Yes, please do.

Also this;

Final 4

Ugh, Helen needs to lose this so we can avoid a predictable winner. Penny v Joanna (v Brian) will be much much much more interesting to watch.

Helen's strategy = build up a massive lead, to discourage Penny when she logs back in.
Penny's strategy = log off to allow Helen get confident, log back in and spend all day here.

Helen currently has a 5500 lead. So I guess both strategies are working? If Penny catches her she deserves to win right now.

Penny isn't even gonna try to catch up. Helen wins the challenge and the game

I guess at least this will be a nice finish for the fanfic - how Penny's early poor challenge performances comes back to haunt her at the final hurdle.

Ugh, dammit Penny.

Translation:

Wtf, Helen? Who the hell has time for that?

I want Helen to win. She deserves it and while I would love Penny as the winner of this season, it really could've never happened.

She deserves it alright, I just feel a little robbed of the clusterfuck of a Joanna/Brian/Penny FTC. We'll miss Helen's LIVID speech aswell.

Christy



There is no doubt in my mind that Christy played *the best* strategical game out of anyone - yes, even bettering Helen's. The more erratic players & plays (chaos factor), challenge wins, initial tribe set-up & activity levels have all worked in Helen's favour and against Christy's - lets just say luck was on Helen's side. I can't see Helen doing as well in Christy's shoes as Christy would in Helen's shoes if that makes sense?

That's not to say it was a perfect game by a long shot. Christy was the HBIC of Asteria, she had Jo as her right hand gurl and Rob a little lower and to the left. Her biggest fault was listening to him over Joanna (& even Shawna). She's said since round 1 that she's closer to Joanna - and your #1 ally's ideas should take precedence over your #2.

It's difficult to point to one decision that directly caused her downfall, but throwing the challenge, booting Jeanne over Ted, trusting Rob's assessment of Helios, right up to his sabotage of both their games at F6 all offer tantalizing possibilities for an endgame she could actually succeed from - without the need for an immunity run - had she simply paid more attention to Joanna, and less to Rob. Could she have planned and accounted for Ted and Dan's merge round play? Maybe, IDK. There's only so many bases you can cover. Though she had pegged Ted & Dan both as untrustable yet knew exactly where Jeanne's loyalties lay :/ Although I suppose keeping the power away from Shawna seemed like the better move at the time, it's easy for me to say it wasn't with my 20/20 hindsight.


Secondly her lack of a public presence - this is a calculated part of why she is so successful on her part - but it just leaves her lacking a little something. Scenes like TC 10 where she stole Jeff's job can certainly be used to a player's advantage, this led to her correct idol play. The way Penny pushes the tribal catfights and the love threads on Helios beach is another example of using your public persona to create a personal tactical advantage. So while calculated quietness does work for her, I'd love to see what she could do with a little more calculated loudness.

This is turning into Shawna's write up where I'm focusing too much on the negatives, whch is unfair on a game so well-played. So more Christy Goddess Goodness; <3

I had the pleasure of hosting Christy in her first ORG - in that 24-player game she got all the way to final three, but received no votes ;__; because she was looked upon as having been carried there while the other two got there themselves. I personally thought this was daylight robbery having seen all sides of her game. She may not have deserved to win, but she certainly was worth some votes. I only mention this because here - her third ORG - there is a stark contrast. She was taken out for being a massive threat -and she is the only player you can say that of. No doubt in my mind she would have easily won FTC against any combination of two since Ted.

A big part of that is due to her demon social game. She may not have had the one-on-one rapport with the Daniels & Jeannes of the game like Joanna managed, but no-one ever had a bad thing to say about Christy. She put in the time to build a bond with everyone in the game, no matter where they fitted into her plans (she reckons she's not really stepped it up socially - to see her on a good day is a downright scary thought... O.o). I think she has this part of the game down pat. She was a threat but never a target. She certainly did enough to know exactly where everyone's head was on Asteria, and she became the 'caller' on each and every boot. Everyone waited for Christy's go-ahead before they finalised their vote, and everyone knew it too - who did Ted go running to to find out who to vote for for first Asteria TC? Butch, Ryan, Jeanne - these were all Christy's call. Same goes for the direction of Asteria's half of the votes post-merge too.

Aswell as all that, she did something I failed miserably to do last Season too. For all the talk of idols and the amount of rearranged votes and people who dodged the target because of them, Christy's was the only one that was played - and played successfully too - both on the right person & at the right time (she'll have to teach me how ). Did I mention she found it with a single clue aswell?



icon_golfclap

She let her catty side out in private to become half of my favourite alliance to watch in the game, but more of that in Joanna's write-up. Hell a lot of her PMs are gold, and her confessionals show near perfect situational awareness - but this write-up is already a little quote heavy, so I'll save 'em for the fanfic. I can see her taking on the role of narrator quite heavily - partly due to this awareness and partly due to her running the show for a lot of the game.



Mark my words, Christy will win at least once in her next three ORGs.