LJ Idol Presents:

 24 hours ago these would have been different results. But that's what happens when time is involved. (and if the deadline was shorter, it probably would have just happened sooner) 

We need to say goodbye to our 5th and 4th place finishers in this absolutely insane mini season - alycewilson and halfshellvenus

 Another contestant has been poisoned. Fortunately, with xeena has been given the antidote and will be able to administer that crucial life-saving elixir to someone.  (she has until the new prompt deadline to send me her decision about who will be receiving it!) 

***

The remaining contestants also have until then to send me their accusation on who they believe is a Killer/one of the Killers. Identifying them is the only way to stop their murder spree!  So far, no one has dropped dead.  But, if someone was completely healthy in Week 1, with no byes used, this would be the first week that someone could die. So I guess we will start seeing signs of their nefarious deeds. 

***

Now comes the sad part, where we say goodbye to someone. 

The good news is, as you know, that wheel keeps on spinning, so who knows where it is going to land and give people the chance to come back. 

But for now, goodbye to oxymoron67  thank you so much for coming out for this, and hope you will stick around, Home Game, and see what the wheel has it store next!

At this point, it's all going to be painful goodbyes.

This week proves no different, and it just goes uphill from here. One of them I was expecting a day or so ago when I checked on the poll and saw the "vote gap" where someone gets behind early on and it's an uphill struggle to get caught back up. I've seen it done, but not as often as I've seen it happen.

The other elimination though has been back and forth and when I hit that "close poll" and "refresh" I apparently hadn't been paying close enough attention because I wasn't expecting to see that name!

Goodbye to   swirlsofpurple  and rayaso  (the Idol Sisterhood claiming their final victim) 

Thank you for coming out and playing this mini season, I've loved having you here! I hope you've had fun and will consider home gaming, and hanging around to cheer on your favorites! (Well, for one of you that's guaranteed to happen! :D)

The results from the immunity are in  -  therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1161159.html

and so is the new prompt -   https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1161260.html

But it occurred to me that I never officially announced the sacrifices, which is going to really confuse future me.  :) 
So, for all of your spreadsheets (and mine) - leaving us this week are: static_abyss  and tonithegreat 

I saw people asking a question that wasn't answered in that thread though about what is the difference between a drop and a sacrifice and I just wanted to clear it up. Because the definitely is pretty consistent, but it can be a bit nuanced. I'll also include a bye out just because. 

So a bye out is "I've ran out of byes and I can't get anything in this week". You don't have to declare, it's just what happens. You are eliminated. I announce it in the poll post.  This action takes place before the poll chronologically. 

A drop is "I may or may not have byes, but I'm letting Gary know in advance that I'm bowing out this week" ahead of the poll.  I announce it in the poll post and it happens before the poll chronologically.

A sacrifice is "I'm leaving the competition BUT I want to take the place of someone else. I don't want anyone else to go!!!"  This is where it can get a bit nuanced in that some people let me know BEFORE the poll goes up, and sometimes they let me know after its already up, This is an active action. You actually have to link something for the poll.   It can literally be the words "I want to sacrifice this week" and as long as your INTENT is to take someone else's place, that will be honored as a sacrifice.  You also need to contact me via email to make sure that I know what is happening. 

This week, 3 people let me know that they were leaving - 2 of them wanted to sacrifice, 1 of them wanted to drop (didn't want to link anything, etc) So I honored their intents as stated. 


Sometimes those intends can be unclear, which leads to confusion.  There have literally been entries that make it sound like the writer is going to sacrifice, but that wasn't; what they were going for.  :D Which is why there is a second part of that verification process. 


***

Oh, and yes, I will tell you where you finished in the rankings this week. But please make sure to tell me your user name, even if I should definitely know it.  Because that's just easier.  :D 

 I knew that, no matter what the results ended up being, that it was going to hit hard. 

I wasn't expecting it to hit quite THAT hard though. 

That is the name of the game though, in the end, everyone is eliminated except one person. Which means that you lose a lot of talented writers during your journey. I guess though since this mini season was small compared to, well, everything... that means that we lose people sooner than I am emotionally prepared for... and probably sooner than a LOT of people are prepared to deal with. 

But, one foot in front of the other... 

Tonight we are saying goodbye to banana_galaxy and unmowngrass 

Both of you will be very much missed.Thank you for making it out to this mini season, I wish you had been able to stay longer!  I hope that we will continue to see you in the Home Game, and rooting for your personal favorites!

For someone to go this deep into a mini season writing poetry is rare. For it to be someone to get this far doing that AND be a previous winner??? That takes someone special.

marlawentmad is definitely someone special. Losing her is a blow. 

There were definitely times during 3 Strikes that I thought she was going to be in the finale - despite how big of an uphill battle it was.

I'm just really glad that we got to enjoy so much of her work over the past 24 weeks. I hope to see more of it in the future!!

This week didn't go how I expected, in any way. (either at work or here at Idol)

There are two people leaving us, but 3 strikes being given out due to a tie.

The first person leaving is a sacrifice that throws how I thought this was going to play out to the wind. 6 is leaving us. (the rest of you know her as ofearthandstars.

Which leaves only 1 spot left. But as I said, there was a 3-way tie for that. It came within a single vote of being a 7-way tie if that tells you how close voting was. (Except for one person, who is the ONLY person in the "very safe" category.)

The writers receiving a strike are
furzicle
roina_arwen and
stellinasusan

This is, unfortunately, Ro's third and final strike. So we are also losing her. Which again, is definitely impacting another theory on how this could play out. (I have theories inside of theories. :D)

Thank you so much to both of you for coming out for this experiment/mini season! I know it wasn't everything I was hoping it would be, but I really hope that you ended up having fun anyway!

(as usual, if you want to know how you did - I can give you generic answers "very safe"/safe/in danger if you email me at clauderainsrm@gmail.com)

When I saw that swirlsofpurple was sacrificing, I understood, even though I was sad about it.

But at least it meant that there was one less strike that was going to happen.

Of course, with this group, it's never safe to assume anything. Because that unlikely scenario ended up occurring and there was a tie for that final spot. Which means two people are receiving a strike.

And of course, it's the third strike for both of them.one of them and the first for the other.

>So the scenario I envisioned where only one person would receive a strike and everyone would move forward ends up with two leaving.

What a fantastic duo though. I've absolutely loved getting the chance to read their work this mini season, and I really hope that they will both continue in the Green Rooms (when I post them) and in the Home Game. (not to mention that they will come back when things settle down a little bit in my life and a new regular season can happen)

Until then though, it's goodbye to erulissedances  and strike one for mollywheezy 
Sorry for the confusion and thanks to those damn kids with their pesky spreadsheets! 

 Another week has come and gone, and this time I actually closed the poll on time! Yay me! 

On the other hand, boo on having to hand out those two strikes, especially given how close the voting was this time. (and has been for most of this mini season) 

The two strikes this week are 

proceedcyclone 
and 
tonithegreat 

The good news is that this isn't the third strike for either of them.  So everyone lives to see another day in the competition.  The bad news is that is they are one step closer to that abyss. 

But for now, there is still hope. 

It's no real shocker that here we are at the Top 6 and it comes down to another tie vote. This time between hwango  and furzicle.

Which means it comes down to where the Jury decided to award the final immunity. They couldn't give it to one of them, because he already had it. But if they gave it the other... then this is over with.

drum roll please

*looks*

The Jury awards their final immunity of the season to...

rayaso 


Congratulations!

Which means we have a Sudden Death Write Off.

It's an Open Topic. So you can write anything you want, and you have until Friday, April 12th at 9pm EDT to link it below.

Have fun!