but you seemed so content on your own that I was worried about doing so. And I did think that some of the more random votes in the beginning were yours (I don't know if they really were, of course, but that is what I guessed!).

I'm really glad, though, that you made it as far as you did! Those last few votes, when it got down to just 6 or 7 of us, were SO painful. I hated seeing you go!

[flipflop_diva]

I looooove that you commented on our entries at Tribal Councils. I understand why you have to stay neutral for regular Idol rounds, and I know you read the entries for that, but it was just really special to get your comments and see your insights, and I appreciate it so, so much. I really, really loved it.

Also, I didn't know you send people personal notes after they get voted out. That's really nice! I've never made it far enough in regular Idol to get a super personalized exit comment, but some of that could be that Gary didn't know me very well before (something else I hope has changed this season!).

((ETA: Sorry for being so late to the party! Work was trying to kill me this week. And I am finding it very hard to keep my eyes open once we get Ellie in bed. I feel like it might have something to do with this bowling ball that I am lugging around everywhere, but just a guess xD))
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?

Oh, wow. I was late to the post when everyone decided to vote randomly, but as soon as I saw it, my first thought was 'Oh no oh no oh nooooo.' Like you said, what if we voted out someone like bleodswean on accident? Or, of course, what if people voted me out? I did not want my Survivor dreams to end because of a randomizer. So I wrote a super impassioned plea why I thought that was a baaaaad idea in Survivor terms. But by then, most people had commented that they were going with the random idea and it seemed like most had already voted, so I knew it wouldn't change anything for the first vote but I hoped it would help if we had to go back to Tribal, and it did, I think.

Of course, looking back on it and reading some of the comments to the other Reunion post, maybe I should have just kept quiet and brought it up only after we knew we had to go back to Tribal. I'm a little worried now that it rubbed people the wrong way, which I wasn't trying to do at all. I was just trying to keep our tribe as strong as we could and not let us make a vote we regretted. But at the time, I was hoping people saw me as being helpful and wanting the best for our tribe (which I did), so I was definitely more worried about not speaking up and being voted out by randomizer than I was about speaking up and having people vote me out because of it.

[murielle]

I didn't even remember you'd done that, so I don't think it rubbed anyone the wrong way.

[bittyjane]

I remember thinking the same - that random voting was not necessarily a great idea. I do also remember thinking that random voting would be at easier than making a decision, because it’s so much easier to vote FOR someone than to vote AGAINST someone. Voting for someone to leave just feels so mean. :D

When it came down to it, I used a random name generator, hated to think the the name generated could actually be voted off, then voted for someone else instead.

[wolfden]

The random vote thing is news to me but it explains why Luzon votes always seemed so over the place and not at all what I expected - at least to some extent.

[murielle]

The random vote happened once. It was a mistake. It never happened again.

[clauderainsrm]

Compared to Asaga, Luzon WAS a lot more divided and "all over the place."

There were what you might call "trust clusters" of people friendly with each other who could vote the same way, or might not. And a lot of people with strong opinions combined with those finding their way week to week.

[bsgsix]

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).

This challenge revisits some really bad past history for me, so all I'm going to say is this: I'm happy I could win this challenge for our team (Asaga), and it was a close, fair victory. However, I said to our team I would be happy to write the entry, as I had a free 24 hours to do it. No one really "gave way" to me - it seemed pretty mutually agreed upon (unless someone said something privately that I don't know about). I think - and I MAY be wrong - that halfshellvenus may have given me the green light to go ahead since I said I had the time, but no one was seemingly upset about me doing it. If so - I wish they would have just told me? This kind of stuff - hearing other people wanted to "step up but gave way" - is a reason that Survivor didn't sit right with me, and why I miss regular Idol where there isn't this kind of nonsense. If someone REALLY wanted to write in my place, I wasn't going to say no. I had the free time, I offered, and that was basically that. *shrugs*

[gunwithoutmusic]

Yeah - I offered, because I'm fast, and bsgsix offered and everyone pretty much agreed bsgsix was our best bet. I don't think anyone necessarily have way to her or anything; it just seemed good strategy.

[flipflop_diva]

I wasn’t on your tribe so I don’t know for sure, but to me, it just sounds like someone else was like ‘oh, I could do it if needed,’ but no one was upset about not doing it. I think most people would be happy not to have the pressure!

I know on our tribe it was like that. A couple people offered but in the end I think they were happy to not have to do it. I know I didn’t want to!!

[clauderainsrm]

This was one of my favorite exchanges of the entire season, and it happened at the first Luzon tribal council:

"" I would like to play the decoration there on your podium. You know the one. It's totally a hidden immunity idol :)

Or if not, I found this here at the voting urn. It's gotta be one, right?

*clears throat* ""
The rules of Survivor state that if you play a hidden immunity idol, that you are safe from the vote.

This is... NOT a hidden idol.

*throws podium into the fire*

This also, is NOT a hidden immunity idol. *throws random bit of voting urn into the fire*

A little later in the season there were some quite creative attempts at finding a hidden immunity idol, but this was the first one. I'd actually forgotten about it until I started reading the actual tribal council to jog my memories. :)

[gunwithoutmusic]

Haha oh I remember that! I was frantically looking for Idols in the most bizarre ways possible (checking the source code, going through all of the journal archives, that kind of thing) but I only let a couple of people know I suspected there were Idols at all.

When flipflop told me she actually found an Idol, I was floored because I had completely given up on the idea!

[clauderainsrm]

This looks like around the time when I started doing the "Production Camp" entries, so that I could remind people of certain things while not in "host" mode.

That was probably one of the most difficult things for me, trying to figure out all of the areas and how they should work. It was still very much a work in progress throughout the season.

Kind of like Survivor: Borneo where they started out with the conch shell that they passed around for people to talk at tribal council, or how they rang the gong! Some things don't work as well in practice as they do in real life situations and so you have to adapt.

[gunwithoutmusic]

I think you did a pretty good job of recreating the Survivor experience in this game (at least as a fan of Survivor). I don't know how many other people felt it, but I hit the ground running Survivor-mode this season and I sort of feel like I even got a nice character arc. ;)

From starting off working in a group of three, that expanded to five, I was feeling super confident about my chances in the game. Then losing two of those members to medevacs right at the merge, where all of a sudden this group that was like, ready to go all the way was suddenly in trouble, then getting to the final three together.

The whole time I was playing and emailing people, it really felt like we had all just slipped away into the forest to "gather firewood" or something to talk privately, especially when we were doing running commentaries of Tribal Councils (which I'm glad for, I don't think I could take not really being able to just reach out and say "change plans" in the middle of a real Tribal Council)!

All in all, I personally had a lot of fun and think you did a good job.

[clauderainsrm]

I'm looking at the 3rd challenge and tribal council now, and the Jaws theme is playing faintly in the background. That one definitely needs it's own spot to discuss. All of the weeks probably won't, but I think these first 3 weeks especially shaped a lot of what was to come.

[halfshellvenus]

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.
That was actually my favorite part of Survivor Idol! You often say things in other seasons that imply you've read the entries. But we've had no actual proof until now.

Unless you're winging the questions from the Cliff notes, of course. ;)

[megatronix]

Lol @ Cliff notes 😆

My favorite part was the specific entry comments too. I liked having such thoughtful responses to entries Gary! I think it made us all feel so seen and recognized for the work we did. Very cool addition to the process!