LJ Idol Presents:

 I ended up going over to a friend's house for most of the night. It was nice to have some support.  But I wasn't in my normal "OMG Idol panic because I knew that one of the Write Off entries was a sacrifice. 

So, here are the 4 entries, so you can read them yourself. Be sure to read and comment on them!! They deserve the attention!!

garnigal.dreamwidth.org/192928.html

roina-arwen.dreamwidth.org/16858.html

swirlsofpurple.dreamwidth.org/13022.html

tonithegreat.dreamwidth.org/8561.html



Goodbye to swirlsofpurple who is sacrifice.  I saw her walk into the lake early and not emerge from its murky depths. 

But if you DO resurface, I hope if the wheel spins in favor of people returning that you will do so!!!

How is it going on your side of the internet?

I'm hanging in there. Some of you know. Some of you don't know. About a month ago Cynthia asked for a divorce. After 14 years together (8 of marriage) she realized that she is not in love with me.  That's why I've been well, not great. It's been a very NOT GREAT month with little signs of it getting better any time soon. I really need this distraction right now. I've started therapy and that seems to be helping.  But overall, not doing well.  So, thank you for your patience and understanding. 

But hey - next year is the 20th anniversary of LJ Idol, which was started following my first divorce. I needed a distraction and my friends were nice enough to play along with that crazy little idea I had. So it looks like we'll be gathering together for the anniversary just after my second!   (that's literally all I have for a positive spin on this. Work with me people!!) 

In the meantime, there's a game afoot and a poll's worth of entries to read, comment and vote on! https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1192630.html
So let's focus on that. 

***

In better news, there are no signs of any activity from the Killer(s) this week!! What are they up to?????  This is getting suspicious!!

 People seemed to either forget or just give up this week.  :D  There were very few accusations received. 

But the majority (by 1) was that autumn_wind was a Killer!!

*cue dramatic music* 

Maybe people were just busy hiding from the Killer after the death last week. Understandable. 

After all, just knowing that they could be striking at any time... that no one, and nowhere, is safe... that...

*SOUNDS OF SCREAMING ECHO THROUGH THE HALLWAYS, ENDING ABRUPTLY* 

Who was that? Did anyone see anything? Who is missing? 

Oh no.... she's over there, leaning on the edge of the bookcase. It looks like she was trying to grab a book of poetry...

Is she????  Yeah, she's gone. 

eeyore_grrl has been murdered.   :( 

I see she left a note though, scrawled on a piece of paper. It looks like it was her entry for this week.  But maybe there's a clue... make sure to check it out!!  eeyore-grrl.dreamwidth.org/640479.html

  Now of course it's time for this week's prompt.

I summon the great wheel of prompts to dispense it's justice!!

May it's will be done. 

*spins* 


This week's prompt is... 

Toi toi toi

The deadline to link your entry back to this thread is Sunday, July 27th at 7pm ET. 

Have fun! 

 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!

There were two contestants leaving us this week - 

Which is why (of course) there is a 4 way tie!!

That means banana_galaxy  gunwithoutmusic  strryeyedgrrl and unmowngrass  have until Wednesday August 14th at 8pm ET to write a new entry (Open Topic, so it can be anything they want) and link it to the thread below. 

That's an intimidating group to be in!!

Good luck to everyone!

 The town of Cohasset California and the surrounding areas need your help.  *Looks around* Well, maybe not YOUR help... but they definitely need assistance. 

And no, I have not changed my name to Cohasset and incorporated myself into being a town. 

Here are a series of links for how you can give and make a difference in their efforts to rebuild. They say it takes a village... in this case, it takes a global community to rebuild a village.  linktr.ee/rebuildcohasset


***

You can help a different group of people going through an emotional kind of devastation over at THIS link therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1152560.html

***

What are YOU doing this weekend? What have been your favorite entries this week that might not be getting the attention you think they deserve? 

 I typed out some lengthy responses to questions I've been asked recently and then accidentally closed the tab while trying to find a different tab. So I lost it.  Let's see how much I can remember.  :)

Thees were questions I've been asked recently, except the first one. But let's pretend someone asked me when the entries are due and where to post them: 

 therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1151017.html is where, and Thursday 7pm ET is the deadline. 

- Can I move all of the byes to their own section/their own poll/remove them?  Moving lines in the poll every week runs the risk of issues with the template. Even back when we have massive tribes and tribe swaps notice that I kept them together for several weeks at a time before shifting again. Because every move is a manual task. 

- Speaking of - why are you not getting voting notifications? I'm pretty sure I answered this at one point but it's because I used to pay for two accounts. Now I'm only paying for one. I would work out all the bugs over in my personal account and then post in Idol. Since we last met, DW has made an option that allows you to post to "admin only" so that I can post there and then switch it over to public once everything looks good. Basically there are three potential options (and no, not polling people. Just saying my options outloud so you are aware):  (1) purchase a second account and go back to how I was doing it.  (2) once I've worked out the bugs, delete it and repost it as a public post.  (probably the most likely to happen) or (3) people know to come back an hour or so after the deadline to check if the poll has been posted yet.  ;) 

- What would happen if there was another tie in a Write Off? There are two main precedents for what happens: (1) Write Offs all the way down. We just keep going until a decision is made.  (2) The "black mark". The tied contestants have a mark against them. If they EVER end up in another tie, they are the ones automatically eliminated... unless of course it's just against each other and then write off all the way down.  ;)  The way things are going, it's likely you are going to learn what is in play this mini season.  :)

- If you sacrifice during a poll can you transfer your unused byes? No.  Byes are not fire tokens (Survivor reference) they can be not transferred this mini season. (there were a couple times when it was part of the theme where you could do that.) 

- What is the difference between a drop and a sacrifice? A drop happens BEFORE the poll is posted. You just drop out of the competition. A sacrifice happens *after* the poll is open and you let me know you want to take one of the elimination spots. You are saving someone else from elimination, whereas a drop does not impact the number of people going home. 

- Can you literally just write the words "this is my entry" and then sacrifice that week? Yes. People have done that before. It only happened once, but I did see someone *survive* a week like that, because people were trying to convince them to stay in...so it's a gamble. 

- Can you take a bye during a Write Off? Yes. There is precedent for that happening. It's definitely a strategic move and doesn't tend to be all that popular, but it's allowable. 

- Executive byes MAY be coming into play this week. Hopefully not, but maybe. I have offered someone up to two of them. This is for above and beyond situations where there is no ability to write due to real life. Not "I just can't motivate myself" but rather an "Act of God".  Previous distinction: "Broken arm" earned one whereas "sprained leg" did not. (one impacted the ability to write and the other didn't... devastating fire - executive bye, devastating breakup - does not  Its something I keep in reserve and use *very* sparingly over the years based on the precedent of the first season where I handed out the first bye (before they were a thing) to tinhuviel due to a sudden death in her immediate family) 

- I think there were a couple more answers in the original but I can't recall the questions. if your recent question (or one you think of) isn't up there, let me know and I'll answer in the comments!!!





- 

 The Week 4 Sudden Death Write Off is happening right now. therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1150733.html

But so is the new prompt for Week 5 therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1151017.html

I'm hesitant to go into details to avoid jinxing it. But this has the potential to be a HUGE week in Idol history. If it happens, don't worry, I'll definitely be posting about it.  :) 

***

The rain just started here. Right now it looks like Debby is just going to be a tropical storm as it comes by us. But it's going to be a hurricane much sooner than original projected. So who knows.  Either way it's not expected to be too bad... there is definitely a LOT more coverage than usual about it. Which makes me wonder if it's just for the newbies in the area (there are a LOT of them). But honestly I have to think that if you keep hyping up how serious a storm is and it's not much of anything, if you are just making it harder for them to take the REAL threats seriously when it's a 4 or 5 hurricane. 

***

Speaking of taking things seriously. It's time for me to ask a few more questions, calling out specific people.  :) 

gunwithoutmusic  -      Poetry has always been risky in Idol. There have been times with it's done really well, but that has been very specific people writing at very specific times. For this mini season you've been only writing poetry so far. Was that a conscious choice coming into the mini season or just how it has worked out so far?  (on a side note penumbra  was actually on the list of prompts. But I moved it back to the reserve list after your list entry this week. So for once someone else looked over my shoulder rather than me looking over theirs) 

chasing_silver  - Your work has always been strongly tied to a sense of  time and "place". So seeing an entry about moving into your new home made a lot of sense to me.  I know you mentioned in the footnote about how you came to connect uncanny valley with seeing the remnants of the former owner's lives, but I'm curious about other ideas you might have played with in the process to come up with that.  Was there an "eureka" moment of when your brain made that jump or has that moment just been sitting in your brain waiting for the right opportunity to emerge? 

off_fleek_geek - Is podcast fanfic a thing now? It makes sense that it would exist, but honestly this is my first experience with it. I suppose it's more for genre podcasts than it is "current events" or interview based podcasts though. (That would be "interesting") But I digress, this was a fun entry. What was it about the prompt that made you think that the podcast would be the perfect vehicle for this story?  It could have existed on it's own, but the framing format really seemed to add to it, so I think that was a good call. Just wondering about your process coming to that conclusion. 

The week came to an end.

The two contestants receiving strikes this week are:

liminaltraveler  and simplyn2deep 


Hopefully this means that people will give them a little more love and attention next week!

I'll admit, the one thing I do like about the 3 Strikes format is that it gives people that opportunity to reexamine what they might be missing out on!