Survivor: LJ Idol Reunion Part 8

[clauderainsrm]

 Getting back into it. There were 8 contestants left, and a couple major twists were left on the table. Plus, flipflop_diva  had 3 hidden immunity idols in her possession. The game was about to get crazy! 
 
Whoever ended up winning these next couple of immunities was going to determine how the rest of this game was going to go... the original tribes were back even - but how strong were those LaMina bonds? We were about to find out!

The immunity challenge this time was really close, but flipflop_diva ended up winning it. Which meant she wasn't going to have to use her idol to save herself. (they were only good until the final 5), but I wasn't sure if they would be coming out to save someone else... 

Flipflop_diva's immunity picture was Sharn Combs from Australian Survivor, widely thought to be one of the most dangerous players to ever play the game. (and who was wildly underestimated the first time she played) 

This was the sealed bottle/double tribal council.  The sealed bottle was a throwback to a few different classic Survivor moments. I figured putting the message in that bottle would have a reaction from the fans. They would either go for it right away, or stay as far away from it as possible. Either way, I wanted to have a tribal council where NO ONE was safe.  When I designed the season I realized early on that someone *could* just come in with a bunch of friends and dominate the polls, but unlike regular Idol, there were no "other kinds of voting" happening to balance that out in the long run. Nor was it a marathon where that sort of behavior would be checked after awhile. (it's difficult to keep that up for any length of time)   But, I wanted to give that person a chance as well. So I put the bottle at the tribal council.  

Putting two notes in the bottle, and making the first person hand one of them to someone else was just me being funny.  :D  It also meant that someone could "choose wrong." (there was the option of taking the second note for themselves and giving the first to someone else... which would have put them in danger! But murielle played it correctly) 

It was a shot for someone who thought they were in a bad position in the game to save themselves.  Going into this week, just based on prior behavior, I thought that flipflop_diva would be the one to grab it. When she won immunity, I started running scenarios of who would take it, and what that could mean for the game... 

I will admit, I never gave the possibility of murielle taking the bottle seriously. It seemed out of character - BUT given that this was the period when she was starting to actually ENJOY this process... it makes sense in retrospect. 

Her leaving put her people in danger... unless something else happened. Which, of course, it did. 

Instead of taking out an original Luzon,  votes were split between eeyore_grrl  and adoptedwriter  - with the final vote coming in to eliminate eeyore_grrl.   2 of the final 3 were original Asaga, so I guess I can't argue with the results of taking out an Asaga in this spot when they had the numbers at tribal. But I think that for most people's games, this was another crucial vote where people went after the potential "swing votes" instead of who they thought was in "the other alliance." 

I'll also say - yes, she was dangerous. She had come close to winning immunity and was putting out some great work. 

I'll be honest though, the fact that no one took a shot at bleodswean  here just strengthened my belief that there was no way halfshellvenus  was casting a vote against her and that the flipflop_diva/gunwithoutmusic  alliance was walking into a trap. 


Of course, as you may recall - the second vote was where bleodswean had to bow out due to a death in the family.  So we never got to see how that vote WOULD have turned out... well, YOU didn't... 

Until now....

adoptedwriter would have been eliminated. Which makes sense, it was a close vote last time and no one had a lot of time to talk. So going for the one name everyone knows is the obvious way to go. What you DON'T know though is that it was close. As in if bleodswean HAD cast a vote - and murielle had been there voting... (assuming of course that they were voting together, which wasn't always the case... and also assuming that they wouldn't have just gone for adoptedwriter... which, I don't think would have happened....) gunwithoutmusic would have been going out in this spot. 

That drop changed the course of the rest of this game more than any other. As long as bleodswean and murielle stick together, the ONLY real threat to them after this vote would have been those idols. And based on the rest of the board, I don't think they would have been the targets anyone would have picked... my guess would be that it would have been the two of them and probably halfshellvenus or alycewilson in the final 4.  (Again, unless flipflop_diva played an idol every round. Which is a possibility.) 

When it comes to Survivor - in person or online - there is a LOT of luck involved. All of the planning from the super fans would have, IMO, gone out the window right here if not for the "wrong" person picking up the bottle and leaving tribal council and a Real Life tragedy making one of the biggest threats the game has ever seen step away. 

Comments

[alycewilson]

I'll get back to reading through this write-up a little later, but it just occurred to me I never weighed in on Part 7.

The ropes competition, where I won immunity, seemed like such a good thing at the time! I was pleased that no one wanted to cut me, that I was sailing through, so to speak. But that's also what I believe put me on the radar as a possible threat. It didn't help that real-life was getting in the way of writing, and I turned in a couple pieces I didn't feel really good about near the end, in part leading me to be at the bottom of the vote getting and therefore presumably making the ultimate decision to cut me inevitable.

So while that immunity seemed good at the time, it was really the moment that ensured I would not make it to the end, I believe.

[clauderainsrm]

I think you are right. Which is what that challenge is designed to do, reveal threats - and it exposed you. :)

Working with flipflop_diva kept you in for a few weeks longer though, and put you in a better position than anyone should have EVER let you be in. :) This double tribal was a time when you could have taken control of the game IMO. But with all the moving parts, I don't know if you realized what a good position you were in at the moment.

[alycewilson]

Perhaps. I could have been a contender!

[bleodswean]

Coulda taken it all the way to the mattresses!

[alycewilson]

OK, just got a chance to read all of this. Above all, beyond the game, there are real people who have connected through this process and from prior seasons. Losing bleodswean this way hurt; it was as shocking as losing bsgsix had been during her health emergency. Yes, their leaving the game gave other people a chance and probably reshaped the final five. But I never wanted to see either of them medevacked.

The bottle vote was another one of those twists that I didn't see coming. I do think it changed the course of the game, for sure. And I also believe, as you said, that if bleodswean had stayed in the competition, murielle would probably have also lasted longer.

[gunwithoutmusic]

I agree about losing bleodswean the way we did - yes, her leaving probably did reshape the game for a lot of us, but I would never have wished on anyone what she was going through when she had to drop. Sometimes I forget what my life was even like before I had my two dogs, and I just don't want to imagine what it will be like without them. :(

[bleodswean]

Thank you, S.

[murielle]

"Her leaving put her people in danger..."

Leaving?! I didn't leave! Some nefarious old fart kicked me back to camp. The most frustrating week of my life on Idol.


What? No! That wasn't me who wrote that. That was my evil twin. ;->

Gimme that keyboard!

Losing Bleodswean was absolutely crushing and the loss of Z was absolutely crushing. It was hard.

I don't believe I would have voted P off. I just don't. Sorry, Guns.

[clauderainsrm]

I'm curious what was going through your head when you made the decision to take the bottle?

What did you think about what was inside?

Why did you pick adoptedwriter to get the other half? If you had to do it over, would you have picked the other envelope for yourself?

What was it like watching tribal council play out from the sidelines?

[murielle]

It was a while ago, but I remember thinking that the person who took the bottle might be eliminated. I didn't want to see any of "my team" kicked out, and I considered myself the weakest writer.

I think P's numbers factored into my choice. If I recall correctly, she was at the bottom of the votes that week, and I figured, if her envelop eliminated her, she might have been eliminated by the tribe anyway (at that time the votes to eliminate were going to the lowest scoring player) but if it was anything else it would save her. I'm not much of a strategist. I just wanted to save my team.

I think, if I had to do it again I would not have taken the bottle.

That whole week was torture. Not being able to vote, to help, was horrible. Not being able to 'talk" to anyone was absolutely awful.

I did chatter away to "myself" so that at least my team would know what I was thinking, but it was horrible being over there all by myself watching my comments being erased.

[flipflop_diva]

I remember, when we first found out you were safe, being so envious that you got to skip two tribals and not have to vote for anyone. It seemed like the most amazing thing at the time!

But then as we got into Tribal more, I realized what it would mean to not get to be a part of it and not be able to talk to anyone and not be able to help save the people you want to save. I can't even imagine how awful that was for you! So I definitely re-thought my stance on how 'lucky' you were by the end to decide it wasn't really lucky at all!!

[murielle]

It was something else. And being me, I did not go gently into that goodnight. I protested long and loud. ;-)

[bleodswean]

LOL. Funny now, not so amusing at the time. You were BRAVE, M, to reach out and grab that bottle and seeing your thought process just makes that even more apparent and REAL to me now.

[murielle]

It's amazing how much I've blocked out. :-)

[flipflop_diva]

The 'what ifs' that came out of this week are really fun to think about, since there are so many ways it could have gone.

I'm curious if other people thought about picking up the bottle? I saw the post right when it went up, but being a Survivor fan, I thought there was a 50 percent chance the bottle was a bad thing (I thought it could have been something where you lose your vote) so I decided right away not to try for it. Also, I had won immunity, so I didn't want to be greedy!!

adoptedwriter would have been eliminated. Which makes sense, it was a close vote last time and no one had a lot of time to talk. So going for the one name everyone knows is the obvious way to go. What you DON'T know though is that it was close. As in if bleodswean HAD cast a vote - and murielle had been there voting... (assuming of course that they were voting together, which wasn't always the case... and also assuming that they wouldn't have just gone for adoptedwriter... which, I don't think would have happened....) gunwithoutmusic would have been going out in this spot.

That drop changed the course of the rest of this game more than any other. As long as bleodswean and murielle stick together, the ONLY real threat to them after this vote would have been those idols. And based on the rest of the board, I don't think they would have been the targets anyone would have picked... my guess would be that it would have been the two of them and probably halfshellvenus or alycewilson in the final 4. (Again, unless flipflop_diva played an idol every round. Which is a possibility.)

This is surprising to me! At the time, Sean and I pretty much thought he was safe. I would have expected them to come after me. So depending who was sitting out (if it was Sean or Karen or Alyce), I probably would have used the Idol on myself. I don't know if I would have used one on Sean at the time!

But if he had somehow gone out? Then yes I would have been using my Idols every week — and trying to find the new ones!

I'll be honest though, the fact that no one took a shot at bleodswean here just strengthened my belief that there was no way halfshellvenus was casting a vote against her and that the flipflop_diva/gunwithoutmusic alliance was walking into a trap.

Karen is obviously the only one who can answer this and knows what she would have done, but I feel like we would have stuck together. I think we were a pretty solid alliance by this time. But I could totally be wrong, and we hadn't actually discussed cutting either Bleodswean or Murielle at that point. It was going to come up soon probably but it hadn't come up yet!

(That all said, it was horrible that bleodswean had to go out how she did. In the end, it worked out for me, but I wish she could have played it through and we could have seen what would have been.)

[bleodswean]

Thank you! It's all a blur now, but I simply had zero choice at the time.

[murielle]

<3 <3 <3

[gunwithoutmusic]

I don't remember for sure, but I think that I saw the announcement about the bottle with very little time to decide to go for it or not before murielle ended up grabbing it. My expectation was that the bottle held a note saying that there would be a double elimination, but I didn't expect that it would hold the "safety without power" note. I actually thought about taking it just because I thought there might be an off-chance that it would have some sort of immunity, but in the end, I'm glad murielle took it because apparently it really helped me out!

I had no idea at the time that things were so close for me - as flipflop_diva said in her comment, we really kind of thought that I was fairly safe and under-the-radar, while she would be the bigger target. There was no doubt in my mind that I'd survive the double tribal. That's crazy!

As far as not going after bleodswean and trying to break up her and murielle... I honestly can't remember our reasons, it just seemed like it was never the right moment? Looking at it in retrospect, I think I just really didn't want to see her go, because it probably would have been the smart move to try and vote for her early. But I was really expecting the top five to end up being me, flipflop, halfshell, murielle, and bleod, and just hoping that one of my alliance would win immunity. I can imagine halfshellvenus being in a tougher position at that point because she might have seen herself as a swing vote and could have very easily taken out me and flipflop if that's how the top five played out. I don't think she would have, but a Tribal Council with that particular top five could have flipped the whole game around for me, and still that's the top five I expected to see!

Also, eeyore_grrl's elimination was really tough for me. I think that was one of the few times that I wasn't on the "right" side of the vote. I had an idea that it was coming (although you can never really be sure of what's going to happen), but she and I had been talking and had helped each other out in the previous Tribal Council, and I really didn't want to vote against her and get her out, so I voted another way. :( At this point, the Tribal Councils and eliminations were just getting harder and harder and I really didn't want to lose anyone.

[murielle]

The TCs were awful. I hated them. And I would have hated voting you out because I loved your writing and you. That would have been so hard. But my tribe...!

Not a big Survivor fan, I had no clue what was in that bottle, but I suspected it might be something ugly.

[adoptedwriter]

I’m a lousy strategist and have been super deep in end of the school year and Mothership issues. Thanks, Murielle for having my back. You’re one of the kindest people I know. 💕

[murielle]

Always!

You're welcome, hon. <3

(I just keep trying. I figure if I live long enough I just might succeed.) ;-)

[alycewilson]

I'm also a terrible strategist. I know we worked together on a vote or two, but if I'd been on top of my game, I would have been more proactive about coordinating votes with you and other allies.

Whenever I see what you're writing on LJ, as well as your posts on Facebook, I'm reminded of how much we share in common in terms of our interests!

[clauderainsrm]

For most of the season I thought for sure you *were* working together. Which is why it was a surprise to learn that you were working with flipflop_diva. Again, I wasn't sure if you were switching things up or if it was a trap to get them to lower their guard enough for you to sneak in to the end. :)

[alycewilson]

I'm definitely not sneaky enough to do that! But adoptedwriter and I just naturally think along similar pathways, I believe.