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Hello everyone and a huge thanks for all of the great comments. I'm very impressed with the response so far and I'm glad to see that everyone has enjoyed the finale.

I've been working on an essay today (not as enjoyable to write as the finale, I might add), but I'm going to spend the next 2-3 hours replying to as many comments as I can, and then I'll get to the rest of them tomorrow. Until then... :)

Hello Kitty Pryde1. Thanks for your comments. I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts this season. You've been a loyal reader and I can always count on you to tell me what you liked/didn't like, so I appreciate that.

It was a good episode and everything was explained, but you knew from the second Leslie lost the immunity challenge, she was gone, and I'd basically written Erik off quite some time ago, given that you said yourself that you always have a different winner, and Dave's pretty much the only demographic (Gender/Age) that had yet to win. Plus, you'd never had an all male final before.

Thanks. So I guess what you're trying to say is that it was obvious Dave would win. In a way, I agree with you - I guess it's hard for me to imagine what someone who's reading the story might think since I know the outcome from the beginning, but as I said before, Leslie was too obvious of a winner and Erik was shown as undeserving. I did try to create some doubt about Dave voting out Leslie though by saying he's saved her before and he wouldn't want to lose to Erik, etc. but you're right that Leslie was most likely to go. You're right about Dave's demographic too. I didn't want to have another younger (male) winner right now, and I needed someone from the late 30s. Dave seemed like a good fit all around. Very good of you to pick up on that aspect of determining the winner! :)

I haven't gotten around to reading All-Stars as a whole, but I'd say this was definitely the best. China > CI > Guatemala > Fiji > EI

Thank you very much. I'm glad you thought it was the best. I haven't looked back at many of the older seasons in a long time, but I would have to say that I think this one is my favorite too - for the time being, anyway.

And a huge thank you to you for giving the episode a 10! I wish I had numbers for the Fiji finale so that I could compare the two. Oh well...

Dave vs. Sherea: Do they still hate each others' guts?
Leslie, Denise, Chicken: How does Dave's children lie make you feel?

Thanks for the questions. This will definitely be featured a lot in the Reunion show!

Aaron - 0
Amanda - 0
Ashley - 0
Chicken - 0
Courtney - 0
Dave - 10
Denise - 0
Erik - 0
Frosti - 0
Jaime - 0
James - 0
Jean-Robert - 0
Leslie - 0
Peih-Gee - 0
Sherea - 0
Todd - 0

Just so you know, I didn't give everyone a 0 because I feel like that would unfairly lower all of the averages for this episode, so I just put a 10 in for Dave and everyone else has a blank for your votes.

Dave - CPN5
Erik - CP4
Frosti - CP3
Leslie - CPP4

Thanks for your Edgic ratings. I also think there was a lot of complexity in this episode. I wondered about Frosti being CP or MOR, and I felt like Leslie could be either CPP or OTTP, so I'll have to see how the tally goes. Great job! :)

Also, ideal FvF favorites:

Ami
Eliza
Ruth Marie
Brooke
Sundra
Coby
Todd
Aras
Earl
Terry

Excellent list! :)

I made the picks based on the idea that somewhere down the road, GF might want to make another All-Stars fanfic, so I didn't want to use up too many of the players from China, nor did I want to use up the only two decent female characters to make the merge.

That's definitely very much up in the air at this point but it is something that I have to think about. You're exactly right - I wouldn't put 3 or 4 people from China and then have no one from that season to represent in a possible All-Stars. But China actually had a lot of potential characters, I think. I would consider all of the following to be possible for Micronesia or even an All-Stars: Ashley, Todd, James, Sherea, Leslie, Erik, Dave. Admittedly, Erik would be an "Amber" choice, if I ever had to resort to that, but I think the others could all be solid characters. Even Frosti or Denise if I needed someone like them, so China would provide me with quite a variety depending on what other choices were available. I have to presume that you're talking about Sherea and Leslie as two decent female characters...

Thank you again for commenting on the finale! I'm glad you enjoyed the season, and it's great to have you as a reader. Hope to see you again for Micronesia. Take care! :)

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Hi YemaGrl1988. Thanks a lot for your comments. I promised that Sherea would continue to bring drama and that she wouldn't disappoint in the finale, so I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts this season and it's been great to have you as a reader for so long. :)

I loved it. I am so happy Dave won! I am very shocked I got the outcome right too, it didn't think I would get it right but it definitely did not take any suspense away from the episode. I think Frosti giving away the idol to Erik was kind of dumb but Erik made the more dumb decision by voting Frosti out. Sure he got to the final two but he really didn't have a clue. Which brings me to Todd. I loved his question, I think it's a question that someone from Sucks would ask because Erik was really boring and a non-entity which I am so happy that he didn't win. I liked Sherea's question... or rant sort of and I am glad that Dave fought back, it brought me back to Alex yelling at Cassandra in Fiji but Dave actually took his ground. Of course I still love Sherea's character and I hated Alex's too but I think it would be really funny to see Sherea on a flavor of love type show. She would be good to watch.

Thanks. I'll congratulate you again for getting the outcome correct. Awesome job predicting it - I didn't think anyone would have it perfect but you impressed me with that! I think you're right in your assessment of the Erik-Frosti idol thing. Erik shouldn't have voted Frosti out. Frosti was really the only person that Erik had a chance at, and in wanting to go against Dave, he really didn't consider the fact that it would be like Liliana going against Jonathan. Erik was very quiet and didn't leave much of an impression on the jury, whereas Dave was not well liked but was clearly somewhat respected for playing the game. Thanks for the comment about Todd's question. I really liked it as well and it would be nice to see Erik squirm like that. I can definitely picture his reaction as Todd insulted him and called him "wallpaper." Glad you liked Sherea's rant as well.

China :D

Thanks. Overall, I'm so happy with how China turned out. I really don't have many negative things to say about it, whereas with other seasons, there's little things I would change. I'm sure I'll think of a few down the line - I plan on posting a list of things that I thought were good/bad about the season and I might do the same for every season later too.

Dave winning!

:)

Thank you very much for rating the finale a 10 as well. Much appreciated! :)

Dave - How long before the show did it take you to plan your strategy? Did you have any other strategies that didn't work out when in the game?

Leslie - Being a survivor fan, do you think you could ever pull off Dave's strategy?

Sherea - Despite all your hate towards Dave, did he play the better game?

Todd - How does Dave rank for you as a winner? If you couldn't of won would Dave be the next best winner?

Excellent questions! I will definitely ask all of these. Thanks! :)

I will do edgic later, it's hard to do ratings for the finale.

Don't worry about it. I agree that it's difficult for a finale too.

Thanks again for your comments. I hope you have a great night and that you'll be back for Micronesia - especially if Sherea is there. Take care. :)

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Hi Lurlene McDaniels. Thanks for commenting on the finale. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and I enjoyed reading what you had to say! :)

Yay! Congrats Dave! He is a great character and a great winner and I am glad Erik didn't end up winning. I liked him, but I think Todd was right. He was sort of wall paper. I also didn't like the way he voted out Frosti after Frosti gave him the hidden Immunity Idol. That was pretty low. I loved the episode - it was unpredictable and I don't think I predicted any of the placements (maybe Frosti, I don't remember)

Thanks for these comments. I also liked Dave as a winner and I agree that it was definitely better than having Erik win (I have nothing against him though). From the editing, Todd was definitely right with his assessment of Erik. And it wasn't very nice for Erik to vote out Frosti for sure. I'm glad that you loved the episode and thought it was unpredictable - still realistic, I hope.

I've only read Fiji, Belize and China and I think China is the best though I really liked all three:)

Thank you. I obviously enjoy all three as well, but I would probably say that China is my favorite right now.

Sherea and Dave's fight

Thanks. It was definitely supposed to be a very heated argument. There's only so much I can do with a script kind of writing so I'm not sure if I came off as well as I envisioned it still. It's obviously something that would be better for TV, but I still think it was good in this finale and I'm glad you did too. It's really the first all-out argument at the Final TC.

A big thank you for rating the finale a 10. That makes me very happy! :)

Definitely address Dave's lies and people's (Sherea especially) responses to them. Dave and Sherea: are you still worst enemies or have you gotten to be friends now that the show is over?

Thank you. A big part of the Reunion will have to be devoted to the lies and the aftermath.

Thank you for your Edgic ratings and the overall ratings. I will respond to them:

Dave - CP5 (overall rating CPN)

Hmm... not negative in the finale? I guess I have to look back and see if he had any truly negative moments besides the fight with Sherea. Agreed on the CPN overall though.

Erik - CPP4 (overall rating MORP)

For Erik, I wasn't think of positive for him, if only for the betrayal of Frosti at the beginning. I know it wasn't really portrayed negatively, but it sortof taints his image a little bit. I definitely agree that Erik was positive towards the middle of the episode though with the confessional after the Right of Passage and the Day 39 scene. I might end up giving him mixed or neutral, and I also am not sure if I'll go with MOR or MORP on his overall.

Frosti - MORP3 (overall rating MOR)

I'll guess that the positive is out of sympathy for him giving up the idol and then being betrayed? I wondered if that was a strong enough feeling to earn him a positive. Good that you said MOR for his overall rating. Without looking at the chart, I believe he only had three UTRs and 1 INV1 so I don't think he was quite as underdeveloped as people tend to believe. I think he started out that way and then everyone just looked at him that way for the entire season, so I'll probably have him as MOR for his overall.

Leslie - CPP4 (overall rating CPP)

Another one where it could go two ways: I felt like she might be OTTP in the finale since her story seemed to be so simplified to the underdog and then the part about religion. Right away, we heard from her about "pushing a rock up a hill" and then she won Immunity to save herself but then got betrayed by Dave after trusting him and had her speech about God at the end. I guess it could be complex but it seemed very one-note to me. But I definitely that she's CPP overall. Great job! :)

Thank you again for your comments. I enjoyed reading them, as always. It's been great to have you as a reader. I hope to see you again for Micronesia. Good night! :)

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Hi SFC. Thank you for your comments on the finale. I enjoyed reading what you had to say and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. :)

Great! Loved the winner, however when he went up against Erik in the F2, I thought "Damn Erik won" I had the same feeling right after Jay was cut adrift on PM, and Ben was going to win. I was sooooo happy that it ended up being Dave, but I was a little shocked becuase I edgically eliminated him due to his early S3+.

Thank you. I'm glad that you liked Dave as a winner. I felt like Erik and Dave would be the most even Final Two (they had very different pros and cons obviously), so I wasn't sure how people would think it went. That's actually a really interesting comparison to Pirate Master and I remember thinking the same thing at one point throughout the season, oddly. Dave could be similar to Jay; Erik similar to Ben; and Leslie similar to Christa (although Christa didn't really have the religious aspect to her character, I don't think). But I guess the finishing order was different in that case. Frosti definitely wasn't Louie though. I guess Sherea might be considered more like a Louie type (OTT) and Frosti would be Laurel, for the UTR one. I don't remember who was sixth place so I'll stop my comparison there but if it was Kendra, then Kendra to Denise might even be a little similar as well. Anyway, it's an interesting comparison though - definitely unintentional, but coincidental for sure. I ended up stopping updating the strategy chart this season. It's something that I always had a difficult time with, unfortunately, but I think the S3 for Dave was inevitable. Candice also got an S3 fairly early on in the season; I believe it was Episode 4 (or possibly 5), and that shows me that I wasn't so well-versed in what the trends are for the winner. I would definitely go more by the actual Edgic chart than the Strategy chart.

I liked the F4 tribal Council, which strangly enough went like the F4 Tribal in the comic I had, except the "Frosti Character" played the Idol.

Great minds think alike! I'll have to take a look at your F4 Tribal Council. I know you put a lot of time and effort into your comic. :)

China, but I've only read one other

Thanks. Going by all of the numerical ratings of ever episode, China definitely rates higher than All-Stars. It's a shame I don't have the same data for every season.

Dave vs Sherea

Excellent. I'm glad this was a highlight of the episode.

9

Thank you very much! I appreciate it! :)

Dave - CPM4
Erik - CP3
Frosti - MOR2
Leslie - CPP3

Thank you and great job on these!

Thanks again for your comments. I know you've only read two stories so far, but I'm glad that you've stuck around for those two and hopefully you'll read Micronesia as well. You were always a very fast commenter so that gave me something to look forward to on the nights when I would post an episode late. I'm very happy that you enjoyed the season and I hope you have a great night. :)

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Once again, I'll continue replying in a new post. (I just don't want to do everything in one post incase I lose it for some reason)...

Hi chapera rocks. Thank you for your comments. As always, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and I enjoyed reading them. :)

Loved the outcome... thought it great that Dave's lie ended up winning him the game. Thanks so much for a great read this season!

Glad you liked the outcome. I definitely felt that Leslie's speech was perfect for her character and hopefully even that itself evoked sympathy for her that she fell for it. I know it did for me. It was like I wanted Dave to win, but I felt bad for Leslie at the same time. Anyway, the way that all happened was very important to the story and I tried to set the stage for it from very early on. That's why I said Episode 3 was an important one.

I appreciate you thanking me for writing this, but there is no need. I should definitely be the one thanking you for reading it. I can write all I want, but it's really nothing without all of these great people reading and commenting. The feedback is always helpful and appreciated. :)

Only read China in entirety.

I know that you said before about the episodes taking a long time to read. In the past, they've been slightly longer so I hope the fact that they were a little shorter this time helped with that.

Definitely the post-IC scene with the HII drama.

Well, I'm glad to see this. This was the one part of the episode that I wasn't sure came across as well as I wanted it to. I felt like I wanted to have more about how the whole plan came about to explain things but then some of the suspense would have been lost and it would have dragged on for too long. Thanks for picking it out as your favorite part! :)

I really appreciate you rating this finale a 10. If you ever want to read another great finale, I would highly recommend the Fiji one.

Dave - CPN5
Erik - MORM4
Frosti - MOR3
Leslie - OTTP3

Thank you. Excellent job on these. You're the first person to give Erik a mixed, and I think that it's probably the right thing to do given his betrayal of Frosti contrasted with some of his other positive moments. I also agree with you that Leslie was probably OTTP, and Dave and Frosti are definitely what I was going for too. The only thing I might change is to give Erik CPM, but you clearly had a great assessment of the finale.

Thanks again for commenting. I know this was the first season you read in full, but I hope that you'll give Micronesia a try too and that you'll enjoy that one even more. It's been nice to read your comments this season. Have a great night! :)

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Hello MasterDarkNinja. Thank you very much for your comments on the finale. As always, I enjoyed reading your thoughts and I appreciate you taking the time to be so detailed about everything. It's been great to have you as a reader for so many seasons and I hope to see you again in Micronesia! :)

-Winnerish foreshadowing comment from Leslie about pushing a rock up a hill and the tight alliance of Zhan Hu boys.

Well, the thing was that, in a way, she stopped pushing the rock when it was right at the very top. She needed to do everything she could to convince Dave that he could somehow win against her but instead she let the rock go rolling down the hill after the Final Immunity Challenge. It was definitely her one huge mistake to just go by Dave's word and not try to convince him.

-Hmm, Leslie/Erik fail to make a fire, then Dave makes it in an instant, more potential foreshadowing? Earl failed to make a fire in the first episode.

-Thinking it over now, maybe that little fire scene at the beginning was for tribal council build up only, not foreshadowing.

True. Very good connection to Fiji! I actually considered it to be both: it was to explain why Erik wouldn't want to go up against Dave in the fire-making tiebreaker and just because it's always good to connect the winner with fire whenever possible.

-Ok, I'm guessing a 2-1-1 vote for Frosti tonight.

Good thinking!

-Hmm.... Dave says he has a 99% chance at making it to the F2, but talks about how he can still win...

Logically, no matter who won Immunity, he'd end up in the Final Two. Leslie would take him because of their deal and Erik would take him as the easier win, and if he won Immunity, he'd obviously be safe so he was in a pretty good spot.

-Interesting that only Erik gets a confessional after the remembering comrades thing, and talks about how he only backstabed 2 people.

Dave and Leslie got to talk about it at Tribal Council though.

-About to read the F3 TC, and it seems a bit too... obvious that Dave is kicking out Leslie, which makes me think he kicks out Erik instead.

Hmm... I did my best to create as much doubt about this as I could, and I actually thought it might have been successful. For example, Dave's comment about "if I had a choice to lose to Leslie or Erik, I wouldn't want to lose to Erik," I thought that might make people think he keeps Leslie since he'd said things about Dave being undeserving before.

-I'm changing my mind after that tribal council, he's kicking out Leslie. The episode title even makes sense now from something that Leslie said at tribal council that makes me think Dave will say it after tribal council is over.

Yeah, there was definitely that quote from Leslie, but it was supposed to refer most directly to Leslie's Final Tribal Council speech. I really, really liked the episode title!

-Leslie doesn't actually sound too bitter in her final words...

No, I couldn't make Leslie bitter. She's too nice of a person and she understands it's a game.

Ok time for me to guess how the jury will vote. Dave votes (Todd, Leslie, Denise, Frosti), Erik votes (Sherea, Amanda, James), I'm not all that certain on James, Frosti, and Amanda, they could possibly vote differently.

Wow, you guessed it perfectly! Congratulations! James and Frosti were definitely meant to be the two biggest swing votes. I felt like Amanda could have gone either way, but that she was a more likely vote for Erik, which is why I had that one scene in Episode 7 where she talked about him and the jury.

-Hmm... maybe Dave might not win with some of the stuff said so far... personally I don't think either of them is doing the best jury performance so far.

I agree. Neither one of them was that stellar, but Erik was clearly worse for being wishy washy about some of his answers. He missed an opportunity to claim that he lost the final challenge on purpose because he knew that Dave's sense of logic would make him vote out Leslie and he wanted Dave to have to betray Leslie and possibly lose that vote rather than Erik have to vote Leslie out himself. That might have earned some respect from Todd.

-Oh man, Leslie's speech was golden, and so will her reaction at the finale.

Like you said, there weren't really that many angry jurors, but I feel like Todd's speech, Sherea's, and Leslie's were all excellent. I just think Leslie's was perfect and it's what the episode title was based on. It's really one of the major things in the story that had been building since Episode 3 with the Leslie-Dave story.

-Ok, new prediction of the jury votes. Dave votes (Todd, Leslie, Frosti, Amanda), Erik votes (Sherea, James, Denise)
-Well, I got Amanda's vote wrong already, then Dave probably gets Denise's vote.

You should have stuck to your original prediction. :)

-Yeah, Dave wins, awesome ending to a great season.

Thank you very much and congratulations for being one of the only people who got it right at the end. Dave was one of the most common picks at the beginning, but I knew that support for him was going to wane by the middle of the season. I also want to say congratulations to you because you picked up on Erik's edit as having something significant to it right from the start. Even though he was never the main focus, I definitely gave him specific attention and you were right to notice it so great job on that. :)

I always enjoy reading all of your "thoughts during the episode." :)

Overall I loved it, it was great seeing Frosti go home, and then the suspense of if Dave's big lies would be revealed from him screwing up at the final tribal council. I thought he was going to a couple times, like during his question to confess something about himself they didn't know. It was kind of slow though when just the F2 was left.

Thank you. Somebody said that the viewers "wanted Frosti to screw up with the idol," and I always knew that it was going to come eventually, so I'm glad that you did like that part. As I said in the notes, if Dave lost, I definitely would have had those lies completely blow up in his face, but since it was so important for him winning, I couldn't portray it in a terribly bad way (unethical, yes, but not stupid). The Final Two scene is always a bit slow because it has to be them reflecting back on the game and thinking ahead to the Final Tribal Council. It's one of the parts that I always like in the finale, which is why I haven't liked the Final Three so much in the real show because it takes that away. Sorry that you thought it was slow. I know it's never going to be the most entertaining part of an episode (unless Sherea and Dave were the Final Two and got in a big fight), but I feel like it's a significant part just for all the reflecting.

1. China
(Gap)
2. Cook Islands
3. All-stars
4. Fiji
(Bigger gap)
5. Exile Island

Thanks. I am very happy to see that China is almost universally at the top of everyone's lists that have posted so far. A large part of it may be because it's the most recent season, but I think it's my favorite one at this point too. I like all of them for different reasons though and when I go back and re-read old episodes, I always like them better than what I recall. Some episodes I have no recollection of and some I remember writing them like it was yesterday. Anyway, I won't ramble on. I'm glad you liked China. :)

Thank you for giving the finale a 9. I guess I was right in predicting that this one would be up there with Fiji. I don't know if it was quite as good though.

You're probably going to ask it already, but how many people would have changed their votes after knowing what Dave's big lies are. Will Leslie and Dave still be friends now.

Thanks. Great questions. They will definitely be asked. :)

Excellent job on your Edgic ratings. I'm glad that you put Leslie down as OTTP.

Thanks again for your very thorough and detailed posts. I appreciate you taking the time to leave all of those comments and I definitely enjoyed reading them. I hope you have a great night (or morning, since it's midnight here). Take care! :)

Thanks for the cast speculation. I think everyone will be pretty happy with the cast once it's revealed. :)