Hi everyone,
Most comments contained some very perceptive guesses and observations about the game. I of course will neither confirm nor deny the guesses but thanks for playing. Ok, just to tease I will say that if my memory serves, one reader has guessed the F4 to this point (all the way to the beginning of the game). I honestly can’t remember how many have guessed F2 and winner correctly.
I also want to say that there is currently a thread on the “art of leaving feedback.” Its quite interesting reading both about leaving feedback and about the art of writing. Let me say that as a writer, I love feedback. It’s not just that I want to hear how great I am (although that is very nice) but it feeds my writing energy to get feedback. I love to have a dialog about what you think about the story. What did you like? What did you not like? What do you think will happen? It’s awesome to have a forum like this that makes writing an interactive craft. My point? Thank you for all the feedback!
Watson – Why would we want you to go away? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me… Glad you liked the episode. Yes, Tara is quite loyal; the question is do others believe that? So much on Survivor isn’t about the truth but perceived truth or imagined truth.
I agree that Faith is really stepping up as a leader. I would say that she and Buffy are the two people who actually understand how the game is played. They are really the only two (with Joyce to a lesser extent) who are trying to “play the man playing the ball.” I think that Mac had the potential to play that kind of game but he just didn’t handle the interpersonal so well and never had good alliances. Buffy definitely is a strong competitor.
Re: the W/T relationship. I think that the MFashneks are all very strong game players and couldn’t care less about the morality or sociological meaning of the W/T relationship. They all seem to have a “don’t mess up my game” attitude toward it. I agree that Willow is now in a tough position but she’s also in a position where she can be used by any faction for a vote so that could mean “easy ride” (look at Caryn on Palau).
Good thinking on why W/T weren’t the final two. I think some other readers have posed similar thoughts and conclusions before. Good guesses on the F4 which I will of course neither confirm nor deny. Thanks for all the thoughts and comments (and for being first).
Still Waters T- No choices for Willow as long as easy targets like Xander still exist. I agree that Willow feels guilty but more importantly, she’s playing the game too so she’s playing Buffy. Apparently she isn’t skilled enough to just lie to Buffy outright though which really says something about her fitness to come on the show I think.
I also think that the second quote you used really shows something about Buffy’s lack of perception (see season4). She suggests a J/B/W/R F4 which means that she doesn’t get the W/T thing at all to think that W would kill Tara’s game. Not the best thinking at this point from Buffy.
I’m not entirely sure what you are saying about the F4. Once it’s F4, they vote off 2 more and then go to F2. At F2 the jury votes for the winner.
stillrunning – Yeah, it was a long time coming to get Xander out of there. Definitely a case of “how could this guy make the jury” in my opinion. He didn’t do anything particularly well but he didn’t do anything badly enough to be the worst every week. You are right about the strong alliances.
Insanity – Hey there. Don’t worry about the feedback. I know that life is busy sometimes. Speaking of stories, are you reading the Amazing Kitten Race? Very wonderful and funny. Also Leave it to Giles (complete) is a hoot. Yeah, exactly: bye bye Xander.
I agree about Willow. She could be the swing vote at this point if she wanted and if Robin wanted to change to the B/J alliance. She needs to decide which will serve her purposes better.
Tee hee about cliffhangery goodness. Next update will be an “at-home” one so it will be a while before the secret is revealed. Thanks for reading and commenting.
irishgrl3 – I think you fall into the growing set of “non-reality TV” but like Survivor – Ash Island readers and I’m very glad. I wouldn’t feel bad for Xander. I think that lasting as long as he did is about what he’s worth. He did some worthwhile things (building and shooting the milk jugs well come to mind) but some stupid things too (turning on Buffy). He about equaled his effort.
Good guesses on who’s in the F4 and the next off. Well done. Thanks for your comments.
meretricious – Actually it’s harder for me when Watson and I are on the same schedule. I think she posts late night where she is and I post early morning where I am. But when I turn on the computer, I have the choice of final read through and post my story or read hers. I have to force myself to do mine before I can read hers which is quite hard. I’m glad it pays off with your frame of mind though.
Yeah, White Hats is neither tribal nor demony but I thought of it and really liked it. I would say that Dopplegangland and Who Are You are in constant competition for my #1 episode. Xander was really too stupid here to get that Buffy and Joyce have a prior relationship. We’ll see what happens when it comes out. Lol about the idea of Xander being stupid on the morning show. That does remind me thought that I need to write some more Morning Show updates. Thanks.
watersong84 – Starting to get extremely interesting? But it was interesting before right? I hope so. You are completely right that the F4 is dependent on W, R, and the ICs and that alliance would definitely spell a problem for the T/K/F alliance. Good guesses on F4. Well done and thank you.
Justin – Hey there. Glad you liked it and of course there is lots of scheming. Faith was very smart in this episode as others have pointed out too. She knows that Willow’s the smartest person and hands her the map just like she would let Xander head on the building thing. She gets the value that each person brings to the tribe. Something that no one has commented on is that she finishes a sentence for Tara at Tribal Council. Faith understands Tara very very well. She knows when Tara can take something on herself and when she would like help. For lack of a better word, she considers Tara “her girl.” Of course that also means that a turn from T or K would completely blindside Faith at this point.
I agree that Buffy is not being as smart as she was earlier. She needs to do something to make sure that Willow is still with her. Make more of an effort, you know? I agree that Willow’s answer to Buffy is quite along the lines of “hell no” but Buffy doesn’t pick that up.
We use sign language with my son. He’s pretty good and has about 15 signs. He kind of made up his own thank you sign which is pretty common for babies because they can’t make the intricate ASL signs. His thank you is basically his raising his hand and putting it over his head so like a high up wave. Our friend says that his thank you looks more like “whatever” which is kind of like what I think Willow is saying to Buffy.
Lol about the JC reference for Buffy. Willow would definitely get it but would Buffy say it? Lol. Thanks.
truck_driving_magic_mama – You are so very welcome. Willow is definitely playing it both ways at this point. She is interested in Tara (obviously) but is still playing the game too. Glad you like the light-handed handling of Willow’s conflict. It will come out more in the future.
Really Asher is common there? That’s so cool. It’s extremely uncommon here. In 2003 it was the 416th most common American Boy’s name but it’s been steadily rising. We wanted an uncommon name because my partner, brother, and sister-in-law all have common names and all hated that as children. My name is common but I never minded because my surname is very unique. Yay about your father being an Asher too. That’s cool.
Thanks a lot.
cperrins78 – I feel the same way about Palau now. I realized this morning that I’m so much less interested in watching now that Stephanie is gone. Glad you’re hooked here though. Thanks.
Bozwell – You’re welcome. I think the celebrity one would really stink because celebrities would be too interested in their image to be as disgusting as people really are in real life.
You may be wrong but we’ll see about Willow and Buffy. Honestly, at this point I can only see that Willow would turn if she could get either Tara or Robin to go with her. Otherwise, why switch to a minority alliance? That would make no sense. The problem will come out in the next island update for sure. I don’t think it will be a big surprise to anyone.
w/t/f/r? I don’t think I’ve seen that one before but it’s a good guess.
T/F will keep willow. faith will because willow is great with stratagies and puzzle challenges however not as physically strong as her.
While I like that idea, it doesn’t really follow in terms of game strategy. Faith wouldn’t want to keep someone who will beat her in puzzle challenges.
Irene73 – Hey back. The family is wonderful of course. Asher is working on learning his letters because he has 3 different sets of letters that he loves to carry around with him. He’s been hugging and kissing too. Very sweet boy. How awesome that your son has a new friend. :smile My niece has a doll that is a girl named Carl so why not a boy named Carmen. Interesting that his friend is 15 though.
Really? Your favorite? Cool. Faith’s in pretty darn good shape and is definitely playing the strongest game but we’ll see how that works out for her. All good guesses on the F4. Everyone is making similar guesses on it. I think you are right about Tara’s alliance thinking. Really? You would have liked to see Robin voted off? It seems to me that Xander has been far stupider in this game than anyone else and that in itself should earn him his ticket out of the game but that’s just me. Thanks for your comments.
blue eyed girl – Thanks. I’m glad you liked it. You are completely right that Xander played badly and got very lucky to have lasted this long.
Yes, Faith knows what she’s doing very well. And she understands everyone’s strengths very well. She seems to be a lot of people’s pick for the winner. I won’t say what everyone finds out next month but it is enough to throw everyone for a loop. Good guesses on everything else.
Patches – Hey again. I try to be very prompt with my updates. Fortunately I have 5-6 more parts written but I’ve been really busy at work so that number is dropping. My updates will probably slow down at some point but I’m working at it. Strangely this is the longest that I’ve ever stayed interested in writing a story. Usually I’m great at beginnings and bored by the end.
I’m glad you liked the twist on merge. Usually they either just tell them to merge and give them stuff or have some sort of tribe meeting where two chosen folks hash out a bunch of details. I liked the idea of making the challenge be something that would control what they have from this point forward and their quality of life on the island.
Thanks for your thoughts on the confessional snippets. At first I was really worried about those but they are pretty useful for adding a little snerk from the players all through. Interestingly, on the real show there are probably about 60 per hour and I probably use 15. I felt like that many would just overpower the entire action description so I try to use them sparingly and spread them over the different players. Cool that you are hooked into the game.
there I was trying to puzzle out who was going to be voted off.
Yeah, sometimes it’s not a mystery. One of my peeves on the show is that they always try to set up some suspense but they also do liberal editing. So you might see three conversations about voting off person A and 6 about voting off person Z. Then TC comes and a unified block votes off person D. It’s maddening because it’s such blatant misdirection. I feel like it’s like when a detective in a movie solves the crime but you don’t because you don’t get all the clues and he does. I try not to do that. I may hint at two different outcomes but I hope that I always give the clues of the possible outcomes. You are right that the best aspect of Xander would have been seeing him be a pawn throughout but that’s not really a good reason to keep someone around.
Re: tense (you’re calling it POV). I still have to disagree with you. I thought about you said and just pulled a book, Wizard of OZ, out of my purse and it’s written in past tense. It seems to me that most works of fiction are written in past tense (unless first person or stream of consciousness) however, works of literary criticism describe the events of the literature in present tense. In my graduate classes, the explanation for this was that a work of literature (whether Art, film, TV, or written word) is happening as the reader/observer encounters it. So you describe the events in present tense:
“Through their journey down the mighty Mississippi, Huck and Jim discover that they are already free…” rather than “Through their journey down the mighty Mississippi, Huck and Jim discovered that they were free.”
In this case, I think of the episodes as something that I (as the writer) am describing to the reader as it happens or airs. So I think of that in present tense and try to convey it that way, so that it seems to the reader that they are experiencing the show at that time. I hope this made some sense.
There’s is one issue in your writing that I’ve noticed on a couple of occasions; the narrator “tells” the reader something, and then the characters immediately “show” the action. Mostly it’s the odd bit in the W/T arc.
Can you give me an example? I usually do what you are saying in the following way:
Willow expressed her frustration and anger: “Buffy! How can you be so stupid?”
The colon is meant to indicate that the quotation is further evidence of the independent clause preceding it.
But I suspect that you are talking about something different and I’d like to look at that.
Cool about your novel. I have not gotten brave enough to try that yet so I’m very impressed. Thanks for all your in depth comments and thoughts.
cooper – Funny you’re not the first reader to say just that (about the favorite part). I think I’ll take that as good. I’m glad you like the story and the action. It’s hard to write but really fun too. Good guesses on the F4 and Willow’s fate.
Artemis – Hey Chris. Yep, White hats because everyone thinks they’re a good guy. Good guesses on the F4 and you’re in very good company on it. I wouldn’t count on anything though because so much can still happen. Keep in mind that being #3 and #4 pays NOTHING so while everyone wants to get to F4, there is no payoff unless you are in the final 2.
Faith is definitely playing the game full out. I wouldn’t expect Faith to panic but everyone can see through her “not so strong” ploy with the IC. They know that she’s a player to beat. And she has the complex task of getting to the F2 (if she can) without alienating everyone to the point where they vote against her because they hate her. She has to be seen as a great player but an ok person which could be a challenge.
Faith and Kendra definitely need to do some work to control the W/T threat. They don’t want to get blindsided but at the same time they want to take advantage of what both W & T bring to the game. You don’t want to put the knife in someone (Tara) who was planning to never put one to you but you want to beat her to the punch if she was going to (and the captain of mixed metaphors for the day is Debra!).
I’m glad you liked the challenge. I thought that it was a deceptively difficult one. You don’t want everyone to pick rice but you don’t want to arrive with blankets and fire and no cooking pot either. I’m not sure how much light the next update will shed but I think everyone will enjoy it greatly.
littlecrazy80 - Thanks. Glad you liked it.
Urn of Osiris – Although I’ve seen posts from you plenty of times (Troll Hammer indeed), I don’t know if you’ve ever written in one of my threads so welcome.
Ahhh, a Survivor fan! So glad to see one and the excitement about the merge definitely marks you.
I really appreciate your thoughts on the back and forth and the POV. Glad that it’s clear to you what’s happening and when. Lol about a 10 course meal. Wouldn’t that be cool! The Joyce and Buffy revelation is definitely coming up. Thanks for your comments.
lol.]. I think it's great, how you made me feel the real conflict, the feelings willow is feeling, most of all because she doesn't share them in any way, therefore - we are left to presume "how willow must feel". So yeah, greatly handled.
'White Hats', heh 
Heh halfway through the feedbacking I got kinda rushed, cos I suddenly had to go shopping and kinda be tour guide for some family visiting from abroad. Americans, incidentally. Not that I minded, cos I had fun! 
I thought they'd just vote off 1.
So that's ok, I'll just be patient.
I love this fic! 
Is the secret about Joyce and Buffy revealed? Also Willow and Buffys conversation was interesting... I don't think Will is as commited as Buffy thinks. Hope for more soon! Hannah.
Can't wait to read the explanation on that one.
