You've got questions - I've got answers!

Maybe. For some things. Let's try this! Some from emails and some from a thread I was directed to so that I could know the sort of things people are curious about.

On this particular vote:

- Will the intersection totals count as your total votes, or just your individual totals. The individual votes.
- How will bye weeks count toward the total. Bye weeks are 0 votes. I considered doing the "average" but that wasn't anywhere in the original requests for this structure. Trying to maintain that integrity to the request.
- Doesn't that make it lopsided for people with bigger friends list? How would that work in a regular season if we did it that way? IMO, it wouldn't. But as a one time thing, it's interesting, which is why it ended up on the Wheel. :)
- Will you provide a list so we all know how many votes we have in total? Maybe. Full disclosure, I haven't even done that for myself yet. I have no idea how far "ahead" or "behind" anyone is going into this week! I need to do that this weekend!





The Wheel:

Is the wheel going to ever allow people to come back into the game? 
There are *counts* 5 different scenarios allowing for different variations of people coming back into the game.  6 depending on how a specific special power is used.  :)  Sooner or later, odds are the wheel is going to land on one of them, and probably soon. 

Do you remove options from the Wheel once they are used? 
Most of them. There are a couple in there specifically designed to come up again. But they haven't come up yet. 

What happens if we get down to the Final 5 but we haven't hit the "come back into the game option?"  We proceed to the end game.  That's the nature of the Wheel.  Like I said, it could last a week and it could go on for the rest of our natural, and unnatural lives.  



The Killer(s): 


How many Killers are left in the game?  There is absolutely no way I'm going to tell you that.  :) 
That said, the pieces are all there.  You know we started with between 1-3.  The original(s) don't even know how many we started with, or who the others are!  I also tell you when there is an empty vial found, and when there isn't.  Which considering you also know that the Killers have two choices: Recruit or Poison. If no vial is found, you know what they picked!  You can do the math from there, and I've seen some people are doing that. 

- Was a vial found this week?   I can now reveal, yes. Yes there was an empty vial found. 

-  What is the criteria for who for an Accusation? What is the criteria for the Killer(s) in who they choose to poison?  I'm not you. I can't decide what your criteria is.  I assume that everyone has their own strategy for both of those things. For the former, I'd say it should be "Who do you think a Killer is" for the poisoning/recruiting - who would be the best choice for further whatever agenda you have in the game! 

- If a Killer is eliminated during a poll, will you know?  Yes. You will know. 

-  How does the Accusation work? Is it majority vote?  Yes.  The majority of you have to agree.  If the Killer is Person X and 40% of you think it's them, but 60% think it's Person Y, you are going to officially accuse Person Y.    The Killer(s) work on the same principle. They have to reach majority on two issues:  Recruit or Poison and then who to either recruit or poison. In the event of a tie that cannot be broken, the Wheel would decide between the choices. 

- How does the antidote work? Does the person taking it know if it works or not?  Yes. Or rather the person who wins it knows. If they drink it themselves, they know and if they give it to someone else, they know that as well.... and so will the person drinking it.  

- How does it taste? It has a bit of a minty lemon aftertaste that once you get used to is quite pleasant.  :)


Participation

- Yeah. It's been down.  Some of that is the small numbers we have and some of that is that I'm not driving engagement like I normally would be doing.  Haven't been in a good place in awhile. I need to be doing more of this and less of *points the rest of the world* 

How are you Gary? 

- Not great.  Some days MUCH better than others.  Proud of Celena who has been accepted to every single grad school she's applied to so far. Cynthia's birthday is on Monday, so that's weird not going all in on it... and my birthday is coming up at the end of the month and really not sure how I want to celebrate it.  If anyone wants to send me massive amounts of cash though, I'll figure something out!  :D   (Note to self - find people with massive amounts of cash, who want to give it to you!!! No, I won't send them to you!!!) 

How are YOU?  

I can't answer that.  You go ahead and answer it below. 

Ask any other questions you've been having below and I'll try my best to answer them. 

 Fresh off a major victory of outing a treacherous villain last week, can our heroes do it again?  Can they finally put an end to the evil in this manor, or will they Killer(s) claim another victim?  Or... is it already too late? 

We are gathered here to find out the answers to these questions. 

So the votes are in, and a single last minute vote was what determined who was going to be accused this week. But one vote is enough... 

The residents of the Castle accuse 

alycewilson  of being a vile and loathsome traitor!!! 

The shrieking starts as soon as those words leave your lips... Alyce goes into convulsions, and does a full back flip as foul smelling black smoke issues from her pores, escaping into the night... in her hand is a small glowing medallion... the light spreads across her, filling her with new life and a renewed spirit. 

Congratulations!!! You have vanquished another Killer!!!

Was that it?  Have you caught them all?  Is there finally piece in the cast... another scream is heard and a heavy, savage thud.  You turn as one, and everyone starts screaming and crying... 

halfshellvenus  is on the floor, no longer among the living. 

Her final words etched in our hearts: halfshellvenus.dreamwidth.org/746724.html

 The prompt for this week is another one suggested during that Patreon campaign.  Seriously - you should become a Patron.  ;)  

I had all of the Patreons at that time period send in a couple prompt suggestions and I picked my favorite of them and used them in that mini season.  Others have appeared in other seasons.  This is the last of those, it actually came from someone who is currently participating, which should make things interesting!!!   Thanks to our own bleodswean ! 

The prompt is

Edgelord 

The deadline to link your entry back to this thread is Thursday, Sept 11th at 8pm  ET.   (not ominous at all) 

193.

It might seem like a random number, until you realize that I'm talking about the number of weeks aggienaut has survived in LJ Idol.

Honestly, it seemed like it was a couple weeks higher than that, so I might have to go back and check, but that's what was listed on my sheet. (In my head it was 198, which is a pretty big difference, so I'm going to check that to make sure!)  Regardless of the number though, I think we can all agree that it's a tremendous feat! 

At the beginning of this mini season I said that one person was almost definitely crossing the 200 mark, 1 was likely and I wasn't completely sold that the 3rd would have enough runway (available weeks) to get to it, even if they survived until the end. Kris was that second person.

He recently brought up the interesting point that people are here because they want to write - so, in theory, everyone should be *trying* to get into a tie, to have the excuse to write more!!!  If time wasn't a factor, he has a valid point - that the Write Offs are an advantage, they give you more of a spotlight so you aren't lost in the mix of other writers and they give you the ultimate goal of "another excuse to write" 

His entries will be missed, unless he decides to home game, but I know we can always count on his insights! 

Thank you for coming out for this mini season! 

 I get it - you miss me and figure the one way to make sure you see more of me is to have a constant tie-breaker round! 

You could just try emailing me instead! It's much easier on everyone else. I might actually respond. (Probably not right away, unless it's on the bus, but I will eventually respond to it!)

Of the two elimination spots, we have one legend leaving us - and two more legends going toe to toe! (sure, at this point there could be someone thinking "Gary is overusing that word", but once I announce who it is, you are going to understand and agree with me!!

Leaving us this week is the incredible pixiebelle  !  Thank you so much for coming out this mini season, it's always a treat to read your stuff! I really hope that you will be around to Home Game, and general cheering section activities in the Green Room! 

The two writers who are going into the Sudden Death Write Off for that final spot are:   aggienaut   and murielle !

This isn't going to be easy decision for anyone, but fortunately they have one more shot to make their case!  It's an Open Topic, so bring your A-game!!

The deadline for them to link their entries back to the thread below is Wednesday, September 18th at 7pm ET. 

Have fun! 

A few words from clauderainsrm:

Over the years, Lj Idol has attracted an amazing pool of talent, and this mini season is clearly following in the proud tradition! In this case, it's bragging *and* it is also true! ;)

Unfortunately though, we are about to say goodbye to 2 of them. Which yes, for those of who would can do math in your head, or can at least count on your fingers, that DOES mean that we will be down to the TOP 20. Which is notable for 2 reasons. (1) It's the Top 20 and (2) This was the last week to use your bye. From here on out, you are playing without a safety net!

So if you want to make sure the writers of your favorite entries this week are part of that Top 20, and have the chance to tell more of their tales in this competition, it is time to read, comment and vote for your favorites! Then tell your friends to do the same!!!

The poll will close Monday, September 16th at 8pm ET.
Good luck to everyone!

 The deadline for this week's prompt is Thursday. Hopefully that gives everyone time to get their entry in!  therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1161260.html


***

I'm currently reading a book called "Cue the Sun" about the creation of reality television.  LJ Idol hasn't been mentioned yet. But I just started the chapters on Survivor. So I'm sure there's a whole section on us as well.  :) 

It starts all the way back with Candid Microphone (the precursor of Candid Camera)  and works its way up to modern times, weaving in the ways each new incarnation impacted the society around us. 

One that I thought was especially interesting was the show "Fact or Fiction", which was part of the same FOX show runner that gave us "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire" and all of the "World's Most Dangerous (fill in a blank here).  The Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction version is cited as being so successful that it helped propel the network to integrate other "entertainment over facts" programs in the FOX properties - which were already very popular on the radio - and spread out to all the other "news networks". 

But that's not MY major complaint about that show.  Not mentioned is that in order for it to be picked up, another fledgling show had to be cancelled. In this case, it was the show that interested me enough to get online and join a "Net forum" and interact with other fans for the first time!  It was a show called ROAR and if you haven't seen it, I don't know... maybe you shouldn't. I'm not sure it holds up. I'm not sure it held up at the time either.  :D 
But it DID star an actor who was making his US debut - Heath Ledger. So if you like Heath, check it out...

OMG, I just went to YouTube to see if there were any videos and someone uploaded the whole series! (well, at least the episodes that aired)  www.youtube.com/watch    I guess I know what I'll be doing... or not, maybe I don't want to ruin my memory of it.  :D 

I originally heard this quote from Muhammad Ali. But in digging, it's been attributed to countless other celebrities over the years. 

I'm sure there are as many variations on the theme as there are people in the world. 

But for now all you need to know is that the prompt for this week is 

""It Ain't Bragging If It's True"



 The deadline to link your entry back to this post is Thursday September 12th at 7pm ET. 

Have fun!

A few words from clauderainsrm:

I’ll admit, until last night I was getting pretty worried that we were going to have 5 or 6 entries and everyone else would have been taking a strike! The good thing is that only a couple people would have been eliminated, but that’s not a way that I want to see anyone go out… so I’m really happy to see all of those who ended up making it after all!

This has been a weird week for me personally. So maybe it’s been a weird one for you as well.

The one good thing that comes out of it though is that now you get to sit back and read some entries!

Read. Comment. Vote for your favorites! Then spread the word. That’s how this has been working for the last 16 years, and if this is something you want around for longer than that, it’s what needs to happen. People don’t just stumble into the middle of nowhere on the internet accidentally. :) You need to at least leave a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow!

The two contestants with the fewest amounts of votes will be receiving a strike. The closer we get to the pointy end of things, the more those are going to end up being a major factor in how this shakes out.

The poll closes Thursday, June 9th at 9pm ET.

Good luck to everyone!

 Again, thank you to our Gatekeepers.  It's one of those jobs that everyone thinks they want, until they have to step up and do it!  I really do appreciate you. https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1023141.html


Before we get to the bad news - there is some good news! Let's handle that good news first!  The Second Chance sign up sheet is going up tonight!! Which means, if there is still some spark of life and fire in your belly to come out and win this thing, you still have a shot at doing just that! 

I posted some numbers from about halfway through receiving the results.  At that point, there were 19 contestants in danger. That ratio didn't change much. I said that between 5-8 contestants would be leaving us this week, and it worked out to a total of 6. 


In case you missed it, taking one of those spots of people leaving us was a sacrifice from fodschwazzle 

 (Sorry, DW is doing a weird thing again, with links and hiding text, so it looked like everyone had sacrificed :O)  


Also leaving us this week are an incredible group in their own right: