Merge - F5 BootsSeems like as good a time as any to comment on the first five juror's games, since it ought to be hectic over the next week.
Shawna
Shawna was pretty damn fun to watch. She was the best of the first day absentees by far and she used her not half bad social skills to very quickly get herself into a fairly tight alliance with Christy & Joanna (Bitches of Eastwick <3) with Daniel being used as an outlier vote thinking it was actually a foursome. So far so good - indeed she could have kept her head down at this point and rode this out for a while but two things happened - she got close to Jeanne & Ted arrived. Now I can't fault her for a second for wanting to keep Jeanne as a pocket ally who would absolutely have been most loyal to her alone, and she was absolutely correct that Ted was not to be trusted and they should have gotten rid of him - but she just went about it so so wrongly. Her call out of Ted was pretty laffos in fairness. But she goes on to srsly overplay her hand, while slipping up on some basic groundwork with the people who are supposed to be her 'true' allies.
First she never got close to Rob, which left her unaware of Joanna/Christy's relationships with him. Next she set up a pair of faux alliances - her/Jeanne/Ted in both and one with Ryan/one with Daniel in an overly complicated and unnecessary setup that made her in the majority alliance shareholder on Asteria. By this point Ted was aleady gradually being accepted into Asteria's core - for instance he was let in on Rob's mutiny & throw plan while Shawna wasn't. Despite this, Ryan's boot went extremely smoothly thanks primarily to Shawna's set-up. The confidence she gained from this move kinda gave her a false boost.
Her biggest blunder was her 'test' of Daniel and how that leads to her slow demise;
1) She sets up her faux-alliances and dictates a smooth Ryan boot.
2) She tells Joanna & Christy about these
after she has already set them up starting a train of mistrust.
3) Rob mutinies away leaving her in a (fake) alliance who's only targets can be Christy or Joanna, making them nervous of how much power she has.
4) She 'tests' Daniel by telling him that the Jeanne alliance is the true majority (and not the Joanna/Christy one) to see whether he'll report back to J/C.
5) She warns Joanna about this but not Christy. So when he proves his loyalty by indeed reporting back - this is the first Christy hears of it.
6) Rob jumps back. She rightly tries to target Ted and keep Joanna, but the contributing factors above mean she is left pushing his boot alone, and voting in the minority - earning Ted's ire in the next round.
At this point Daniel thinks she's shady, Christy and Joanna aren't sure if she was pushing for personal power or was really looking out for Asteria, Jeanne is gone, Ted knows she tried to boot him and she has little to no relationship with Rob. When she gets to the merge, she tries to keep her head down and prove herself a loyal Asterian by not mingling with the enemy, while she *might* have been better off to flip - she sure had better reasons than Daniel, but she couldn't have known she was already in the merge minority. Her quieter demeanor in the merge round makes it all the easier for Helios to agree with her as the target when Ted dictates it as they are certain she is not a core Asterian and less likely to receive the idol.
If Shawna reads this after the game, she should go examine Brian's early game on the Helios board for a much better example of how to juggle alliances & play the same position.
Ugh that all sounds so negative, when in reality Shawna was still hella fun and far better than she sounds above - that write-up is only so she can see clearly what went wrong and hopefully learn from it. They are just a few small errors in a pretty damn good game, and without Daniel's flip she might have gotten a lot further. If people had listened to her on the Ted/Joanna boot she definitely would have. What is great about Shawna is that she is pretty spot-on herself in noting where it did go wrong in her final words so that shows she is self-aware and can absolutely improve on this finish.
She had a great board presence and was a flirty tease not afraid to gets her hands dirty. I'm still lolling at the "I acted like a horny cheerleader" line. She was very personable - hence why so many people were willing to align with her. She was damn right in wanting Ted out and Jeanne in too, she just made a few slip-ups leading up to this point which left her in a less trusted position. Plus she is the main reason Ponderosa is hopping - she's not afraid to voice her opinions and clash heads with any of the other egos in there.
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Christy (Confessional): I feel like Shawna has her tiny little feet in just as many pots as I do, and noone seems to even consider her playing a good game (aside from me). I still trust her, and I feel like she's loyal to me too, but we both know that she has other option. And she didn't even tell me the faux-alliance I mentioned earlier
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Shawna (Final Words): One thing i should have done better was selling my main allies the idea that we don't need Rob and Ted after the merge, what we need is Jeanne who is loyal and would never betray us.
I should have just stuck to my original plan of following someone and i probably would have made it further but that's not really my style.
Daniel
There were times in this game I hated
Daniel and other times where.. well I can't say I ever loved him.. but there were certainly times I didn't hate him as much :D This write-up will be considerably shorter than anyone else's because he really didn't do all that much.
He missed the first day for a start, when he did arrive he went on a one-man mission at each team challenge and I'm still not clear if he knows the tribal work threads existed at all - no-one pointed them out to him despite their frustrations at him :D
Strategically I have to give him a small amount of credit. Yes his early day second PM alliance offers to all and sundry were completely transparent to most players and painful to watch, but it was enough to lock him in as predictable and controllable to the core players. He soon became Shawna's bitch. He was at least aware enough to know which side his bread was buttered on that when Shawna tested his loyalties he soon climbed the Asteria totem ever so slightly & graduated to being Joanna's bitch. The merge kicks in and he is aware enough to realise Rob & Christy are the Asterian power-players (he'd been left out of the mutiny plan) and that they both view him as extremely expendable. So he flips to become Penny & Erin's bitch (hmm.. there is a pattern developing here somewhere..). So the credit I'm giving him here is for successfully inching his way upwards as the game progressed - always giving people a reason to not want to boot him most - until he forgot to account for the Ted factor.
Ted wanted to go back and forth between the camps, but to do this he needed two solid opposing sides meaning no room for a second flip-flopper. The burned Asterians along with Helen & Brian's need to keep Penny & Erin relying on them alone sealed the deal and he was a goner.
But understand Daniel, while with the right streak of luck you could have done this all the way to the end, there is no way you could ever have won the game in this manner.
Dan's brushing off of Rob after he flipped was pretty damn funny too.
IDK what the hell he was thinking with how he handled the Joanna situation. Telling her about the flip like it wasn't going to happen, then actually doing it, and then trying to rope her into it afterwards. Srsly my mind boggles at how he thought this was smart in any way. At least she's going to get a solid jury vote out of it I guess.
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Daniel (Final Words): I did myself in, I'll admit it. But if everyone had stuck according to plan, they'd be in a better position. Flipping to vote with Helios was dumb, but Ted was going to flip back regardless and we'd be in a deadlock and might have to resort to rocks. There's only so many ways I can hypothesize what COULD HAVE or SHOULD HAVE happened. Facts are facts though, and I unfortunately went out at 9th.
To be honest, I didn't care for anyone in this game other than Joanna, Penny, and Erin. I don't think I'll be friends with any of them though, I just didn't mesh well. I am a socially awkward person in real life so perhaps that was blatant in my gameplay. Maybe I'm just not cut out for Survivor.
Ted
Ted should hands-down be the fan-favourite. At least so far - he might yet be overtaken by Penny or Joanna but they'd need to win the game outright to rob him of the accolade. Which in itself is pretty incredible for such a villain. The story of the Merge Episodes is full-on the Ted Show with everyone else's games hinging on his plays, as are big parts of the pre-merge. I'm going to have to try very hard to not let his story take over the fanfic a la Russell in Samoa. I'm not comparing their styles at all, just noting that it is unusual for the other players to allow a villain to go undetected for so long and be so successful. But before we get to the merge rounds, just some thoughts on his general & earlier play;
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Helen (to Brian): I fucking hate how short his messages are. I haven't gotten more than five words per PM all day from him. I can only assume that he's being truthful with us, because if he wasn't, he would HAVE to attempt to be more convincing than this.
Ted's PMs fit into a whole category of their own. I've downplayed Ted's PMing abilities here before but he grew on me in that sense. It's not that he's a bad PMer - yes he is very abrupt - but he sees it as controlling loose information I think? When he is asked a direct question he answers, and people believe him - despite him turning on everyone in the game so far at one point or another. By trimming the fat of social niceties and fluff, he is trading in raw information only - he finds out exactly what other people are trying to find out or sell because they are forced to directly ask, without ever giving away any parts of his own game that he doesn't want to. Even human-lie-detector Joanna has stated that Ted was the most difficult to read player in the game.
Ted's idea of being social seems to be 'Send that bitch a smiley face, bitchez love smiley faces.' It's a curiously effective strategy, but only so long as he's dealing with people in need of his assistance/vote. Plus it drives some players to distraction, which makes for good viewing.
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Helen (to Brian): Ted wrote: Yes, this is great :)
ARE YOU SHITTING ME? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? We need Barbara Walters to come here and prompt Ted for information.
icon_biggrin
Early game Ted was all about his mutiny. First the private hatred for his tribe and the obvious clue taking despite trying to push the public unity card. Then the Ken hate. Then the "are you for Ted?" message that gave him the final push he needed to get the hell out of Helios. Then managing to gain their blessing under the guise of heading off on a covert mission. After each consecutive loss, Helios slowly slowly start to wonder if he might not be as loyal as they hope - or convince themselves he's just working a longer and longer long con - producing some of the most hilarious quotes of the Season along the way :D He did quieten down a bit at this point, but he worked his way into the trust of both Christy & Rob enough to not be the pre-merge boot despite Shawna & Joanna wanting him to be.
Come the merge, Ted really came into his own, playing both sides to perfection simply by reporting back exactly what the other side were saying. Shawna & Daniel were nearly single-handedly dictated by him, and he would certainly have been safe even without his back-to-back IC wins.
I only half believe him when he says he's happy with how he went out with the idol in his pocket - but seeing him get his come-uppance by one of the sides he was playing was still a fitting end to the Ted Show, and I've thoroughly enjoyed watching it play out.
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Ted (Final Words): I'm not mad, I'm not bitter and I'm not shocked.
Honestly, I'm happy for the tribe. They made the right move and voted me out. I'm happy that I left with the idol in my pocket, because I'd rather leave in a tremendous blindside being seen as such a huge threat than to have such a predictable ending with me walking my way to the end.
Erin
Erin was one of my favourite players all game long and I was positively rooting for her maybe more than anyone - but probably not for the reasons she expects. she was actually quite the underdog despite her high opinion of herself. What is odd is that I can't quite put my finger on why she was so adorbs?? Usually a player that unaware would have me gnashing my teeth but the way she went about her game was just so lovable to watch.
I've mentioned her unique confessional style before but no harm in reinforcing how I love the way she did them. Her mother-hen protection of the confused Jan during the pre-merge is another bonus. But onto her strategy (and this part might be uncomfortable reading for her). She was totallly unaware of her position outside the core trio of Brian/Penny/Helen on Helios, and she would certainly have been the next to leave if they had to face one more tribal. The only real reason she lasted as long as she did is by default. A few decent challenge showings made her the least incompetant Helios member, and being easily hoodwinked into believing the Argonauts alliance was the true core meant they knew what she was up to at all times. I don't think it even crossed her mind pre-merge to think what Helen thought the alliance layout was, bar a few disconnected thoughts that Helen was closest to Erin.
Her less-than-subtle approaches did help confuse the hell out of first Rob at his mutiny, and then the rest of Asteria come the merge - with some pegging her as Helios' obviously best player. Credit where it's due though, she contributed in no small part to perpetuating the Helios division rumour aswell as the location of the mysterious idol, and helped flip Daniel too. So she did have some good ideas and strategical plays - just not half as much as she thinks. The progress from fake partnership with Penny to teamworking Daniel over to kinda real pairing was fun to watch.
In the very late stages of her game she climbed above Penny on the Helios totem, but again - it was kinda only by default. Helen & Brian both were ripping their hair out at Penny's convoluted & hare-brained schemes, and Erin took this moment to suddenly start sending some decent solidly tactical PMs to the pair of them. Thanks to this, I do believe had the Helios4 gone all the way, that she is the only sure thing for an F3 slot - where she likely would have been solidly trounced so maybe getting idolled out is a good thing. She can look back on this game and *know* Asteria believed she was a threat (even if she wasn't actually) and they took her out for it.
So Erin was not the tactical mastermind that she credits herself for, but she certainly grew in this aspect as the game went on. She was a fiercely loyal & protective player, a positive force, feared by the other tribe, a decent performer in both tribal & individual challenges, and a total & utter sweetheart - and I loved her in the game for it. <3
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Erin (Final Words): I guess I was too much of a threat! In the end, hats off to the Asterians for blindsiding me. I had a great experience but honestly, I was in it to win. I had a strategy coming into this game, that I would lie, cheat and steal to get to the top while creating fantastic jury bonds so I would win. It was all going perfectly, I feel like I had a clear shot of winning if I survived this vote. I truly love each and every one of them especially my Helios 4 <3 My Thailand Gamebots <3
I'm hoping for one of my Helios members to win <3 I think Helen deserves it the most followed by Brian. Penny's a bit too hotheaded for this game but she's my little she-devil goat <3
Rob
Ugh, Rob is the hardest one to write of all. I know him outside of this game and I've seen him reject and flat out ignore any type of criticism before. I had a full on rant written up here but I know he will just take umbridge at it instead of actually trying to learn from his mistakes, and it'll end up making me look like a right cunt in the process so I just PM'd it to myself and will save it in case he specifically asks for it.
Maybe by the time the fanfic is finished he'll be ready to laugh at himself and the pure unadulterated irony that seeped from the combination of the statements he made compared to his actual moves.
For now I will just say that the naming of the "Competency Alliance" is *the* wittiest thing Rob has done with all game when you look at just how incompetent he's been, in every.single.aspect.of.the.game..
Maybe I'm underselling it. There was a short period of the game (after his first mutiny) where he was on track to set himself up as the best positioned player in the games. For a brief Episode he seemed genuinely interested in playing and found his level character wise. But that all came crashing down again very soon after.
On the bright side, his erratic play is a major contributing factor to the crazy game we've seen since the merge (alongside Ted & Penny) so kudos for that.
Instead of continuing to make myself look like a right cunt, I'll leave you with some appropriate some quotes from the game that he should read and learn from. If he really wants to improve his game he needs to go read everyone confessionals - and realise that it's not that everyone else is wrong - it's just that he has his faults and needs to work to improve them. I genuinely hope Rob can look at this game from a detached viewpoint and see for himself how truly awfully he played, and that he actually tries to learn from his mistakes. If he can't do that, he may aswell knock ORGing on the head.
Quotes ahoy, set your irony meters to full stun!
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Rob (Application Form): What personality types do you typically clash with?People who are stupid or delusional, or worse...both!
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Daniel (Confessional): There's no way in hell anyone is mutinying. There's no reason to! The more Helios gets demolished, the less reason there is to jump ship. Besides, nobody on our tribe is that stupid...I THINK.
Ted (Confessional): Okay, my mutiny vs. Rob's mutiny:
My venture is bound to be more successful than Rob's. I have the idol, I know where I stand in the tribe. Rob doesn't have an idol, to the best of my knowledge, will be unsuccessful in finding one at Helios, because I have it, and is probably on the bottom of the tribe, or has no idea where he stands.
Helen (Confessional): The core four immediately joined together to discuss how to handle Rob joining our tribe.
Penny (Confessional): Rob could also be telling the truth. Unfortunately if we go back to Tribal Council he will be our target.
Erin (Confessional): We've basically try to buy Rob's allegiance by presenting a divided tribe. Brian/Helen and Penny/I are the two pairs. Rob can be 3rd in either "alliance". I have the Idol.
Helios is pretty much offering Rob minor deals now to ensure his loyalty. To make sure he thinks that he has a chance of not being 5th in this tribe
Rob (Confessional): Penny just stupidly told me that she plans on flipping to Asteria at the merge, and tried to rally Jake against Brian, and wants me to vote with her against Brian and Helen. So of course I told that to Helen and Brian. They'll probably vote for Penny, I assume Penny and Erin will vote for one of Brian and Helen, and where does that leave me? It leaves me as the swing vote in a 2-2 tie. It's amazing. That was what I was going to TRY to do, and it fucking happened for my on its own without me doing anything.
Brian (Confessional): Rob is definitely not trustworthy. It's so obvious. And he'd be dumb to trust me and Helen as well. I feel like the three of us all know it's an act.
Helen (Confessional): Seeing how Rob seems to respect competency, from his earliest post on Helios, I wanted to give him the best impression possible. Going out of my way to be witty and eloquent... okay, maybe I wasn't, but I'd like to think that I'd done more deliberate to ensure he put his trust in me over any of the other Helios members. Turned out that it worked.
Brian (Confessional): If he has the opportunity to wipe out Helios with former Asteria, why wouldn't he? Helen and I have proposed a fake deal with him to make him feel comfortable that is incredibly complicated but essentially involves three players from Helios, three players from Asteria working together at final 10 (if it's merge) and then eliminating the rest of the players in the game. Will we actually do it? Absolutely not!
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Rob (Confessional): Final 4: Rob + Christy + Helen + a Helios TBD
Me making deals that include Christy without her consent
Christy (Confessional): Rob decided to reel me in with an alliance between me, him and Brian and Helen. There is not a big enough alienface to express my distaste.
Joanna (Confessional): I’m so pissed that I went along with Rob’s dumbass plan because I feel like it is seriously fucking me over. Like in hindsight I feel so stupid now I wanna cry. I was playing a pretty good game I thought until I got tied up in this idiot’s plans
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Rob (Confessional): It wasn't a throw, when I asked Christy and Joanna to throw the challenge they both said no and told me to stfu
Christy (Confessional): So, where should I start? Let's start it when Rob decides to jump ships to check out if Helios has an idol. The idol is gone, but somethin else happen there two - Helen and Brian begging him to side with them at the next TC, because apparently Erin has the idol (which is yet to be determined if false or not), and they'd be in danger, come the next TC. Of course, Rob is over the moon, because they work out a plan: The final six would consist of Helen, Brian and Erin/Penny, Rob, me and Jo. Yeah, way to sell out your alliance-members Rob
So Rob is committed to Helen and Brian, and back on Asteria he offered me this up. And naturally I was wary, because I don't know them. Rob vowed to be with me in this game again, and told me that he'll do whatever I want to.
The problem is with that, is Rob not that mature. I continously told him, that I have no desire to side with Helen and Brian at the next TC. The only thing I asked in this game was to vote out a Helios-member (before a potential jury, so we won't have 4 Helios ona jury of seven), but he was deadset on booting Penny, because his acting skills were sooo superb that Erin was sure to be play her idol. And it was supposed to be 8-2, with Helen and Brian voting for Penny too. I tried to change it Brian, and even Joanna came up with two brilliant plots to avoid getting idoled, but Rob refused to go for anyone but Penny. He got all defensive, and he became a drama-queen.
Rob (to Christy): I'm doing my best. If Erin doesn't actually believe what I'm telling her then she deserves an Academy Award.
Rob (to Erin): Rumor has it you've got something in your pocket that might help turn the tides
Erin (to Rob): Who told you that?
I hope I didn't need to use it for a while but with all the uncertainties with this game, I might have to use it.
I hope I can trust you Rob. It's nice to have people you can trust in this game.
Rob (to Erin): You just did :D
I had a hunch since no one on your tribe was ever taking clues and I found that to be strange. Based on my talks with you, I figured you were the most likely one to have it.
You shouldn't need it for a while if my hunch about Asteria turning on each other is right. But if not, I'll let you know if a Helios is being targeted and you can decide what you want to do with it if we can't get an Asteria to flip.
***
Joanna (Confessional): 3. Who is out of their league? -Rob
Penny (Confessional): Unfortunately I dont really have anything nice to say about him, since our rivalry from the tribal stage is compounded by the fact that I think his mutiny play was entirely devious and I simply dont believe him.
Helen (Confessional): Amend my jury vote list:
Put Rob at the very bottom; he thinks awfully highly of himself for someone who lost by a landslide in "most deserving" and "most threatening to win" to (who he claims to be) an awful player, and he's awfully critical of my strategic game for someone whose regrettable social game manages to be unparalleled. I don't give a shit if he respects my game. I implore him to vote against me if he doesn't like it. But for someone who is guilty of targeting the "deserving" players in the same manner that he accuses me of doing, his hypocrisy and wholly unnecessary attempts to incite arguments and stir ill will (against himself, no less, so it's not even accomplishing anything) is truly the most bloated and inaccurate self-assessment of a player that exists outside the brain of Russell Hantz.
Joanna (Confessional):i have never interacted with someone who was just that awful at reading people like holy shit i'm embarrassed for him
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Penny (to Helen & Brian): there is no way I am buying Rob's rubbish story at this point. We should still entertain him though and make him believe that we are buying his ridiculous story.
Joanna (to Christy): that was what I was going to talk to you about... you took the last rant very well so i'm crossing my fingers for this one.
you CANNOT trust any of them still. penny has to be playing us. why wouldn't she? they have been playing the whole "we aren't tight" thing against us this whole time and i know it hasn't stopped now. ted had the idol the whole fucking time and they were ALL in on it. so penny might flip but she might not. there is absolutely no reason to trust her. the reason i haven't told you guys this now is because i wanted the deals to sound genuine, namely from rob because i know he can't hold a poker face for shit. we have to vote brian. we can't risk helen playng the idol. it would just be stupid. if penny is with us great it will be 3 2 1 f not it will be a tie anyways and we dodge the issue of the idol being played. you know i want helen out more than anyone but they are up to something i know it and like i said last vote, you have to think AROUND what they are saying. penny isn't willing to give up the helios idea just because a threat of a tie.
as always i know you'll prob say NO NO NO we have to do this and what not but just please think about it.
Brian (Confessional): Rob is such an epic fail in his attempts to emotionally manipulate people. It's sad. His points are right, but he's so fake in how he's stressing certain things to get the emotional response. I'm not an idiot.
Joanna (Confessional): Rob Wrote: "I'm close to getting Brian and Penny against Helen."
I am continually amazed with how stupid Rob is it's like insane.
Rob (to Penny): That's what I assumed but I obviously didn't want to make that assumption and be wrong and look like a big dumb idiot
Christy (Confessional): he failed to realize something he should've realized looong time ago: these people will compare notes, talk shit, and if you tell three different stories to three of them, then you can be considered done.
Harsh words from all & sundry.
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Rob (Final Words): But they are both spineless pushovers who are being anally fucked by Helen to the point where it is embarrassing to them and they're both going to be destroyed by her in the FTC.
Long story short, I assumed that Penny and Brian would vote in a smart, logical manner. They did not.
